'Gamin and Patches' (8 February 1988) by Mort Walker (Addison) and Bill Janocha.
Bill Janocha is an American cartoonist and comic historian. Since 1987, he has worked as an assistant for Mort Walker and his son on the newspaper comic 'Beetle Bailey'. With Walker, he also co-created the short-lived gag comic and 'Gamin and Patches' (1987-1988). In 1997, Janocha penned two episodes of the gag comic 'Spy vs. Spy' in Mad. He enjoys additional fame as a comic historian, having contributed his knowledge to museums, specialized comic magazines, books and exhibitions.
Early life and career
William Janocha was born in 1959 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1967, he moved a hundred miles northeast to Newark. In March 1974, Janocha visited News Journal cartoonist Jack Jurden in his office, marking his first meeting with a professional cartoonist. At Jurden's instigation, Janocha took the Famous Artists correspondence course, where aspiring artists receive drawing assignments through mail to hone their graphic skills.
Between 1977 and 1981, Janocha studied at Syracuse University, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. For seven months, between January and July 1982, he was an inker at Walt Disney Productions. Between March 1986 and April 1987, he worked as storyboard and character design artist for the Broadcast Arts studio in New York. Among his projects for this studio was work on the children's TV show 'Pee-wee's Playhouse' (1986-1990), starring Paul Reubens' comedic alter ego Pee-wee Herman. Other notable artists who collaborated on the show were Gary Panter, Ric Heitzman, Rob Zombie (not yet a shock rock musician at the time) and Wayne White. Janocha also worked on the animated intro of the film 'Who's That Girl' (1987), starring Madonna.
Mort Walker
In April 1987, Janocha was asked by Mort Walker to assist him on his famous military gag-a-day comic 'Beetle Bailey'. Janocha was so enthusiastic that he instantly resigned from his job at Broadcast Arts Studio. Besides assisting both Mort and his son Greg Walker on the 'Beetle Bailey' newspaper comic, he also worked on licensing projects, books, special art and comic books related to America's laziest Army private. Janocha was also storyboard supervisor of the 1989 'Beetle Bailey' TV film. Since then, he has remained a staff artist at Comicana, Inc., continuing 'Beetle Bailey' with Greg Walker after Mort Walker's death in 2018.
Gamin and Patches
Besides 'Beetle Bailey', Janocha also assisted on Mort Walker's newspaper comic 'Gamin and Patches' (1987-1988). It was Walker's only series that was not syndicated by King Features, but instead by United Features. The series debuted on 27 April 1987 and revolved around a homeless boy, Gamin, and his mustached dog Patches. During the comic's creation, Walker had classic literary characters in mind like Hector Malot's 'Rémy', Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist' and Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn', but also happy-go-lucky comic characters such as Frederick Burr Opper's 'Happy Hooligan' and Clarence D. Russell's 'Pete the Tramp'. He assumed Gamin would charm readers in the same way. Unfortunately, the general audience looked at Gamin with pity, more in line with Harold Gray's 'Little Orphan Annie' and Ed Verdier's 'Little Annie Rooney'. Even though Walker kept the tone of his comic happy and carefree, people still couldn't see the comedy in a poor young boy who had to live on the streets, and the series was canceled after a year. Originally, Mort Walker drew all the episodes himself, with assistance from Bill Janocha. He signed them with his pseudonym "Addison" and added a tiny drawing of a walking man next to his signature, as a pun on his last name. Later episodes were ghosted by Janocha alone.
Spy vs. Spy
In 1997, Janocha scripted two gags for Mad Magazine's classic gag comic 'Spy vs. Spy', at the time drawn by Peter Kuper. They ran in issue #357 (May 1997) and #361 (September 1997). He was one of several scriptwriters for Kuper's continuation of this series, other authors being Anna Becker, Jonathan Bresman, Dave Croatto, Duck Edwing and Michael Gallagher.
Comic historian
Janocha is an avid collector of original comic art. Dozens of comics from his personal archives have been donated to the Cartoon Art Museum in Beach Street, San Francisco, and to Syracuse University. Janocha additionally wrote numerous articles about comics for various specialized magazines about comic art, such as Hogan's Alley, Nemo and Comicana. Janocha wrote entries about specific U.S. newspaper comics for Maurice Horn's encyclopedia '100 Years of American Newspaper Comics' (Gramercy, 1996), namely V.T. Hamlin's 'Alley Oop', Johnny Hart's 'B.C.', Russell Myers' 'Broom-Hilda', Edwina Dumm's 'Cap. Stubbs and Tippie', Ray Billingsley's 'Curtis', Lynn Johnston's 'For Better or For Worse', Dik Browne's 'Hi & Lois', George Fett's 'Norbert', Harry Haenigsen's 'Penny', Russ Westover's 'Tillie the Toiler' and Tom K. Ryan's 'Tumbleweeds'.
Janocha was additionally part of the team that picked out images from classic U.S. comics to be used on a 1995 series of official stamps celebrating the 100th anniversary of the American newspaper comic. When Fantagraphics collected all the episodes of Mort Walker and Jerry Dumas' short-lived cult comic 'Sam's Strip' in the 2009 book 'Sam's Strip: The Comic About Comics', Janocha was responsible for the restoration of the artwork.
A 2003 interview by Bill Janocha with Mort Walker can be read in 'Mort Walker: Conversations' (University Press of Mississippi, 2005), edited by Jason White. Janocha is additionally the author of the book 'Birth Of A Beetle. The Magazine Cartoons of Mort Walker' (edited by Daniel Herman, Hermes Press, 2018), which collects gags and art from Walker's early career, before he launched 'Beetle Bailey'.
Bill Janocha caricature for the Stamford Advocate of actor Gene Wilder, who passed away in 2016.
Graphic and written contributions
Janocha is a supporting artist for Team Cul de Sac, a fundraising effort to raise money for and awareness about PD Parkinson's disease. The initiative was launched in honor of Richard Thompson, the creator of the comic strip 'Cul de Sac', who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In 2012, the book 'Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson's' was published. Janocha has made several designs for Slingo's e-greeting cards. His editorial cartoons have appeared in the Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate.
Janocha illustrated a children's book, 'A Most Unusual Farm' (Westbow Press, 2015), written by Phyllis Skigen. When editorial cartoonist Jack Jurden passed away in 2015, Janocha wrote a personal tribute. In 2019, Janocha also made a graphic tribute to celebrate the 90th anniversary of E.C. Segar's 'Popeye'.
Recognition
In 1996, Bill Janocha was honored by the National Cartoonists Society with a Silver T-Square Award. This prize is handed out to people who've demonstrated outspoken dedication or service to the comics medium, or the National Cartoonists Society itself.
'Gamin and Patches' by Mort Walker (Addison) and Bill Janocha.