Dave Graue
An Alley Oop Artist...
Before I start back in with my Workplace Cartoons thing, I thought I’d talk about an artist that I’ve always admired. And that is daily comic strip artist Dave Graue. Graue was the second artist to work on the syndicated Alley Oop Strip, created in 1932 by V.T. Hamlin. Graue took over the writing and art chores of the bone wielding, time traveling caveman in 1971. As I touched on in one of my Art History posts, Alley Oop was, especially in Dave Graue’s work, a strip that really resonated with me in my developing years. An adventure strip was different for me, amongst all of the humorous ones that I relished over. Certain adventure strips spoke to me over others and the antics of a time traveling caveman drew me in. And that line work…
Back in December, I picked up an Alley Oop collection called Alley Oop Versus The Black Knight, showcasing the entire run of strips from 1983, minus the Sunday ones. I picked this one because of the cool bi-plane action on the cover. I’m sure that I read most of these strips back in the day, but how could I refuse an adventure involving bi-planes in WW I? Well, I wasn’t disappointed.
The Black Knight storyline is one of three that happen in this collection. The first being a tale back in the Kingdom of Moo, where Oop is originally from involving the invention of a game to placate a possible war and the last being a vampire story set in modern times with his scientist buddies.
Look at that line work! Just fantastic and I hope that Mr. Graue enjoyed drawing these tales as much as I did and do viewing them. He had a great sense of pacing and storytelling, as any good adventure strip would require.
I’m really drawn to the way that Graue drew the crosshatching on the uniforms of both the German and French soldiers. The panels that depict the fog are killer.
Graue wrote and drew the strip from 1971 to 1990. I came aboard somewhere in the mid to late 70’s and, although I do remember struggling with it early on, I was won over soon after. I wasn’t sure what to make of this time traveling caveman, which is really stupid considering just what I did love during those days (and still do!).
Sadly, the 75 year old Graue was killed in 2001 when his car was hit by a dump truck in North Carolina.
This is just a sampling of Dave Graue’s work on Alley Oop. I highly recommend a deeper dive into his work for those that are fans of adventure strips and great artwork.
It’s strange what I notice as I get older and see that, yes, I was heavily influenced by these strips in my own work without consciously knowing it at the time. I pick up pieces here and there that are now obvious that I was channeling this stuff. I’m happy about that, as I don’t really notice it at times. It’s nice to see that some good stuff was learned from those that came before me.
And yes, the Hollywood Argyles song Alley Oop was inspired by the strip. Although, at that time, original creator V.T. Hamlin was doing the strip.
I will be back next week (hopefully) with another highly entertaining post continuing with those Workplace Cartoons.
CREATIVE NOTES:
READING: Sand, Wind and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery The Uncool by Cameron Crowe
LISTENING: Live by Beat