Comments on: Neal Adams on Ira Schnapp

By: Todd’s Blog » Blog Archive » SCHNAPP, DONENFELD and the PULPS Part 1

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:02:22 +0000

[...] Second, in my continuing explorations into the work of logo designer and letterer Ira Schnapp, I’m hoping to discover or at least guess at some of the work he did for Donenfeld’s pulps, which were, I believe, his entree into Donenfeld’s comics. He began working for those comics as a freelancer in 1940, first refining Joe Shuster’s Superman logo, then doing other freelance logos, and finally becoming the staff logo, cover lettering and house ad man for what became DC Comics from about 1949 to 1968. His work on the pulps is undocumented, and I’ll be focusing on the logos and cover lettering of the pulps to see what I think might have been Schnapp’s work. I’m heavily indebted to research help from fellow logo designer Alex Jay. In addition to new research, I’ll be using some of what Alex covered in his blog post about Ira Schnapp HERE, and in my post where artist Neal Adams talked about Schnapp HERE. [...]

By: Todd

Todd — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:01:11 +0000

Interesting to know, thanks.

By: Steven R

Steven R — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 16:56:57 +0000

When Schnapp first came to the USA, pre-1910, Hollywood was still fairly new in film production, and it didn’t become the leading area for US film production until 1915. Indeed, pre-1914 the USA was lagging behind the French in film production and sales, even sales in the USA. French studios had plants for film reproduction in the NY-NJ area, and it’s possible that they might have had english titles done here as well.

By: Todd

Todd — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:06:45 +0000

Thanks, I’ll correct the date.

By: Red Oak Kid

Red Oak Kid — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 14:35:42 +0000

Great blog about Schnapp. Being a Neal Adams nerd I had to comment on the Neal Adams photo. A larger version of this appeared in Comic Book Marketplace #56. I could see the Ben Casey daily he is holding and was able to ID it as the 10th installment of the strip which appeared on Dec. 6, 1962. I believe this photo was a promotional photo taken in the Syndicate’s office to introduce the artist of their new strip to readers. So it was probably made in late 62 or early 63.

thanks

By: Rodrigo Baeza

Rodrigo Baeza — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 13:32:43 +0000

Great post, glad to see more info about Ira Schnapp’s life and work.

I didn’t know that Adams had lettered his “Ben Casey” strips. I believe at least some of those strips were lettered by Irv Watanabe, who I assume is the “old master” Adams is referring to at the beginning of this post.