HUMORAMA GAG BY TOM SUTTON-1960

This is a very pleasant addition for me as I have been after a nice Tom Sutton piece for a while.

(My first Sutton!)

Truth be told, I had a horror genre piece in mind at first but this is a piece I didn’t know I needed until I saw it.

Because, like the master he is at the horror genre, Sutton was extremely apt at drawing women. He was often upping the sexiness factor while providing inks on other artists (and sometime asked to town it down by editors), like Romita or Mooney were. I should of course not forget to mention his contribution to the porn genre under his Dementia pseudonym. And while I never had problem with that genre, Dementia’s violent contempt for women was way too much for me. So, THIS fits the sexiness of women perfectly while avoiding the raunchy debasing of his later work.

I love that while respecting the usual Humorama canons of the time, Sutton slightly deviated from them stylistically. I find that the girl is a bit rounder in the legs and he avoided the “pointy horizontal bust” that was so prevalent in, let’s say, Bill Ward by drawing it more realistically despite his cartoony approach. I’ll conclude that there are tons of artists known for drawing sexy women, both old and modern, and yet very very few can draw a women’s chest realistically, in general or within their own stylistic parameters in particular.

Stylistically, I also love many artistic choices Sutton made in this illustration. The unconnecting lines in her hair, blouse and dress, the transparent and moving dress, her pinkish cheeks indicating that she is uncomfortable (a device very commonly used in manga), her ample bust with her right breast clearly fully naked behind her writing board, as indicated by her falling blouse behind it. This is sexy while not showing (too) much. And her angry, uneasy face is pitch perfect imho.

And this is a perfect example of storytelling done within an illustration as one can imagine various scenarios which led to the scene.

You can tell he probably turned this one in very quickly like the workhorse he was but there are so many nice elements to appreciate. A true (unsung) master at work.

Now if I could find a (or several) horror pages from either his Warren, Charlton, DC or Marvel work, I would be ecstatic. I nearly did during the pandemic with a first (and likely last) experience with one of the “dealers” known for his constant shenanigans and it shockingly never materialized.

PS: published in 1960 and reprinted in 1969.