Alley Oop Cartoon Strip

[awillis]

I watched a really interesting hour show last night on Iowa PBS- "V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop". V.T. Hamlin was born in Perry, IA, ran the Des Moines Registers cartoon syndicate for a few years, and then started his own strip "Alley Oop". It had interviews with a bunch of underground cartoonists and current & former cartoonists  for Alley Oop. The film seemed to have been recorded at ComicCon out in San Diego in 2005 and was directed by Max Allen Collins (Road to Perdition)  and filmed/ edited through the University of Iowa. It  had Frank Stack (Foolbert Sturgeon), Denis Kitchen (Kitchen Sink), Trina Robbins (Wimmen's Comix), Will Eisner (Spirit), William Stout (Slow Death), Stan Sakai (Albedo Comics), Russell Myers (Broomhilda), Sergio Aragones (Mad), Russ Cochran (Reprinted E.C. Comics), with Dave Graue, Jack Bender, and Carol Bender (Alley Oop cartoonists) interviews. I used to read Alley Oop back in the late '50's and early '60's in the old Des Moines Tribune. It was one of the strips that inspired me. It was a good film.
Has any one else ever seen this, or did it just get shown in Iowa due to all the Iowa connections?

[jaylynch]

And did they ever mention Clyde Lewis, who drew the thing most of the time?

[jaylynch]

...during the 40s and 50s, anyway.  The years when the drawing was best.

[awillis]

I was taking some notes but did not remember that name. They spent a fair amount of time with V.T. Hamlin's daught who has a museum over in Perry, IA and they did a lot of interviews with Dave Graue before he died. V. T. Hamlin and Dave Graue had a strange relationship. Graue worked with him for 50 years or better- after a hitch during WWII. Did Clyde Lewis work on comic books or on the daily/ sunday strips? It will be on again this Sunday, I'll watch again.

[awillis]

Comics.com doesn't list him, either.

http://www.comics.com/comics/alleyoop/html/about_comic.html

"Alley Oop, created in 1933 by V.T. Hamlin, is drawn by Jack Bender and written by Carole Bender. The classic caveman comic strip is syndicated worldwide by Newspaper Enterprise Association.

The comic strip revolves around the irrepressible Alley Oop, who travels from prehistoric Moo all the way to the 21st century in his friend Doc Wonmug's time machine. Other favorite regulars in the strip include King Guz and Queen Umpa (the king and queen of Moo), Oscar and Ava (assistants to Wonmug), and Ooola (Alley Oop's girlfriend).

V.T. Hamlin worked on Alley Oop for 40 years. Hamlin hired writer Dave Graue to assist him in 1950, and Graue continued writing for the strip until 2001. Jack Bender joined Graue as an assistant artist in 1990, becoming the full-time daily and Sunday Alley Oop artist a year later. In 2001, upon Graue's retirement, Carole Bender began writing the strip. "

[wpbooks]

i seem to recall stumbling onto that doc a couple of years ago on one of the PBS stations here in the Bay Area.  I think I even have it on tape, buried in a box now forgotten with the rest of my VHS collection.....someday I'll move, find the tape and then try to transfer it to disc unless someone beats me by posting it on Usenet or on a Torrent somewhere....

[awillis]

Found this about Clyde Lewis-

http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2007/04/obscurity-of-day-private-buck.html

Also see that Alley Oop is 75 today.

http://www.comics.com/

I know, I know, this ain't Underground- it's off topic.

[jaylynch]

Lewis worked on the Dailys and Sundays.  Nobody seems to ever mention it, though.

[awillis]

I saw that Lewis had been with NEA. I haven't found any site giving him credit for working on Alley Oop. There must have been some hard feeling, somewhere.

I'm bummed out- turns out there was a live screening of the film and Q & A/ Tribute to V. T. Hamlin and Alley Oop at the Iowa State Historical Building last night with the husband and wife team of cartoonists, Jack and Carol Bender, along with the film's producer, Mark Lambert and the film's creator, Max Allan Collins.
We do not get that sort of thing around here locally very often. Didn't see it listed until after it had already happened. twenty blocks away and I missed it. Sigh........ 

[awillis]

Lembiek has some stuff on Clyde Lewis- I see he was another Iowa cartoonist. It appears that Ding Darling was influencial in getting a lot of these guys into cartooning.

http://lambiek.net/artists/l/lewis_clyde.htm

His work is very impressive, the little bit that I have seen. Jay, your a fountain of information. 
I have a set of some sort of encyclopedia of cartoons/ cartoonists, maybe the one by Horn, at home, I'll try to find them and look it up.

Nothing worse to a cartoonist, in my mind, then to not get credit for your work.

[awillis]

Watched it again, last night. No credit to or mention of Clyde Lewis.