'Sleepin' Lena' (Merry-Go-Round Comics, 1945)
Erich F.T. Schenk was a German-American painter, animation background director and children's book illustrator. For a brief period in 1943-1945, he was also a comic artist. He drew funny animal stories for Pines Publishing (Happy Comics, Coo Coo Comics) and the American Comics Group (Ha Ha Comics, Merry-Go-Round Comics). Graphically, they stand out for their unusually realistic style, which gives his comics a dreamlike quality and makes him one of the oddballs in the medium. He should not be confused with Austrian musicologist Erich Schenk (1902-1974).
Life and career
Erich Frederich Theodore Schenk was born around 1901 in Leipzig, Germany. In 1928, he immigrated to New York City, where he worked as a background director for the Fleischer Brothers animation studios in Florida, contributing to series like 'Betty Boop' and 'Popeye' (based on E.C. Segar's creation). When the studio moved to Miami, Florida in 1938, Schenk did the same. There, he helped out with the Fleischers' feature-length animated film 'Gulliver's Travels' (1939). When the studio went bankrupt in 1941, Schenk left.
Schenk was also the illustrator of a children's book called 'The Adventures of Salty Sam' (1944) by H. Virgil Wylie and Rita Grossman, and active as a watercolor and flower painter. He passed away in 1955 in Miami, Florida.
'Silas Skinflint' (Ha Ha Comics #3, December 1943)
Comics career
In the mid-1940s, Schenk was active as a comic book artist for the Sangor Studios. He contributed the story 'Gloomy Goose' to Happy Comics (Pines Publishing, August 1943) and 'Bill Buttinsky' to Coo Coo Comics (November 1943). For the American Comics Group, he drew 'Silas Skinflint', printed in Ha Ha Comics #3 (December 1943), while in Merry-Go-Round Comics (1945), three stories by him can be found, namely two with the title 'Sleepin' Lena' and one titled 'Blowhard'. All stories are funny animal comics, with 'Sleepin' Lena' being the only character he used twice. Lena is a puss who works various jobs, only to fall asleep during working hours and get fired afterwards. Her dreams give leeway to highly imaginative and sometimes nightmarish fantasy sequences, obviously inspired by Winsor McCay's work.
Contrary to most of his contemporaries in the genre, Schenk didn't use a cartoony design for his anthropomorphic animals, but rendered them in a realistic style. This naturalistic approach gives his stories a peculiar and surreal atmosphere. His dynamic, beautifully detailed but time consuming style might also explain why he left the comic industry after these handful of stories.
Legacy
For many decades, Schenk's comics were forgotten, but in the Internet Age they have been rediscovered by fans of old comic books. Their oddity makes them stand out among the more formulaic funny animal comics from that same era.
'Blowaway', Merry-Go-Round, 1945.