$49.99(Different in Canada)

ip Kirby, the suave gentleman detective, is the right manfor his times as 1960s culture reflects a new fascination withsophisticated stories featuring James Bond and other agents,both secret and otherwise.

In this seventh volume Fred Dickenson continues to writethe adventures and Al Williamson takes on a larger role as JohnPrentice’s art assistant. The award-winning Prentice is justlypraised for both his own considerable skills and for successfullycontinuing the photorealistic approach pioneered by hispredecessor, Alex Raymond. Included are nine complete storiesin more than 800 sequential comics from February 12, 1962 toOctober 10, 1964—reproduced from the original King FeaturesSyndicate proofs, insuring that every daily will look even betterthan when they were first published in newspapers more thanfifty years ago.

JOHN PRENTICE (1920–1999) was born in Whitney, Texas.

After joining the Navy in 1939, he survived the bombing of

Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, served on two destroyers

in eight combat campaigns, and was honorably discharged in

1945. After the war he enrolled in the Art Institute of

Pittsburgh and then moved to New York, where he eventually

became a successful freelancer, illustrating paperback book

covers; comic books for the Joe Simon/Jack Kirby studio,

DC Comics, and others; as well as being a regular contributor

to major magazines before taking over RIP KIRBY in 1956. He

received the National Cartoonists Society award for “Best

Story Strip Cartoonist” in 1966, 1967, and 1986.

RIPKIRBY1962–1964

JOHNPRENTICE

HARVEY AWARD NOMINEE: BEST DOMESTIC REPRINTEDITED AND DESIGNED BY EISNER AND HARVEY AWARD WINNER DEAN MULLANEY

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAY BY BRIAN WALKER

R

PRAISE FOR ALEX RAYMOND AND JOHN PRENTICE:

“RIP KIRBY is an absolute feast. Before now, one largely had to take on faith theview that Raymond’s dramatic storytelling skills were almost on the level of his illustrativeprowess. The evidence is at last back with us, and it doesn’t disappoint.” — Pol Culture

“John Prentice’s work is superb. He's one of the few cartoonists who took an important strip by a great cartoonist and did it not only justice, but in some ways, was as good as—and in some cases better than—the originator."

— Tom De Haven, author of the DERBY DUGAN trilogy

LibraryofAmericanComics.com • idwpublishing.com

$49.

99

MORE THAN 800 SEQUENTIAL COMICSFEBRUARY 1962 TO OCTOBER 1964

JOHN PRENTICE TAKES RIP KIRBYFROM MID-CENTURY COOL

TO THE SWINGING EARLY SIXTIESIN THESE CLASSIC ADVENTURES

WRITTEN BY FRED DICKENSON.

JJ

T H E F I R S T M O D E R N D E T E C T I V EC O M P L E T E C O M I C S T R I P S 1 9 6 2 – 1 9 6 4

JOHN PRENTICEFRED DICKENSON

RIP KIRBYVOLUME SEVEN 1962–1964

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

THE FIRST MODERN DETECTIVECOMPLETE COMIC STRIPS 1962–1964

RIP KIRBY

RIP KIRBY VOLUME SEVEN

ARTWORK BY JOHN PRENTICE

STORIES BY FRED DICKENSON

ISBN: 978-1-63140-034-6First Printing, June 2014

Distributed by Diamond Book Distributors1-410-560-7100

Published by:IDW Publishinga Division of Idea and Design Works, LLC5080 Santa Fe StreetSan Diego, CA 92109www.idwpublishing.com

Ted Adams, Chief Executive Officer/PublisherGreg Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer/PresidentRobbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic ArtistChris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-ChiefMatthew Ruzicka, CPA, Chief Financial OfficerAlan Payne, VP of SalesDirk Wood, VP of MarketingLorelei Bunjes, VP of Digital Services

The following people and institutions have been helpful in the preparation of this volume: Randall Scott and the Michigan State University Comic Art Collection (King Features collection), Ita Golzman, Whitney Prentice,Priscilla Prentice, Neal Walker, Frank and Lori Bolle, Jon Ingersoll, JustinEisinger, and Alonzo Simon.

Copyright © 2014 King Features Syndicate. TM Hearst Holdings, Inc.

THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN COMICS

www.LibraryofAmericanComics.com

EDITED AND DESIGNED BY Dean Mullaney

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Bruce Canwell

ART DIRECTOR Lorraine Turner

INTRODUCTION Brian Walker

MARKETING DIRECTORBeau Smith

The Library of American Comics is a trademark of The Library of American Comics LLC. All rights reserved.Introduction © 2014 Brian Walker. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of the publisher. No part of this book may be reproducedor transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information andretrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Korea.

OPPOSITE: A pencil portrait of John Prentice drawn by his son Whitney in the 1980s.(courtesy Whitney Prentice)

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SONBY BRIAN WALKER

Y 5

“It’s so nice that these books are coming out now so I can readcollections of my father’s work.” — Whitney Prentice (from aninterview with Brian Walker on April 2, 2014)

John Prentice married his second wife, Catherine Carty, on December 19, 1957.Their first child, Whitney, was born on October 25, 1958 at Woman’s Hospital (now St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center) in New York City. The family moved to Mexico on April 8, 1960.

Whitney has some vague recollections from this early period in his life. His fatherarrived in Mexico first by car. Catherine and Whitney followed on a commercial flightand were held up in customs after they landed at the airport. Their local friends toldthem in advance to use the name of a prominent general if they encountered any trouble.When Catherine dropped the name the customs officials became visibly nervous andwhisked them through the checkpoint.

The house the Prentices rented was in the upscale neighborhood of El Pedregal in thesouthern part of Mexico City. They were on the bottom floor and the owners were abovethem. It was a modern structure with flat ceilings and a big picture window in the livingroom that looked out over a garden with volcanic rocks and exotic plants. The familyupstairs had two German shepherds, Juniper and Petunia. Whitney learned an importantlesson about dogs when he was bitten after he poured water into a garbage can whileJuniper was drinking out of it.

Whitney’s sister, Cathy Anna, arrived on April 17, 1962. Her hips were dislocated atbirth and, to correct the problem, she was put in a cast that went from her waist to both feet.The cast came off after about a year but she still had to wear a brace for some time after.

John and his assistant, Al Williamson, worked in a separate studio that was walkingdistance from their homes. It was in a large, cavernous building and, except for twodrawing boards, was sparsely furnished. Whitney recalls a model helicopter hanging fromthe ceiling that his father wouldn’t let him play with because it was being used as referencefor the strip [see the sequence from November 2-8, 1962 on pages 91-93]. As he didthroughout his entire life, John put in long hours at the studio.

Howie Post, a cartoonist friend, came to visit the Prentices in Mexico and went on a duck-hunting trip with John in the mountains. Whitney has memories of a picnic withHowie, his wife, and their daughter Andee in an old abandoned hacienda.

The Prentices returned from Mexico on September 24, 1962 and moved into apenthouse apartment on 173 West 78th Street at Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.Whitney shared the second bedroom with his sister. He enjoyed the view from the terraceoutside and spent many hours in the candy store on the ground floor.

Whitney went to nearby P.S. 87 and fondly remembers having lunch with his fatheron certain designated days. “His studio was across from the south side of the Museum ofNatural History and at lunchtime he would come to meet me at school and we would goto his studio. I liked liverwurst and he would have liverwurst sandwiches from a restaurantdownstairs. He shared his studio with two other guys [possibly Howie Post and LeonardStarr] who were nice to me. It was in an apartment and on the wall was a big copy ofPicasso’s Guernica. There were three drawing boards in a row by the windows and ink

bottles, a couch, and a separate room they used for cutting board to draw on.”The Prentices were the first of their group of New York City cartoonists to make

the move to Connecticut in 1967. They rented a house on Lowlyn Drive in Westport for a year while they looked for a home to purchase. It was a split-level with a pond in thebackyard. John’s studio was on the second floor of the house in what would have been themaster bedroom. Whitney started sleeping in a small room with a closet, adjacent to hisfather’s studio, because he was getting too old to share a room with his sister.

“When we first moved out to Connecticut from New York City I didn’t like it,”Whitney recalled. “It was too quiet and I couldn’t sleep because I was used to the trafficnoise. I got used to it and liked it.”

When the Prentice family lived in Westport, Whitney was in third grade at the localpublic school. “I didn’t do very well in school and when I came home, I would sit at oneof my father’s drawing boards and do my homework.”

In 1968 they purchased a house on Lyons Plain Road in Weston, Connecticut, righton the Saugatuck River. “We had a little boat and we’d take it out, row it around, andcapsize it over and over. It had flotation so it wouldn’t sink. Weston was not very built up and we could run around; there were still woods and fields. It was a really nicechildhood,” Whitney reminisced.

The main house was built in the 1920s and John’s studio was in an apartment abovea separate garage across the driveway. Whitney could watch his father working. “He had a drawing board by the window and from my bedroom I would look across our drivewayand see him sitting at the drawing board.”

Whitney recollected many details about John’s studio in Weston. “He had a picturefile he bought from an illustrator for reference. It was four or five stacked file cabinets of images, photographs, and clippings from magazines—everything from A to Z—cars,costumes from different time periods, and airplanes.

“He had a little model of a Mercury Cougar that the company had sent him becausehe had used one in the strip. He constantly had piles of files out for reference. Whateverhe drew in the strip had to be accurate or he would get letters from readers pointing outhis mistakes. He would take a lot of Polaroids of other cartoonists, their families, orfriends posing for scenes in the strip.

“He had cast-metal pistols—a realistic looking Luger and Colt revolver—as well assome real pistols and revolvers. He had many interesting things on the shelves, includinga miniature covered wagon made of wood, canvas, and metal with working parts—brakes,steering, a removable water barrel, anvil, and rifle. There were two foot-long models ofBrahma bulls, metal models of 1930s cars, a big sombrero, a black wooden sculpture of a Mayan head, and a flintlock pistol from Napoleonic times.

“I remember looking through the files and seeing photographs. There were picturesof Mississippi river boats. They must have been from an archive. I used to make plasticmodels and I made a model of a Mississippi river boat that he used for reference. Hefound that useful.”

In the story “Peril in Paradise,” John used himself as the model for the villain, Jack [who first appears on September 4, 1962, page 74]. “My father was a gentle man,”

ABOVE: A preliminary color study for an unfinished paintingby John Prentice of his son Whitney, 1972.

6Y

THIS PAGE (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Proud papa John withbaby Whitney, 1958; Young Whitney at his father’s drawing board inNew York City, February 1964; Whitney and sister Cathy, 1968;Prentice unlocking his studio in Mexico City, early 1960s; andCatherine Prentice holding newborn Whitney, 1958.

Imag

es cou

rtes

y W

hitn

ey P

rent

ice

Y 7

Whitney observed, “but he drew this character as a very dangerous and vicious s.o.b.. It’s kind of strange to see my father’s face in such an evil guise.”

Whitney described John’s daily routine. “He put in long hours at the studio—always did throughout his whole life. He would go in at nine or ten in the morningand come over for lunch and dinner but would work until eleven at night. He wasalways on deadline, trying to get a few days ahead so he could have some time off toplay golf or do errands or appointments. It was always a concern. I think that is truewith many cartoonists.

“I would come home from school and my father would be working—it seemedlike he was constantly working—and my mother would be home and he’d come overfor dinner. After dinner he would watch TV a little while and then he would go backto the studio and work and sit with the radio on. I remember him listening to talkradio—Jean Shepherd; Bob and Ray the comedians…”

Whitney’s second sister, Priscilla Maggie, was born on January 21, 1970. “Iremember the night my mother went into labor. Cartoonist Gill Fox came over—he also worked with my father—and watched us when my father and mother wentto the hospital. It was about three in the morning.”

Catherine went back to work after Priscilla began going to school. John’s salaryfrom King Features was based on how many papers Rip Kirby appeared in and it had,like many continuity and adventure strips during the 1970s, lost subscribers. Inflationwas also eating into the family income.

Whitney drew a lot when he was younger and his father taught him aboutlinear perspective and head construction but he eventually lost interest in John’swork. His life was heading in a different direction. “I kind of checked out. I hadtrouble in school because of learning disabilities and then I got into drugs andalcohol. I really went downhill from there. I dropped out of school and stoppeddrawing.

“I straightened out when I was twenty-one but by then I had moved out of the house. During my twenties I did mostly manual labor in boat yards. I got an apartment in South Norwalk, Connecticut and then went to live in northernCalifornia for about three years. An opportunity came for me to go to art schoolmuch later, after my mother and father were divorced.

“When I started art school in 1990 I did drawings of boats and sailing ships but once I got into life class I got more interested in doing the figure and landscapes.”Whitney went to Paier College of Art, Lyme Academy of Fine Art, and the GraduateSchool of Figurative Art at the New York Academy of Art. He has a Masters Degreeand is currently teaching at Paier College of Art in Hamden, Connecticut.

“When I told my father I was going to art school he tried to dissuade me fromstudying illustration, which was what I was going to major in. He said, ‘Study graphicdesign. Even I can barely get illustration work any more. The field is kind of driedup.’ But I wanted to draw, so I didn’t listen to him.

“One of my teachers in art school came up and asked me, ‘Are you JohnPrentice’s son?’ Another said, ‘I learned how to draw hands from reading his strip.’”

Whitney talked about his art in relation to his father’s work. “My specialty is oilpaint and I draw with charcoal, pencil, and graphite. I’d like to do more watercolorand pen and ink. Pen and ink is so direct. Each brush stroke is kind of a statement. I liked how my father used light and dark. He had to use extreme light and dark withpen and ink because it is so limited. It’s hard to do a lot of grays.”

Whitney admitted, “I’ve tried to copy my father’s drawings and I can’t draw ahead like that. I have trouble getting a likeness when I have someone to look at todraw. He, and artists like him, could draw a head from memory and create a characterfrom their imaginations and then draw the character from different angles. I used tosay, ‘That’s fantastic, I couldn’t do that.’ My father would reply, ‘If you practicedenough, you could.’

“He showed me how he made up characters. He used a lot of tracing overlays.One I remember was the head for a big tough guy. He drew the head first and thenthe features—eyes, nose, mouth, and eyebrows—on different pieces of tracing paper.Then he would adjust the position of the features on the face in relation to each

LEFT: John Prentice won his second award for “Best StoryStrip Artist” in 1967, the same year that Rube Goldberg(right) won his namesake, the Reuben Award.

OPPOSITE: Prentice at his drawing board in hisConnecticut studio, 1960s.

LEFT: John Prentice won his second award for “Best StoryStrip Artist” in 1967, the same year that Rube Goldberg(right) won his namesake, the Reuben Award.

OPPOSITE: Prentice at his drawing board in hisConnecticut studio, 1960s.

8Y

other to get what he wanted for that particular caricature.“I remember when he would do layouts for a week of strips. That was a

busy day for him. It was hard. He would lay out every daily and then spendthe rest of the week drawing them in pencil and then he’d ink them.”

Sometimes John would pay Whitney to clean up his strips with aneraser after they had been inked. He also hired specialists like Ben Oda fromKing Features to do the lettering. Among his other assistants over the yearswere Al Williamson, Alden McWilliams, Gray Morrow, and Frank Bolle.

Leonard Starr and his wife, Betty, moved to Westport in 1970. Leonard came over to John’s studio regularly to use the autograph machine,which was an overhead projector for tracing drawings and photographs.Leonard and John and their wives frequently socialized with othercartoonists who lived in the area.

John never had time to do much sketching or painting on the side. In the 1970s he started taking freelance jobs and did some color illustrationsfor Golf Digest. These were done in a style much different than his comicstrip work.

John never turned down work because he needed the money.Illustration assignments could be frustrating. Art directors frequently toldhim they wanted the illustrations done immediately and he would oftenhave to work overnight to complete a job. There were times when he saw his art sitting in the production room days after he had finished it.

Rip Kirby provided regular income, but was also a mixed blessing. “I think he was happy to get it in the beginning,” his son claimed. “It was a great strip and it was steady work. He felt kind of trapped by it after awhile.

“He always wanted to paint—do oil painting—and we talked about itbut he said he just couldn’t afford to because it wouldn’t be steady income,”Whitney explained. “He didn’t have the time while he was doing the strip.He couldn’t stop because he wouldn’t be able to pay the bills.

“He was from Texas and there was still a lot of the cowboy in him. He loved to see western art. We went to an exhibit of Harold Von Schmidt’sdrawings and paintings at Green Farms School in Westport. He and I wereamazed looking at his work.

“When I started art school I would bring my painting and work to him and he always had really helpful comments about drawing, composition,and color,” Whitney continued. “He didn’t work with color that much but hereally knew it. He was a perfectionist. He used to say that with a work of artyou are never completely happy with it. You always see something you couldhave done better.

“He talked so much about how he wanted to paint that I think some

people thought he was disappointed with life, that he felt that he hadn’tfulfilled his potential by not painting. He probably, as an artist, just wantedto try something new, just keep advancing or branching out and to paintwas a way of expressing himself but I know he felt trapped financially.

“He always worked hard and was dedicated. He used to say television waskilling the story strips. And [the newspapers] printed them smaller. He finallystarted drawing them smaller. It’s hard to get as much action going on. I noticedlater that there were more headshots. In the end he was writing it, too.”

When asked about his father’s legacy Whitney said occasionally Johnwould get a little bitter when he heard someone say he wasn’t as good as AlexRaymond. The Raymond family once sent John a letter letting him knowhow happy they were when the syndicate chose him to continue the stripand that he was doing a good job. Other cartoonists also respected John’swork and he got satisfaction from that.

“He developed his own style, which you can see over time,” Whitneypointed out. “I was proud for him when he won the awards from the N.C.S.He had them up on the wall in his studio.”

There are many things Whitney admires about his father’s work. “Iliked how he used light and dark shapes, negative space in the compositions,rhythms in the brush strokes and line work in the faces, clothes, hair, andbackgrounds. There is assertiveness in the way he drew. If one looks at eachbrushstroke or pen line as similar to one instrument in a piece of music, therhythms and variety are delightful. The way he did eyebrows was masterful.”

John once tried to develop a humorous comic strip in collaboration

Imag

es cou

rtes

y W

hitn

ey P

rent

ice

Y 9

10Y

with Howie Post. They would bounce ideas around, but nothing ever came of it. Itwas a much different challenge than creating dramatic continuity.

When he was in the Navy during World War II, John worked in the fire roomsof two destroyers, the Conyngham and the Rooks. Whitney loved listening to hisfather’s war stories and recounted one in detail during the interview conducted forthis book.

“My father’s ship, the Conyngham, was rammed once off Guadalcanal. They hadbeen bombarding enemy positions and they were supposed to leave by dark. At nightthe Japanese came down. They called it the ‘Tokyo Express.’ Japanese war ships woulddrop off supplies and leave by daylight because our planes would bomb them. AnAmerican transport rammed my father’s destroyer when they were maneuvering to leave. He told me there was a guy in the fire room where the boilers were and he washanging up laundry to dry since it was so hot in there. All of a sudden the guy saw theprow of a ship coming through the side of his ship. He took off out of there as watercame in. The collision knocked down one of the destroyer’s two smoke stacks on whichthe fellow bumped his head as he came up the escape hatch. One of the fire rooms wasflooded and if another compartment flooded it would have sunk the ship. Damage

control shored up the bulkheads—the big walls between compartments—with timbers.The water was coming in from underneath the floor plates and my father was downunder the boiler blowing out the water so it wouldn’t get into the boiler and cause theship to lose power. While they were pumping out the ship, they hid behind an islandand were just limping along at a slow speed. When the Japanese came down they couldsee the searchlights of the Japanese ships. They were sitting ducks if they were spottedand if they couldn’t control the flooding they were going to have to abandon ship.Fortunately, the Japanese didn’t see them and they managed to limp away the next day.”

In addition to seeing combat during World War II, John and the other engineerswould periodically have to overhaul the fire room’s machinery when their ship was indry dock. They would go into the fireboxes of the boilers, little compartments linedwith asbestos and brick, with just a rag wrapped around their faces. They would ripout all the asbestos until the air was filled with dust. No one knew about the effects ofasbestos then and they breathed in a lot of it.

In 1999, John got a bad case of pneumonia that he couldn’t get rid of. It waswinter and every morning he would head off to the studio he shared with cartoonistStan Drake in downtown Westport. He couldn’t stay home because he had deadlines