TWO strips, 'I SPY', and slightly later, 'PUSS 'n' BOOTS' cemented their place in my memory, probably because they were totally untypical of the period: when 'PUSS 'n' BOOTS' first arrived, I remember I never held out much hope for it: it appeared clumsily-drawn, and unsure of itself.......which only goes to show: you can't always go by those first impressions.......as far as I can gather, artist JOHN GEERING'S wife prompted him into pursuing a career in cartooning [this was after try-outs as bit-part NORTHERN actor, stand-up comic, and 'DIDDY-MEN '
designer]...........to date, I still cannot locate any JOHN GEERING work that pre-dates 'P+B'. and by all accounts, it was 'SPARKY' editor GEORGE CHISSOLM who gave our JOHN his first break........
For me, it is the back-page colour 'SPARKY' ['69-'73] that yielded the most consistently funny and vital 'PUSS 'n' BOOTS' era;----the relative lack of space to draw in encouraged J. G. to come up with imaginitive compositions and layouts: also the story dept. came up with completely non-typical gags and twists, for the most part........in terms of sheer comic violence, I feel that this strip conveyed the most graphic [painfully-evident wounds, fur literally ripped from the battling pair] depiction of savegary of the period.................I remember, years later, a toughened PARA that I met, stating in all seriousness,about how this strip was ever allowed.
There were SOME familiar elements in this early period, however......the occassional appearance of PUSS and BOOT'S burlier, kilted, even more agressive SCOTTISH relatives; PUSS' young nephew, ['titch/BAGGLE], the little guy with the bowler hat moustache and overcoat, and an often-repeated final frame of P+B being pursued down a suburban street by an entire army...........fantastic stuff,-----early on, the one-upmanship score was fairly even, but increasingly,old PUSS definately came off worse most weeks.........a shame, as I had more sympathy with him for some reason.
In 1973, the strip was awarded double-page status,[a brilliant period cover depicted the battling pair bursting thru' the 'SPARKY' front page]-----and the increased space definately altered the overall look of the finished strip........sure, the violence-level was as high as ever, but it was tempered by WILE E. COYOTE- stlye elaborate gag set-ups, which diffused the overall sense of reality.......the DOUBLE-page spreads often kicked off with brilliant introductorary visual motifs, and the extra space afforded old JOHN-BOY the opportunity to turn out some rather spiffing close-ups which seemed more typical of something turned out by M.G.M. cartoon studios [there was a definate 'TOM and JERRY 'influence]....
However, in the scriptwriting side of things, [JOHN also wrote material,but I ain't sure about this stuff] there was a yawnsome surfeit of over-familiar plot elements [one of the pair in obvious shopkeeper/tradesman guise was repeated ad-finitum]-----which for me, lacked the almost free-form, undisciplined, but much more ALIVE one-page strips of yore. From this point on, PUSS 'n' BOOTS' became simply a comic strip that was beautiful to look at; in earlier incantations, it achievied considerably more than this...
