Captain George Henderson (1930-1992)

Captain George Henderson was the proprietor of the Memory Lane nostalgia shop on 594 Markham Street, Toronto. He "had excessive facial hair, a twinkle in his eye and a desire to provide anyone who entered his shop with their most desired item." as one fan wrote on her blog.

Henderson was also one of the earliest kings of the comic strip reprint business until King Features took him to court and put him out of the business. Henderson was apparently unaware that Alex Raymond's work was still under copyright. His piracies cost him from 4,000 to 10,000 dollars in fines, sources disagree on the exact amount.

In a very short Macleans article (more of a squib) of April 1969, "Got a vintage "Batman"? See the King of Camp," it says,

"At 39 he is Canada's King of Camp and an ardent comicollector (sic) who got that way by chance three years ago, when he whimsically decorated his book-store with old comic books he had found in his sister's basement. "A man came in and picked up a Batman from the display and peeled off five $20 bills from his money clip. I immediately closed the store and went down to the States to find out what the business was all about." Now he's selling 15,000 used comic books a month, including surprising quantities to newly hooked youngsters."

Captain George had a worldwide reputation with his various reprints selling for for 25 cents in Canada, the US and Europe. his international reputation was not surprising, few people had ever seen the comic strips Little Nemo or Krazy Kat, they seemed to be irrevocably lost to history. Hell, most boomers had never even seen a Captain Marvel comic book.

Henderson launched three fanzines in 1968: Captain George's Whizzbang, Captain George's Penny Dreadful, (a free weekly still running in 1982), and Captain George's Comic Book World. Huib van Opstal* kindly provided content listings for a few of the titles >

-- COMIC WORLD #3 (undated, 1968/69, b/w)

Titled: 'The Magic of Winsor McCay'.

(An issue dually published with language periodical 'grOnk', edited by b p Nichol, of Ganglia Press, Toronto.)

16 pp., 39.5 x 29 cm,

in which: 12 pp. of Little Nemo reprints

5pp. of Rarebit Fiend reprints

1 p. of Pilgrim's Progress reprints

1 p. of Little Sammy Sneeze reprints

(and 1 p. editorial text on grOnk)

-- COMIC WORLD #4 (undated, 1968/69, b/w)

Titled: 'Krazy Kat by George Herriman'.

16 pp., 43.5 x 29 cm,

in which: 30 pp. of Krazy Kat reprints

1 p. Biographical Note on Herriman

Huib also noted that "at least 29 issues of COMIC WORLD were published. From issue 5 it was titled: CAPTAIN GEORGE'S COMIC WORLD."

I found this link to an SF magazine which has a piece on his death on February 10, 1992 by a Canadian writer on Pulps, Don Hutchison >

SOL Rising (I couldn't freeze the link at the Henderson entry but there is a link on this page.)

In this CBC television clip from May 20, 1970, Captain George discusses his store and the emergent hobby of comic collecting.

*1994. Essay RG. Het fenomeen Hergé, Huib van Opstal, Hilversum: Delange.

Hal Foster in Winnipeg 1910

A short story titled Saved by Grace, by W. G. Shepherd, was published in the February 1910 issue of Western Home Monthly, a Winnipeg, Manitoba fiction magazine with illustrations signed "Taylor." In 1910 Hal Foster, future Tarzan cartoonist, was working on the Eaton's catalogs for Brigdens of Winnipeg Limited.

Taylor's artistic style is so similar to Foster's work, and his signature in the spidery Foster style, that I'm inclined to think that either Taylor was Foster, moonlighting under an assumed name, or he was Foster's artistic mentor. Although there is no proof that Foster worked for the Western Home Monthly a photograph exists showing Foster and two unknown commercial artists posed with a large cover painting and paste-up for the Western Home Monthly circa 1912. The photo is reproduced in Brian M. Kane's 2001 book Hal Foster Prince of Illustrators.

On the bottom of the page I have uploaded a sample of Foster's Eaton's work from roughly the same period, February 27, 1911, which shows his Prince Valiant style of drawing woman was already in evidence at this early period of his career.

W. G. Shepherd was probably William Gunn Shepherd (1878-1933) author of Confessions of a War Correspondent, Harper & brothers (1917). Shephard was a reporter on the New York World.

Maple Leaf Comics

On one of my periodic eBay searches for Canadian wartime comics I hit pay-dirt. The earliest cover features Canada's first superhero The Iron Man created by Vernon Miller from Volume I no. 8, 1941. The undated Fishmen cover immediately below that is from the pen of lumberjack cartoonist Bert Bushell. Next a cover from Better, Volume VI No. 2, 1945. Last is what looks like a Jon St. Ables cover for Better Volume IV No. 3, 1945.

Note to eBay scanners please post larger scans and leave out the disfiguring marks in the corners for the archivists amongst us. A cover post listed on a blog in a timely manner may draw more buyers for your comics and gain a larger price. I would also like to invite any blog readers with Canadian comic cover art to send me scans. Simply scan at 150 dpi in color and post it to my email on the right.

Claude Fruchier

Claude Fruchier's Puff Puff was another series running in Mainmise in the seventies. "Don't bogart that joint mon ami, hand it over to me!" Is that Thompson and Thomson I spy in the background?

Prince Vollant by Poissant

A long comix story by Poissant in the style of the Last Gasp cartoonists, Greg Irons, Rich Corben and Jack Jaxon from Mainmise. I don't know for certain but I believe this was Yves Poissant who wrote and illustrated a biographical comic book about French-Canadian strong man Louis Cyr in 1978. As a long time Foster fan this striking comic came as a pleasant surprise.

For the most part Hal Foster avoided close-ups of violence. His usual method in his panels was to freeze violent scenes the moment before or the moment after the action took place.

Rand Holmes (1942-2002)

The Harold Hedd comic above is a reprint from the Quebec underground newspaper Mainmise which ran 76 issues from 1970 to 1978. Mainmise was full of the usual preoccupations of the counter-culture, hallucinogenics, pot, free love and revolution, but soon began stuffing the pages with reprints of underground comix from Crumb, Ron Cobb, Trina, Corben, S. Clay Wilson, even Jeff Jones' Idyll from the pages of The National Lampoon.

The Harold Hedd comics by Rand Holmes were borrowed from the pages of Vancouver B.C.'s Georgia Straight. Mainmise started out digest sized, printed on cheap newsprint, then for a period was printed in full-colour on slick paper with impressive covers borrowed from the underground comics. It changed size again , magazine-size, before ending up as a newsprint tabloid alternative newspaper (as did the Georgia Straight) in 1977-78. In the latter years Mainmise became an important outlet for Montreal's numerous underground cartoonists.

Holmes obituary can be found here, from Cannabis Culture magazine.

Captain Canuck

A promo card for Richard Comely and Ron Leishman's comic hero Captain Canuck from 1993. For his story I'll refer you to Black Market Pies blog HERE.

Montmorency

August 23, 1958. Vahan Shirvanian's Montmorency comic strip appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly magazine. Shirvanian was born in Hackensack, New Jersey in 1925 and found regular employment with the Saturday Evening Post.

Walter Ball (1911-?)

Walter Ball's Rural Route appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly from 1956 until 1968 when the Star Weekly ceased publishing. Walter Ball was born in Cookstown, Ontario in 1911 and began his career on the Toronto Star in 1932.* This sample is from October 4, 1958.

Comic historian and archivist Bill Blackbeard mentioned that Rural Route appeared in a few newspapers in the Midwestern United States. A 1982 interview with the cartoonist appeared on the CBC and can be heard HERE.

*Introduction to the Canadian Newspaper Comic by Kenneth S. Barker (INKS, May 1997)

Comic Advertising: Doug Wright

Top > Star Weekly Magazine July 18, 1959.
Bottom > Edmonton Journal Weekend Magazine May 14, 1960.