Last week it was revealed that Bret Blevins is the guest artist spelling Mike Manley on The Phantom comic strip while Mike fights his own battle with an undisclosed illness.
The Phantom writer Tony DePaul confirmed that Bret is the artist today on his blog:
© King Features Syndicate
The news is out that my friend Mike Manley is on the DL…
…Two long-time artist friends of his have stepped in to pick up the work while Mike’s on the mend. They’re doing a great job with unfamiliar material, under the tightest deadlines ever, and not only getting the work out the door but gaining time as they go. That’ll give Mike a comfortable buffer to work with once he’s back at the drawing board…
So, many thanks to Bret Blevins, and a colleague whose name I won’t mention until he or someone else makes it public…
As Tony writes: “They’re doing a great job with unfamiliar material, under the tightest deadlines ever.” Of course the snarkers at Comics Kingdom couldn’t care less about the circumstances the guest artists were facing when lending a hand to Mike.
Reliable sources have informed The Daily Cartoonist that Scott Cohn is the “long-time friend” who took over the art chores on Judge Parker.
© North America Syndicate
It appears to my old eyes that the Judge Parker strip has been a combination of new art and digitally manipulated Mike Manley art to get a jump on the “dreaded deadline doom.” That should end soon. (already?)
With the next major American holiday Scott will begin signing the daily strips, and the Sundays a couple weeks after that.
above: Scott Cohn by Mike Manley
As for Mike – Tony says in a response to his blog:
He’s got challenging days ahead but we texted back & forth a bit this morning, his spirits seem good.
Also – Looking up that quote about Mike shows that Tony now confirms Scott as the Judge Parker artist:
Well now the cat’s officially out of the bag… Yes, it’s Scott Cohn.
Hi, I am really disgusted with the drawings that are recently appearing in the comic strip Judge Parker. I do not like the complete change in the look of the characters…
If the artist does not know how to draw the original strip , why was he or she hired? I will stop reading the strip if it continues with this caricature of people…they look as sticks figures drawn by a child..
Thanks
It looks like these long running comic strips would hire a new artist that would keep up the former artists way of featuring the characters as they always were. This new Judge Parker artist makes the characters look sick! Please help him!
Compared to the huge changes in recent years (for the worse, in my opinion) of the artwork for HEART OF THE CITY and MARK TRAIL, the new style in JUDGE PARKER seems to me not much of an issue. But of course your mileage may vary.