AL WENZEL

The county fair starts next week. I drove by the fairgrounds this morning and saw the carney folks setting up the rides. I don't go on the rides. I basically ignore that part of the fair. Maybe it's because I'm old, but it somehow doesn't look as enticing as it once did. Everything seems sort of plastic. I don't remember the day-glo colors being around when I was a child. There were bright colors, but there was a richness to them you don't see now. Plus there were more tents. Now they haul their game booths around behind their trucks or Winnebagos. It's lost its charm...or like I said, I'm just old.

Click on image to see it larger.

This is another cover done by Al Wenzel for Scholastic Magazine's SummerTime, August 8, 1963. I posted another one on July 17. The only other information I find online about Mr. Wenzel is:

Albert Borth Wenzel was educated at the Grand Central School of Art. He began his career in comics in the late 1940s by contributing to comic books by D.S. Publishing and Lev Gleason (a.o. Crime Does Not Pay, Little Wise Guys). He did romance stories for Marvel, fillers for DC and some horror work for ACG in the 1950s. He was an assistant on the syndicated 'The Spirit' (1951-52) and 'Steve Roper' (1957-59) strips.

He became Roy Crane's assistant on the 'Buz Sawyer' Sunday in 1960 and by 1962, he did scripts, pencils and ink. He continued to work on this strip, telling the urban adventures of Sawyer's sidekick 'Roscoe Sweeney', until 1974. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he illustrated some giveaway comic books for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. (SOURCE: http://lambiek.net/artists/w/wenzel_al.htm)

From reader Brian:

I know it's been a while since you posted this but I'm just now running across it. Albert Borth "Al" Wenzel was born July 7 1924 in Norwalk, CT. He was in the Army Air Corps during WWII and spent part of the first years of his cartooning career producing filler for DC comics, including the "Superboy's Workshop" pages of 1950s Superboy comics. He died September 15 1995, still in Norwalk. 

SUMMERTIME and the living was easy

Raise your hand if you remember getting the Scholastic Magazine at school and pouring over the pages that advertised the books they had for sale. What I'm talking about are issues from the early 1960s. 

In the summer of 1963 my folks got me a subscription to Scholastic's SummerTime. I loved it! For 8 weeks I got real mail. Something to anxiously wait for each week. Something new to read. Pages of books being advertised to pour over. Stories, games, movie reviews. I'll deal with some of those books and the other content in a later post. For now I wanted to post the cover of the June 27, 1963 issue. Volume 10, No. 1. I believe the illustrator is Al Wenzel, but I'm not sure. He may be the same illustrator that did some work for D.C. Comics.

Yes, I kept every single issue I got that summer and whenever I find them they make me smile and I'm a kid again. This illustration is so very much summer. All the good things a kid imagines about summer. Well, maybe not today. Kids don't go outside to play as much. They're all tethered to technology and leave their imaginations I don't know where. I'm not sure they just get to really be kids anymore. This illustration shows you what summer should be for a kid. Enjoy. Another time ephemera takes me back in time.