Thursday, March 22, 2012

Intellectual Amos Meets The Mosquito Menace

This recurring feature by Andre LeBlanc. This is from National Comics #50, October 1945. Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket National Comics #51, December 1945 Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

5 comments:

  1. That is the coolest thing ever. I had never even heard of it before, so thanks for sharing! Really interesting art style. Did he ever dabble in horror, do you know?

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  2. I think a lot of what he did was anonymous or ghosted for someone else. He was an assistant on The Spirit.

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  3. I have so much more respect for Andre now! He really was the ghost man for much of his career. There's a lesson here kids!

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  4. I am Andre's daughter...he lived with me before he died, and I'm the one who arranged for him to receive the Cruziero do Sul from the Brazilian President

    I have some cool Amos art I have just unearthed (after near 15 years) from boxes which have been sealed since we left Connecticut years ago.

    Pop was one of the most dedicated and finest illustrators I have ever seen...and I'm not saying that just because I'm his child.

    Today going through so many of the original Bristol board strips he illustrated for others...mostly Apt 3G and Rex Morgan, I was reminded of his skill with a brush, his mastery of the human form and his gift for composition.

    Cheers to all of his fans. He would be so tickled to realize that after all these years Amos is finally gaining some of the recognition he deserved

    You realize, of course, that Amos was pop's alter ego: his mother was left a very young widow, and she was at death's door for many years of his childhood. She would park him at the door of the NYC public library at 35th street, and he raised himself by burrowing through all the books in the childrens and adult sections he could devour

    He taught himself to draw by taking tracing paper and butcher paper into the Fine Arts room and copying all of the good art he could fine. With that skill, he created art which allowed him to drop out of school by 8th grade so he could help support his mother.

    He was doing Amos at the age of 19....

    Amazing talent indeed.

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  5. Thanks for posting these, I was not aware of Andre's whimsical work, it's marvelous. I first saw your work, Sam, drawn on a desk in Andre's classroom!

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