Comic Art 17 Nov 2006 08:00 am
Gasoline Alley
- In the last week, Jerry Beck on Cartoon Brew posted a note about the recent editions of the comic strip, Gasoline Alley.
This has long been one of my favorite comic strips. 
When Dick Moores (original assistant to Chester Gould on Dick Tracy) took over the strip, I thought the artwork, specifically the compositon, kept getting better and better. Very clean and open and sharp.
I remember seeing a book on filmmaking where I first learned how NOT to cross the 180. This cross cutting information was illustrated with a 4 panel strip from Gasoline Alley. How perfect! The strip was always quite cinematic; excellently illustrating good film technique from panel to panel.
Gasoline Alley really started when playboy, Walt Skeezix found a baby on his doorstep Feb. 14, 1921. The boy was named Skeezix, and over the years Skeezix Wallet grew naturally, and an audience grew with him. It was played out like the first soap opera – and it probably was.
The strip was understandably enormously popular.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
In 1941, Whitman publishing followed several other books for “girls and boys” with a novel about Skeezix Wallet and Nina Clock which was written by Frank King. I haven’t yet read the book (even though I’ve had it for a while), but I love owning it.
The pages are printed on newsprint – designed for deterioration, I think. The illustrations by King were done specifically for his book.
The book’s first double page spread
