Renee French has posted samples of a comic strip submitted for syndication by Jack Davis. The comic was entitled Bo Reargard and was about a soldier in the Civil War. Renee opines that the syndicates weren’t interested because, “it was from a Southern point of view and many Northern papers wouldn’t want to carry it.”
Fantastic artwork. The samples aren’t even signed, much less dated. I can’t find anything on the web regarding the strip. From the headline, I’m inferring that it was created around 1963-ish(?).
Well, knowing that Jack Davis was rejected makes me feel better. So did Northern TV stations refuse to run Dukes Of Hazzard?
There’s a great deal of his “Beauregard” material in The Art of Jack Davis book. He drew a month’s worth of strips in pen & ink, (this looks like one of them), then completely re-drew them all using a brush, thinking it made for a more commercial, cartoony look. The McClure syndicate were excited about it and they shopped it around for 4 months before stopping their efforts. They explained they couldn’t sell it in the south because, the editors explained, “We just don’t take the Civil War lightly”.
Sounds as if the Civil War subject was too much for the North AND the South.
Pete, your explanation sounds more likely than the other. Go in any civil war museum in the South and they are still living it. Probably the more impressive story is how the country moved on afterwards (for the most part).
The South’uhn resistance to the strip is ironic, given Davis’ Georgia pedigree.
Still to soon perhaps. 😉