Scorchy Smith

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Scorchy Smith was a comic strip created by John Terry that ran from 1930 to 1961.

Scorchy Smith was a pilot-for-hire whose initial adventures took him across the contemporary (1930s) United States fighting criminals and aiding damsels in distress. Later Scorchy traveled the world fighting spies and foreign aggression.

Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 trans-Atlantic flight started a vogue for aviation and together with several other flight-related adventure strips Scorchy Smith debuted in 1930, created by artist John Terry for the Associated Press newspaper syndicate. When Terry developed fatal tuberculosis in 1933 the strip was assigned to Noel Sickles.

Sickles' treatment of Scorchy Smith is considered to be one of the most significant developments in comic strip history. Sickles increased the popularity of the strip, which became the leading A.P. comic, creating a new school of cartooning in the process. Sickles’ impressionistic style and cinematic compositions, plus his frequent use of areas of pure black ink and Zipatone shading was dramatically different from any other cartoonist at the time. Milton Caniff’s mastery of the medium is frequently attributed to his collaborations with Sickles.

In the fall of 1936 Sickles researched Scorchy Smith’s circulation, information that the Associated Press never shared with their artists. Estimating that the strip was running in 250 papers across the country, Sickles determined that the syndicate’s monthly take approximated $2,500 a month, of which he, as scripter and artist, received $125. Sickles asked for a raise and when it was refused he quit cartooning to become a magazine illustrator.

Sickles was succeeded by Allen "Bert" Christman, who began drawing and scripting the strip November 23, 1936. Christman, a cartoonist who also co-created The Sandman for DC Comics, joined the U.S. Navy as an aviation cadet in June of 1938, resigning his commission three years later to join the American Volunteer Group being recruited to fly for the Chinese Air Force. He was shot down and killed in Burma as a pilot with the AVG, by then famous as the Flying Tigers.

After Christman left Scorchy Smith a succession of artists handled the strip including Robert Farrell and Frank Robbins, who began signing the strip on May 22, 1939. Robbins, who had never had a feature of his own before, soon developed a solid reputation for creating comic-strip adventure. In 1944 he was hired away by King Features for whom he created Johnny Hazard, another pilot-adventurer.

After Robbins left the strip, it was taken on by Ed Good (through 1945), Rodlow Willard (1946-1954), and Milt Morris (1959-1961). It steadily declined in popularity through this era until its 1961 discontinuation.

Scorchy Smith was reprinted in Famous Funnies and in two collections published by Nostalgia Press in the seventies. The end of Sickles run was reprinted in Big Fun Comics (published by American Comic Archive) which also continues to publish Bert Christmans dailies in each issue. In June, 2008 IDW Publishing will be publishing Scorchy Smith And The Art Of Noel Sickles, which will reprint the complete run of Scorchy Smith done by Sickles between 1933 and 1936 (ISBN 1600102069).


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