JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 199
The Empty and Blank Thread continues, this time focusing on the blank and empty skies of three cartoon strips from the first few decades of that medium.
The first of these empty skies comes from the beloved creator of the Harold and the Purple Crayon series, Crockett Johnson (the pen name of David Johnson Leisk,1906-1975) in his comic strip, Barnaby, which ran from 1942-1952 and 1960-1962. It was an advanced comic for kids, I think, detailing the adventures of five-year-old Barnaby and his tubby, stubby, stoggie-munching fairy godparent, Mr. O'Malley. Johnson's lines were very simple but very supple, taking up a lot of space for its characters and the foregrounds he chose to draw--he just captured a great amount of space with minimal effort, like a good GO player. The backgrounds were, by-and-large, almost entirely blank, but seemed to fit in perfectly, given the fact that there was also very little detail in what he did draw, making for a mostly-white drawn-upon surface.
On the other hand, the skies and backgrounds of Gerorge Herriman's
fantastic Krazy Kat were often featureless, but were also quite dark,
many time just jet black. When I was a kid I found the skies
scary--somehow they shook the characters "loose" (whatever that
means)--and even now, even though I find the KK concepts marvelous, I
still find that the backgrounds leave me a little disjointed.
Herriman's (1880-1944) comic, which started in 1913 and ran through the
1930's, appeared generally in black and white, though the full flavor
of the creation is best seen in the color publications from the Hearst
newspapers. There was generally not a spec of detail above the
horizon, unless there was a mountain stuck to it. Occasionally there
would be a tiny blotch of a cloud in a flat black (or some contrasty
color) sky, which I found and find still very unnerving. 
Thirdly is the strip Hejji by our old friend Theordore Geisel (1904-1991), best known as Dr. Seuss (Geisel would use his mother's name, Seuss, which would've been pronounced "zoice", like the great German geologist, but reverted to "soos" for easier consumption by American kids.) It was an early effort by the good doctor, and appeared in the Sunday comic section of teh Hearst chain for about half a year in 1935. ("Beyond jagged peaks lies the Land of Baako — hidden — unknown. Shut off from our world by mountains so high that most birds cannot fly them. Only the Baakinese eagle can soar so high. He has to taxi others across!"was the introduction to the series.) Here too the cartoonscape ends at the horizon, with almost nothing, blankness, above. The absence of everything from the sky further heightened the strip's unusual nature,and to me just calls out for attention for all of the stuff that's missing.
Later on I'll take a look at some monumental examples of black and empty backgrounds, like Juan Sanchez Cotan and Leonardo, but today let's just end with Dr. Seuss. .
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