Digital Comic Museum

General Category => Comic Related Discussion => Topic started by: darwination on March 13, 2014, 10:38:24 PM

Title: Worth Carnahan
Post by: darwination on March 13, 2014, 10:38:24 PM

Hey Gang,

I'm doing a little research on a blog post for a 1926 magazine called Spice O Life that was mostly and profusely illustrated by Worth Carnahan partly inspired by an inquiry from a descendant.  I've seen Carnahan's illustrations in Joey Burten's pubs from around this time (Follies, Follies Quarterly) and then more work he did on some of Harry Donenfeld's early entries into the girlie pulp field. In 1933, he published his own girlie pulp title called Wild Cherries though I haven't actually seen a copy.

David Saunders has a bio up here with art examples:
http://www.pulpartists.com/Carnahan.html

Saunder's bio says he went to work for Adolphe Barreaux's advertising agency (it doesn't say when) who is probably best remembered for his Sally the Sleuth strip, but he also apparently managed other artists in addition to his own work in an art agency.  His bio at David Saunders site seem to suggest that Harry Donenfeld held a controlling interest in that agency:
http://www.pulpartists.com/Barreaux.html

Anyways, the GCD gives Carnahan publishing credits thusly
http://www.comics.org/publisher/7618/

His individual GCD issue credits seem to show him sharing editing work on Champion with Barreaux:
http://www.comics.org/credit/name/worth%20carnahan/sort/alpha/

There's an interview in Comic Book Marketplace 71, where Carnahan's daughter, Cynthia Woody, says he ran his publishing outfit out of his apartment and that Bilbara Publishing, Hit Publishing, and Worth Publishing were all owned by him and that Worth and Charles Quinlan were partners on the books.

Seeing Barreaux as the associate editor on the issue credit for Champion Comics - I have to wonder, is there a probability that Champion was bankrolled by Donenfeld?  The GCD says there is likely a Leo Greenwald/PDC connection.  Just curious whether anyone knows how Carnahan ever so briefly got into publishing... (Artists included in the GCD indexes perhaps point to it being Donenfeld related, - H.L. Parkhurst, Henry Kiefer, Carnahan, all worked for the Barreaux agency - maybe it was Barreaux's undertaking - or maybe Carnahan was giving artists he knew work)  Just looking for any info on Carnahan as publisher.

Please excuse if we've pondered this elsewhere...

Beau

PS if any of you scanners out there have any issues of Wild Cherries, I'd love to see a scan....

Title: Re: Worth Carnahan
Post by: Bob Hughes on March 18, 2014, 09:13:19 PM

It's all murky as heck.  Barreux had an art studio usually called Majestic (or maybe with a K).  Carnahan worked for or with him and both worked for Donnenfeld's girlie books line.  Irving Manheimer (PDC) was another Donenfeld pal.  There was probably Donenfeld money in all these ventures.

Title: Re: Worth Carnahan
Post by: darwination on March 19, 2014, 07:17:26 AM

Yeah, Bob, murky as heck sounds about right.

This isn't a comic, but I'll go ahead and post the mag that prompted my inquiry.  I'll do an extended blog post at Darwination Scans on the subject in the next week or two.  I really like a lot of Carnahan's drawings in this one:

Spice O' Life v01n01 (1926-04.Harth) (Darwin-DPP)

(http://i.imgur.com/4M9DrdY.jpg)

Here's a rare humor/girlie publication from 1926 featuring extensive illustration from Worth Carnahan who would go on later to produce covers for Harry Donenfeld's early pulp line and then publish a number of comics at the birth of the golden age.  There's no mention of this magazine in my reference books or on the web, and I haven't seen anything else published by Harth.  Interestingly, the printer is listed as Mayflower Publishing in NY that produced seed packets and gardening materials.  The magazine is mostly humor but also features art-deco semi-nudes of chorus girls and the like.  The magazine was printed on pulp paper with a slicker photo section in the middle.  Interestingly, Carnahan and the editor, Warren B. Cody (who I've found no record of yet), share the initials WBC, so there is some possible confusion on some of the attribution (Carnahan was known to sign some of his drawings as WBC as well).  Would love to know if there were any other issues or if this was a one-shot (my suspicion).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30484128@N03/6266997692/

Samples:

(http://i.imgur.com/gIM9oSq.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/hzeflam.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/cTnfb7K.jpg)

scan:

Spice O' Life v01n01 (1926-04.Harth) (Darwin-DPP)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/s1rz5b
Spice O' Life v01n01 (1926-04.Harth) (natural edit) (Darwin-DPP)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qnjehx