I have noticed that there is still curiosity , actually quite a lot of interest, about my mother’s work. She was Barbara Hall, who, beginning in around 1941, drew for Harvey comics.
She is best known for “Girl Commandos” , with Pat Parker, and for “Honey Blake, the Blonde Bomber.”
She also drew “The Black Cat, “ but we are not sure which stories she worked on. Trina Robbins has looked into my mother’s work quite deeply, and she interviewed her. So she is really the expert, and I’m grateful to her for the spotlight. She has put on Barb’s life and her work.
Barbara’s Barbara's renditions of these comics can often be discerned by the openness of her style of the true joy she takes in drawing pretty girls. There’s also a little more humor in her work in my opinion , than that of Jill Elgin. But Barbara stopped drawing in around 1943, when my father foolishly suggested to her that she stop she fovus on fine art (she painted beautifully in Tempera and especially in soft pastel). She immediately responded to this advice by tearing up $300 worth of pencil art. Hundred dollars’worth of penciled art. That was the end of her relationship with Harvey.
Irving, my father, was horrified. He had not expected her to be so precipitous. He should’ve known! They needed that $300. Many of my cartoonist friends have said what a waste of her abilities this was. This was.
I’m finishing up and finishing up andfinishing up an editing, the first part of a book about my artistic and eccentric family and our weird adventures. I hope to publish part of it fairly soon, and I hope comics people will enjoy it..
If anyone has questions, I could answer a few. Many thanks..
