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Here is something pretty neat, the first Casey Ruggles strip. Unlike most strips that start with dailies and then grow into Sundays or start with both dailies and Sundays, Casey Ruggles started as Sundays before the dailies were added and this is the first one. I have always been a fan of Tuft's art and over the years he had some interesting assistants and ghosts including Alex Toth, Rubimor, Al Plastino and Nick Cardy. This Sunday is pretty impressive with that spectacular stage coach entrance. This comes from my friend John Biernat's collection and although he knew strips well I think he had forgotten this was the first strip as it would have been uncharacteristic of John to not point out important items in his collection. Very happy to have it. It does have a bit of water damage and I am debating getting it conserved.
Warren Tufts is a pretty interesting character too. Called a perfectionist, he put 80 hours a week in on Casey Ruggles and struggled to meet deadlines. The strip was widely popular and at one point there was an offer from television to create a TV series. When the syndicate put a stop to that avenue, Tufts got frustrated and left the strip which soon ended after he left. He later went on to create another popular strip, Lance. By the time 1960 rolled around he had had enough with syndication and went on to do a bit of comic work too although that didn't pay nearly as well as syndicated work. I think he is a fantastic artist and very disciplined in his approach to characters and action. It is a shame we only got a decade of his best work to enjoy and what a decade that was.
Warren Tufts is a pretty interesting character too. Called a perfectionist, he put 80 hours a week in on Casey Ruggles and struggled to meet deadlines. The strip was widely popular and at one point there was an offer from television to create a TV series. When the syndicate put a stop to that avenue, Tufts got frustrated and left the strip which soon ended after he left. He later went on to create another popular strip, Lance. By the time 1960 rolled around he had had enough with syndication and went on to do a bit of comic work too although that didn't pay nearly as well as syndicated work. I think he is a fantastic artist and very disciplined in his approach to characters and action. It is a shame we only got a decade of his best work to enjoy and what a decade that was.
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About Warren Tufts
In 1949, Warren Tufts created the comic strip Casey Ruggles, set against the backdrop of the Old West. Distributed by United Feature, launching May 22, 1949, it initially appeared only in the Sunday comics, but when the story became popular, a daily strip was added. Because Tufts was a perfectionist who often worked 80-hour weeks, he had trouble meeting deadlines, even though he had help from numerous assistants and ghosts: Nick Cardy, Ruben Moreira, Al Plastino and Alex Toth.
As Casey Ruggles' popularity grew, Tufts received an offer from a major television studio to produce a Casey Ruggles TV show. However, United Feature nixed the offer on the grounds that a TV show would make the strip less popular. In anger, Tufts left United Feature in 1954, and Casey Ruggles ended shortly afterward, as the replacement artist, Al Carreño, apparently could not maintain reader interest. Tufts' contract with the syndicate required that they be given first refusal on his next strip, so he created The Lone Spaceman, a science-fiction Lone Ranger parody he was sure United Feature would refuse. After the syndicate did, Tufts reconsidered the strip's value and self-syndicated it.He then created, wrote, drew and self-syndicated one of the last and full-page comic strips, the Old West cavalry adventure Lance, which comics critic Bill Blackbeard called "the best of the page-high adventure strips"
