Beetle Bailey Characters

Original Comics on Display, Cartoonists to Offer Drawing Sessions

When a Granby studio asked Brad Gilchrist to display some of his work, the Canton cartoonist thought it would fun to broaden the scope of the show and include his collection of original strips of Blondie, Hagar, Zits, Gasoline Alley, BC, Beetle Bailey and more.

“It’s pretty cool,” Gilchrist said. “I had most of them up in my studio. I didn’t realize how big a collection I have.”

Matt Ryan, co-owner of Free Lunch Studios, said they will have about 30 original strips from Gilchrist's collection, some dating back to 1948.

"Brad has a lot of experience in the comic world," Ryan said. "We're really excited about it. Hopefully, we'll get some comic fans to come out."

Included in the collection at Free Lunch Studios are a few unusual items such a linen napkin some well-known cartoonists drew on for Gilchrist’s daughter.

And of course, there are pieces from Brad’s own work, including The Muppets, Nancy and CT Fan, some of which will be for sale.

Gilchrist, who grew up in West Hartford and Avon, produced the Muppets with his brother Guy from 1981 to 1986, and worked with him on Nancy for 12 years as well.

Brad Gilchrist would write those strips and then his brother would produce the final artwork.

And while he has gone on to produce much of his own work, Brad Gilchrist said he had to learn how to draw those characters – and as the culmination of the show this weekend, he will pass that knowledge along to others.

At 1 and 3 p.m. Sunday, he will demonstrate how to draw characters from the Muppets and more, with Granby Comic Book Artist Matt Ryan.

“I had to teach myself to draw the characters,” Gilchrist said. “Anyone can learn the steps to draw simple shapes and create characters out of them.”

The studio, located at 518 Salmon Brook St., Granby, will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday May 15. The free drawing sessions start at 1 and 3 pm. Reservations are recommended to reserve a spot. Call 860-305-6621 or email brad.g@me.com

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Rants & Raves: COMICS HISTORY, NEW AND IMPROVED

(659 9X12-inch pages w/color; Abrams, $40) has been out, now, for a little over a month. It is, Walker told me, “essentially the same as the Borders exclusive except for a few upgrades. The two separate indexes were revised and consolidated into a single index in the back. To fill up the space I gave them images of the Abrams limited edition lithograph series that was done in 1978 (six images on four pages). And I added my current favorite Cul de Sac Dickenson, and Clark from the index but evidently didn’t have time to include Thompson or the name of his strip. A teeny tiny factoid hardly worth mentioning, which, of course, is why I mention it. The larger factoid is no factoid: this is the most complete and thoroughly illustrated history of American newspaper comic strips you’ll find.

This version of the tome is selling better than the previous incarnation for Borders — for reasons not quite clear. But it’s a Huge Bargain, not to miss.

At the Usual Place (RCHarvey.com, Rants & Raves), we’ve reviewed this book in great detail in its various stages: when it first appeared as The Comics After 1945; As I said then, the book is full of fugitive special drawings made by the cartoonists for assorted unsyndicated purposes, and most of the comic strips illustrating the text are reproduced from original art. A genuine treasure trove. For anyone interested, even vaguely, in newspaper comic strips, their history and evolution, this book is indispensable. And I say that even as Jerry Robinson’s revised The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art 1895-2010 (394 9x12-inch pages, many in color; Dark Horse hardcover, $39.99) arrives at Rancid Raves HQ.

A preliminary leafing through Robinson’s pages reveals that the revision is a stunning improvement on the initial 256-page 1974 version, which, for its time, was a landmark publication: only two other books of that time even pretended to cover the history of the medium: Coulton Waugh’s venerable The Comics (1959).

The new edition of Robinson’s book replaces most of the black-and-white illos in its predecessor with new, often different, color pictures, and prints them all on slick paper not the matte-finish of yore, making the whole production much more lavish. And the new book adds 65 pages of text and pictures, taking the history from 1970 to 2010; the text of the preceding pages is pretty much the same as in the 1974 edition.