The other day, Night Owl left a comment that Jack Davis, who I had mentioned doing the art for some non-sport cards that Topps put out in 1959, also worked on the 1960 and 1962 Topps baseball sets. I did not know that!
Here is a link to some auctions featuring original baseball card art by Davis, including the Sammy Drake I had mentioned in the '62 set, one of the rare sets where Topps actually portrayed Black players like Drake looking like they looked in real life. It seems that there is not a lot of reliable information about who drew the backs on most vintage Topps sets. I did find one article that says that some of the art from the 1960 set, including Carl Yastrzemski's rookie card, was by comic book legend Jack Kirby, who was looking for work at the time. Apparently if you buy the book referred to in the article, it says which other '60 cards were drawn by one of the most famous comic book artists of all time.
I did see one unsubstantiated reference to Jack Davis doing the cartooning for the '66 set. I'm not good enough at identifying artists to tell if it is true, but there were lots of interesting cartoons I found in my collection of '66's.
Self-hypnotism? I'd like to see someone do that.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard about Jack Kirby doing art for baseball card backs before. Part of me wants to say it's hooey, and wonders if there's any mention from him about doing it, before I'd be inclined to believe it.
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