1. Royston Campbell Crane, who signed his work Roy Crane, was an American cartoonist who created the comic strip characters Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer.
14 Facts About Roy Crane
1. 2.
Roy Crane pioneered the adventure comic strip, establishing the conventions and artistic approach of that genre.
3.
Roy Crane initially attended college at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene and later the University of Texas, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
4.
Roy Crane's early work history was a checkered one, including pitching tents for a Chautauqua, a seaman's berth and a stint riding the rails.
5.
Roy Crane was influenced by the work of cartoonist Ethel Hays, especially in the drawing of women.
6.
In 1924, Crane approached Charles N Landon, an editor at the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
7.
Landon and Roy Crane discussed a strip titled Washington Tubbs II about a diminutive goof employed at a grocery store.
8.
The strip then evolved into a rollicking adventure yarn, with Roy Crane introducing innovations in storytelling, sound effects and layouts, as noted by pop culture historian Tim DeForest:.
9.
NBM Publishing's Flying Buttress Classics Library reprinted Roy Crane's complete run of Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy in a series of 18 volumes.
10.
Roy Crane left Wash Tubbs in the hands of his assistant, Leslie Turner, a boyhood friend who had shared the hobo life with him.
11.
Roy Crane progressed from line drawings with crosshatching to grease pencil on textured paper, then to Benday Dots and finally to Craftint Doubletone Paper.
12.
Roy Crane progressively relinquished his cartooning to assistants, and he died in Orlando, Florida in 1977.
13.
Roy Crane was awarded the National Cartoonists Society's Billy DeBeck Memorial Award, later renamed the Reuben Award, for Cartoonist of the Year in 1950, and their Story Comic Strip Award in 1965, both for Buz Sawyer.
14.
Roy Crane was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin in 1969.