For a "Big Little Book" this tiny volume amassed a pretty big body count. If one wants to understand gun violence today, peer back to what Gramps was reading in 1937. Maybe the Kefauver Commission who wanted to tone down comic books in the 1950s avoided the Big Little Books because no senator wanted his picture taken of him reading one. They were for kids, and they were as violent as the most of violent, well… fairy tales. And then some.
Big Little Books are cool, but I am interested here in one particular artist, Henry E. Vallely. Before I go any further, check out THIS little gem in which scholar "DSK" seemingly proves Batman comic artist Bob Kane swiped from Vallely. Holy smokes, Batman…our inventor is a CROOK!
I swear. No honor among thieves or comic cook Illustrators.
There are literally hundreds of fantastic illustrations by Mr. Vellely in books for children There are nearly that many in one book alone, and all shown here came from just one.
The problem with Big Little Books is that they are brittle with acid pulp and literally disappearing while we twiddle our thumbs on smart phones. They can be frozen or treated in other ways to preserve them, but like capitalism, I guess, they held within them the seeds of their own destruction. (Marxist theory from my college days!)
The other problem is that no one can SEE the work of the artist anymore, as if you even touch the spine to read one, the entire little book cracks into a puff of brown paper dust. Wear a mask. Those collectors might as well be wrapping dead fish in their mylar bags…they're not going to last much longer and you can't stop it.
In order to illustrate my profile here of Henry Vallely, I have solved the problem of opening a book to scan it by shelling out four dollars for a completely beat copy of "In The Name of the Law" copyright 1937 by Stephen Slesinger published by Whitman Publishing Co. of Racine, Wisconsin. If they feel I have violated their copyright, I will gladly remove the images here (and ask vigorously what THEY are doing to preserve the work) but my initial check reveals they never renewed it. I'll proceed to tear and scan. Whitman gave up on Little Big Books and concentrated on those blue folders for coin collecting.
I am RIPPING IT APART and RUINING IT Comic book guy! Physics, chemistry and time are going to do it anyway. Someone better scan this work before it goes, and I don't think Google is including the little buggers in their massive book scanning program, deciding instead to concentrate on things no one is interested in while running rampant over copyright laws of their own.
Vallely's work is simple, effective and astounding. Vallely did more with a few black shadows than most artists do with full color. Endlessly creative, not a thing repeated. He did clothing ads, book covers and children's books mostly, but Vallely did Bible stories too. Why doesn't that surprise me? Big Little Books seem to have paid most of his bills.
Now for the biography! THERE ISN'T ONE. Not only unfamiliar and unrecognized today, the ASK ART website indicates there are NO biographical sketches to speak of. According to The Vallely Archives blog, he passed away in 1950…but even that source stopped seven years ago. No Wiki entry. Nothing. It pisses me off, and here I am doing it for free. What the hell ARE Phd. candidates in the arts writing about for their dissertations anyway? Effing BANKSY?
All illustrations by Henry E. Vallely from In The Name Of The Law 1937
Above Text by Jim Linderman
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Illustrator L.B. Cole had a doctorate degree in anatomy and used it to good advantage by rendering bad women, cheating men...and for his numerous comic books, the occasional throbbing rocket ship.
Eliot Brewster was one of many hack writers who had his hardcovers turned into paper digests which served the emerging market for cheap reads...much of it caused by thousand upon thousands of men and women going to war. At home, on a train to camp or hiding in a foxhole, a colorful, spicy read was one of the few pleasures available. There are very few copies of the books above, as they were cheap, by intention, and during difficult times passed off to neighbors and buddies until they were gone. Later the high acid content evaporated all but those pressed tight...which only delays the inevitable crumbling a few more decades.
In Love Above All, Les Carver returns from war to the "simple, little plump girl" he promised to marry. Her weight is discussed frequently in the book. His eyes wander and soon Les is "irresistibly drawn into a whirlpool of drink, debauchery, wild sex orgies…" and more.
Author Eliot Brewster is due a revival.
In Faithfully Yours, Brewster puts a maid in the house, a man in the service and gives them both a book title which is a lie.
Like Bilbrew ten years later, Cole's men frequently have greasy, troubled hair falling perfectly down their troubled foreheads.
In Love Above All, smoke initially rises towards the wedding, but swirls over to the dame. The same dame nearly impaled on a bottle of whiskey. What man returning from the war wouldn't drift like smoke to the dark side? After the unspeakable horror of war, many men had a choice. Do what is "right" or pound it away, literally, against a loose bed board. Is there a cheap motel shown on this cover? Does there need to be? Look into his eyes.
Cole is responsible for some of the most striking comic book covers you will ever seen. A good sample is HERE on the Monster Brains website.
But Cole was at his best when things in a guy's head were at their worst.
Brewster today appeals only to the few collectors who seek the same thrills sought during the war. Among his other titles are Sisters in Sin, Skin Deep, Lusty, Private Companion, Ready for Love and Wicked Women.
Faithfully Yours by Eliot Brewster cover by L. B Cole 1943 Phoenix Press. Love Above All by Eliot Brewster cover by L. B. Cole 1945 Palace Press (Phoenix) Both Collection Jim Linderman
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Robert Leslie Bellem did the words. Adolphe Barreaux did the art. Decades before Harvey Pekar wrote stories for others to illustrate, Bellem did the same, but his were goofy crime tales told in the Hollywood hills. Bellem was the auteur of the pulps...this one issue of Hollywood Detective is edited by Bellem, contains four articles by Bellem AND a "Dan Turner in Pictures" cartoon done by the two. It's nuts...but it works if you care to immerse yourself in one man's odd vision of fictional crime (supported by another man's vision of the scene.)During his time, Bellem became something of a joke for his writing. 300 of his estimated 3,000 stories were about Dan Turner. S.J. Perelman satirized his work in a hilarious essay "Somewhere a Roscoe..." for the gumshoe slang he created...and he didn't have to work too hard to make it funny.I can't put it any better than Kevin Burton Smith does on the outstanding Thrilling Detective website HERE "...it was the high-octane use of every slang word known to man (and more than a few Bellem must have coined himself) that fueled the tales. Women were wrens or frills, and their breasts were pretty-pretties or tiddlywinks, something that Dan, "as human as the next gazabo," always took the time to notice. Cars were chariots, money was geetus and no one ever got killed in the stories, they were croaked, cooled, iced, de-lifed or had an act of killery performed upon them. Guns didn't go bang – they were roscoes and they spat, coughed and belched. Or sometimes they just sneezed, though the end result was the same -- people ended up dead."I guess when you write 3,000 stories, you reach a bit. I'm glad he did! I could spout the slang all day long and feel tough as nails, even if I am not. It is certainly no coincidence Bellem later wrote the story lines for the stilted Superman television series.
And seldom does an illustrator merge so well with a writer. Barreaux did more than draw, and was actually editor of Trojan Publications later...the company which put out Hollywood Detective. When the comics code came in and artists of his ilk were S.O.Luck and S.O. Work..he turned to producing "art" books with naked photographs of the dames he portrayed in his drawings. He even produced Bunny Yeager's Nudes! Dan Turner Hollywood Detective (illustrated by Adolphe Barreaux, Story by Robert Leslie Bellem) from Hollywood Detective December 1944 Collection Jim LindermanDull Tool Dim Bulb Books HERE
