Number 1548: Thug and the Goodguy

Alan J. (Jim) Hanley was a cartoonist who had a most appealing style inspired by the early Fawcett Comics and C.C. Beck, with some Walt Kelly thrown in. Hanley was not only a talented cartoonist, he had a social conscience and incorporated it into his Goodguy character, the star of his fanzine, Alan Hanley’s Comic Book.

In this strip, which ran for seven weeks in the mid-'70s in weekly two-page installments of The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom, Hanley's satiric target was the trend toward more violence in the comic books, represented by Conan. His humor is never acerbic or bitter, but he makes his point.

Hanley died tragically in a car crash at age 42 in 1980. When I looked up Hanley for this blog the first listing I found for him was my own from 2008. You can read it here in Pappy's #258. It includes a tribute from his friend, cartoonist Jim Engel.

Eddie Eddings is another cartoonist who impressed me with his very funny strips in The Buyer’s Guide, also in the mid-'70s, and in this instance, also satirizing Conan the Barbarian. Eddie is still as funny as ever. He has a religious blog, Calvinistic Cartoons. Even if you’re a heathen like me you can enjoy it for Eddie’s sense of humor.