flook (as syndicated in the u.s.) november 1951

 

The drawing gets better as the jokes/storyline declines (who knows? Maybe this was the first ever time in a story that someone mistook actors playing violent criminals for the real thing but I doubt it) (and as for the Orson Kart joke - please don't). Also, the drawing gets better as the printing gets worse - damn those awful Canadian presses. 

The 8 November image of Clangy Bell in a small rowboat heading to the huge ship is definitely the work of a man who really loves to draw. I would love to draw too if I thought I could get an effect half as good as that. 

Weirdly after the 21 November episode the Philadelphia Inquirer stopped running Flook, so I had to source it from the Pasadena Independent, the Ottawa Citizen and the Vancouver Province. I wonder why the PI stopped running it, and how the readers handled never finding out what happened. I mean, I guess most of them have died, and died not knowing. 

I may die not knowing why 'Cloggy Bile's' name was changed to 'Clangy Bell', although I guess if my name was Cloggy Bile I'd do something about it.