A Crowded Life in Comics –

What If? Who Knows?

Casey Ruggles, Sparkler Comics No. 101, 1951

By Rick Marschall.

In editorial positions I have held during my crowded life in comics, I have tried to offer work to friends, not out of favoritism or nepotism. I have known so many cartoonists that I have been in a position to do so; and have been able to match cartoonists and open positions.

One also becomes aware of cartoonists’ styles and capabilities, their deadline reliability, openings on strips (when I was a syndicate editor) or books (when editor at Marvel). I also was able to offer assignments to cartoonists I knew in Europe; and European assignments I could arrange for American cartoonists.

I have been comics editor at United Feature Syndicate; New York News-Chicago Tribune Syndicate; and Field Enterprises (Publishers Newspaper Syndicate). Also at Marvel, as I said; and when I wrote for Disney Comics in Europe, I was able to tell American friends like Dwight Decker and Don Rosa about work there. I heard rumors that they checked out those opportunities.

I recommended Max Allan Collins for the Dick Tracy gig as Chet Gould was retiring. Otherwise my best luck – that is, enabling luck for the cartoonists – was at Field, where I was able to connect Fred daSilva, Frank Bolle, and Fran Matera to several strips; and at Marvel, where I brought syndicated cartoonists in as writers, artists, and inkers; and invited European cartoonists to contribute to Epic Illustrated, which I founded.

And that brings me to cartoonists to whom I tried like heck to assign work. Odd names they might seem, but worth the effort! Jack Kent, who had done the quiet classic King Aroo – “Who Knows?” Jack Finney, the great speculative fiction writer – “Who Knows?” Eric Gurney, the legendary animal cartoonist – “Who Knows?” Ray Gotto, the  sports cartoonist – “Who Knows?” Jean Shepherd – the great humorist, author of A Christmas Story – “Who Knows?”

A couple creators I tried to entice in more than one of my jobs. Alex Toth was one – hoping he world say Yes first, and then we would find work. Another cartoonist I admired to the same extent was, by coincidence, once Toth’s boss: Warren Tufts.

Warren had drawn the great cowboy strip Casey Ruggles, 1949-54; the parody strip Lone Spaceman; and the innovative full-page “painted-look” Sunday Western Lance. Warren also worked in comic books for Gold Key and in animation.

When I was at Field I tried to pull Warren back into strips, particularly a 1930s detective strip that Max Allan Collins and I brainstormed, but Warren was wary of the syndicate grind… and lack of control, despite my assurances. Some years later, when Epic Magazine was being planned, I offered another open invitation. Suggest a dream concept; design and write as wished; own the rights. He was tempted, but resisted.

What If? Who Knows?

I thought of those questions and of Warren Tufts this week when I heard of Kobe Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash in California. Besides the fact that Warren’s unique talent and fierce integrity kept him as a maverick in strips and comics, the hobby of aircraft design and test-piloting increasingly occupied his time away from the drawing board.

Warren died while testing a plane of his own design, in Placerville CA in 1982.

– 30 –

67

Warren Tufts (1925-1982)

The Casey Ruggles Sunday strip began on May 21 1949, followed by a daily strip in the Fall. Ruggles was a former cavalry sergeant who, on his return from the war in Mexico found the entire country enthused by the discovery of gold in California. Tufts, a native of Fresno, California, had “spent his life studying California lore and the history of the west.”

Tufts father was a manager in a Fresno produce and frozen foods firm when Tufts was born. After graduating from Fresno High School, Tufts worked as a freelancer in local radio, starting with a series of Twilight Tales he wrote and narrated for Fresno Bee station KMJ. He spent two and a half years in the navy during the war where he turned out weekly how-to-survive adventure comic strips for the publication at the Farragut Naval Training centre in Idaho, and served as editor of the Seattle Naval Air Station newspaper. Tufts had been working as a program manager at Radio Kyno when he quit to produce and market Casey Ruggles in December1948.

“I first got the idea of a Gold Rush strip during the exploration of ghost towns and abandoned mines in the Mother Lode country while I was a boy scout in Fresno.” Tufts had no formal training. “I started drawing comic strip characters when I was about six years old and have made a hobby of it ever since. I guess I have worked up about twenty strips and I have plenty of rejection slips.”

Tufts persistence paid off and he credited A. V. Buel, cartoonist of the Fresno Bee, with the encouragement that kept him going. “Real life characters will be introduced into the feature and I will do my best to keep the story historically accurate,” Tufts told the Sacramento Bee. Alex Toth helped out on Casey Ruggles for a few months in 1950.

Following struggles with the syndicate Warren Tufts resigned Casey Ruggles in 1954 to develop the adventures of Lance, which appeared daily and Sunday. Tufts syndicated the strip himself under the name Warren Tufts Enterprises and did his own writing, drawing, and color separations. Lance was Second Lieutenant Lance St. Lorne, Company B, U.S. First Dragoons, a Virginian fresh out of West Point. He was assigned to fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on the far frontier in 1836. When the story opened in July 1955 Lance was out on patrol in search of Loud Thunder, a rogue Indian who had just scalped and murdered a small party of Sioux Indians.

Tufts details made Casey Ruggles and Lance different from the average run of horse operas. Before beginning Lance he spent two years on historical research and mechanical techniques and it showed. Lance appeared in 15 newspapers with well over 3,000,000 circulation but despite the excellence of writing and drawing Lance failed to survive. Tufts left comic strips in 1960 but continued producing comic book art for various Dell and Gold key titles. He was killed in a plane crash in 1982.

ROTEBOR commented:

Hola, JOHN:

"Casey Ruggles" es una de mis historietas favoritas de todos los tiempos; tiene una conjunción de excelente dibujo y argumento que se encuentra en pocas historietas de largo desarrollo. Sería interesante una reedición cuidada de esta historieta (en España y Portugal se está editando una virtuosa versión de "Lance"). Gracias por recordar esta joya.