Sheldon Moldoff came on the comics scene at the very beginning of the Golden Age of comics. He quickly became a hot young artist at National Periodicals (now DC Comics). His big claim to fame was Flash Comics' Hawkman feature which he used his ability to "swipe" Alex Raymond from his Flash Gordon to great effect.
Jules Feiffer wrote about the art of the swipe in his introduction to The Great Comic Book Heroes, "Swipes, if noticed, were accepted as part of comic book folklore. I have never heard a reader complain. Rather, I have heard swipe artists vigorously defended, one compared to another: who did the best Caniff, the closest Raymond?"
"Hawkman, a special favorite of mine, gave an aged and blended look to its swipes — a sheen so formidable, I often preferred the swipe to the original, defended the artist on economic grounds (not everybody was rich enough to hire models like those big newspaper guys), and paid his swipes the final compliment of clipping and swiping them." Jules Fieffer
Roy Thomas : How did the idea come to you to employ the Alex Raymond approach? Neville (the creator of Hawkman) hadn't done the strip that way.
Sheldon Moldoff : No, his version was completely different. But when I looked at "Hawkman" and read a couple of stories, I said to myself, "This has to be done in a Raymond style." I could just feel it, like Raymond-or (Hall) Foster.
RT: How did you work it? Had you kept a collection? Because you obviously couldn't go out and buy a collection of Flash Gordon or Prince Valiant in 1939 the way you can now.
MOLDOFF: Oh, I saved those Sunday pages and the daily papers for years! There isn't an artist around that does not have a file... a "morgue."
Jules Feiffer, "Swiping was and is a trade term in comic books for appropriating that which is Alex Raymond’s, Milton Caniff s, Hal Foster’s or any one of a number of other sources and making it one’s own. Good swiping is an art in itself. One can, for example, scan the first fifteen years of any National publication and catch an album of favorite Flash Gordon poses signed by dozens of different artists.
"Flash, Dale, Dr. Zarkov and Ming the Merciless stared nakedly out at the reader, their names changed, but looking no less like themselves even if the feature did call itself Hawkman. Other cartoonists preferred the Caniff touch, so next to nine pages of swiped Terry and the Pirates there often appeared nine pages of swiped Flash Gordon. Then there were those who mixed their pitches — using within the same story Alex Raymond swipes, Milton Caniff swipes, Hal Foster swipes, and movie-still swipes. So that a villain might subtly shift his appearance from Raymond’s Ming in one panel to Caniff s Captain Judas in another to Foster’s Sir Modred in a third to, at last, Basil Rathbone." Jules Feiffer
"On occasion, swipe artists would try to be clever, try to confuse the reader by including, within a single frame, a group of figures swiped — and even changed slightly — from three or four different sources. They may have gotten away with it with others, but never me: no comic book man could cloud the gray cells of the boy Poirot." Jules Feiffer
I Swiped the swipes from Facebook's Digital Comic Museum, the art of the swipe with permission.
You can read Roy Thomas' interview with Sheldon Moldoff on Twomorrows.com
Book Steve's library BlogSpot has a nice post on Hawkman swipes revisited
I got the Jules Feiffer quotes from The Comics Journal archive - The Great Comic Book Heroes Intro & Afterword by Jules Feiffer
Hawkman from Flash Comics #24, Dec 1941 by Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff |
Jules Feiffer wrote about the art of the swipe in his introduction to The Great Comic Book Heroes, "Swipes, if noticed, were accepted as part of comic book folklore. I have never heard a reader complain. Rather, I have heard swipe artists vigorously defended, one compared to another: who did the best Caniff, the closest Raymond?"
"Hawkman, a special favorite of mine, gave an aged and blended look to its swipes — a sheen so formidable, I often preferred the swipe to the original, defended the artist on economic grounds (not everybody was rich enough to hire models like those big newspaper guys), and paid his swipes the final compliment of clipping and swiping them." Jules Fieffer
Roy Thomas : How did the idea come to you to employ the Alex Raymond approach? Neville (the creator of Hawkman) hadn't done the strip that way.
Sheldon Moldoff : No, his version was completely different. But when I looked at "Hawkman" and read a couple of stories, I said to myself, "This has to be done in a Raymond style." I could just feel it, like Raymond-or (Hall) Foster.
RT: How did you work it? Had you kept a collection? Because you obviously couldn't go out and buy a collection of Flash Gordon or Prince Valiant in 1939 the way you can now.
MOLDOFF: Oh, I saved those Sunday pages and the daily papers for years! There isn't an artist around that does not have a file... a "morgue."
Jules Feiffer, "Swiping was and is a trade term in comic books for appropriating that which is Alex Raymond’s, Milton Caniff s, Hal Foster’s or any one of a number of other sources and making it one’s own. Good swiping is an art in itself. One can, for example, scan the first fifteen years of any National publication and catch an album of favorite Flash Gordon poses signed by dozens of different artists.
a tense moment for Flash and Fria, from Flash Gordon June 18, 1939. Right, Things get hot for Hawkman and Shiera, All-Star Comics #3, Winter 1940-1941 |
Rena from Flash Gordon, October 6, 1940. Right, Hawgirl suits up for the first time, All-Star Comics #5, June-July 1941 |
Flash saves Dale from a watery death, April 30, 1939. Right, Hawkman takes to the skies with Hawkgirl, All-Star Comics #5, June-July 1941 |
I Swiped the swipes from Facebook's Digital Comic Museum, the art of the swipe with permission.
You can read Roy Thomas' interview with Sheldon Moldoff on Twomorrows.com
Book Steve's library BlogSpot has a nice post on Hawkman swipes revisited
I got the Jules Feiffer quotes from The Comics Journal archive - The Great Comic Book Heroes Intro & Afterword by Jules Feiffer
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