Jim Scancarelli: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 00:35, 24 April 2012
| Jim Scancarelli | |
|---|---|
 Jim Scancarelli at the Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, Virginia (August 14, 2010) | |
| Born | James Scancarelli August 24, 1941 New York City, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist, Writer, Penciller, Artist, Inker, Letterer, Colourist |
Notable works | Gasoline Alley |
| Awards | National Cartoonists Society Story Comic Strip Award for 1988 |
James Scancarelli (born August 24, 1941), known professionally as Jim Scancarelli, is an American musician and cartoonist. Since 1986, he has been writing and drawing the syndicated comic strip Gasoline Alley for Tribune Media Services. In that role, his predecessors were Frank King, Bill Perry and Dick Moores.[1]
Early life
Born in New York City, Scancarelli is the son of an archivist for the Italian embassy. When he was still an infant, his family moved to his mother's home state of North Carolina.[2]
After serving in the U.S. Navy, he went into radio and television, including a position as art director for The Johnny Cash Show, creating scenery and writing cue cards. Scancarelli had a successful career as a freelance magazine illustrator, and he did slide transparency art until computers made that job obsolete.[3]
Gasoline Alley
Scancarelli says his deep appreciation for comics was cultivated during childhood visits to his grandfather's house. His grandfather read the strips to him and pointed out details in each panel. His earliest comic strip recollection is of Gasoline Alley. He now lives in that same house and notes, "Little did I know that 50 years later I’d be working on the comic strip in the next room."[4]
Scancarelli spoke about EC Comics and his other early influences in a 1997 interview with Jeffrey Lindenblatt:
- The first things I really got enamored with were Foster’s Prince Valiant, Li’l Abner, Roy Crane. Crane still sticks with me a lot. But the guys who hit me over the head hardest, when I got to be 13 years old, were Wally Wood, Jack Davis and Bill Elder on Mad. They were phenomenal! I couldn’t believe anyone could draw like that... I remember picking up an EC comic, Weird Science or Weird Fantasy, and Wally Wood drew some of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen—in spacesuits, or almost spacesuits—I couldn’t believe anyone could render planets and moons and space vehicles with this degree of realism. It drove me crazy, and I would sit around and try to draw stuff like that. I think then my mother prohibited me from reading EC for a while. Then Mad came along, and I would try to copy that stuff. A little bit of Davis rolled off, a little bit of Wood.[4]
Scancarelli began his professional association with Gasoline Alley as an assistant to Dick Moores in 1979. Moores sent him the strips fully penciled with the faces inked, and Scancarelli would finish the inking. Although other artists had auditioned for the role, Scancarelli claims his advantage was that he was "the only one who read the strip and knew the characters."
When Moores died in 1986, Scancarelli succeeded him as creator.[4] In 1988, Scancarelli created a sequence wherein Walt Wallet made copies of the Wallet Family Tree. Walt then broke the fourth wall and offered a copy to each reader who sent a self-addressed stamped envelope. It was Scancarelli himself who had to fulfill the requests, which numbered almost 100,000, with copies printed at his personal expense.[5]
The strip's lettering is unique in that it uses upper and lower case, although almost all strips follow the tradition of upper case only. Scancarelli also takes the unusual approach of combining continuity storylines with daily gags. He is the strip's sole creator, as he explained to Lindenblatt:
- I do love it. The deadlines are the only thing I don’t love about it... Dick Moores used to say that if he didn’t have the strip, he’d be dead. The bad thing is, he did have the strip, and he did die... Once in a while, Mark Cohen will write a poem or give me an idea for a Sunday page, but I do the rest of it. I stare at a blank sheet of paper and come up with it.[4] Cohen died in 1999. Scancarelli remembered Cohen with a 2009 Sunday page tribute.[6]
Having also collaborated with NCS president George Breisacher on Mutt and Jeff, Scancarelli became the only cartoonist to be involved with two strips on their 75th anniversaries.[7]
Bluegrass musician
Scancarelli is a well-known bluegrass fiddler and founder of the Kilocycle Kowboys.[8] Recordings of his fiddle and banjo playing reside in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.[9] He was a prizewinner at the Old Fiddler's Convention, an event held annually in Galax, Virginia.[10]
Model railroader
Scancarelli is an accomplished model railroader and model builder. His HO scale Cliffside Railroad is a detailed tribute to the North Carolina railroad of the 1930s-40s.[11]
Awards, service and recognition
Scancarelli received the 1988 National Cartoonists Society's Story Comic Strip Award. Since the "Newspaper Comic Strips (Humor)" Category (created in 1957) and the "Newspaper Comic Strips (Story)" Category (created in 1960) were combined in 1989, Scancarelli was the last winner of the separate story strip awards.
Scancarelli felt that Skeezix Wallet's fictional past as a veteran, with Army service from 1942–45, was good reason to support military memorials in the daily strip. In 2000, Scancarelli brought attention to construction of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. by having the characters Skeezix and Nina laud the project in the strip. Beginning January 11, 2010, he increased awareness of the proposed National Museum of the United States Army with seven weeks of continuity based on the topic.[12] The Foundation responded by compiling a “Sgt. Wallet” entry in the Museum’s Registry of the American Soldier.[13]
Hogan's Alley hailed Scancarelli's "passionate devotion to his craft, and to the heritage of cartooning" in "one of the comics’ most venerable institutions." Comics historian Maurice Horn praised him as "very capable and creative" and credited him with "some of the prettiest artwork in semi-straight humorous cartooning," while also noting Scancarelli's efforts to include more minorities in the strip.[5]
References
- ^ http://www.lib.msu.edu/comics/rri/srri/sb.htm
- ^ Railfan & Railroad. Carstens Publications, v. 16, p. 63, 1997.
- ^ National Cartoonists Society
- ^ a b c d WBAI-FM: Jim Scancarelli interviewed by Jeffrey Lindenblatt (June 15, 1997)
- ^ a b Horn, Maurice. 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. New York: Gramercy Books, 1996.
- ^ "Gasoline Alley". May 3, 2009.
- ^ Daryl Cagles's Political Cartoonists Index
- ^ Charlotte Folk Society
- ^ American Folklife Center
- ^ Old Fiddler's Convention
- ^ Cliffside Model
- ^ The Army Historical Foundation, News and Events Headlines, Cartoonist Takes Up the Cause (1/5/10)
- ^ U.S. Army, The Registry of the American Soldier
