'Figments'.
Dale Hale was an American comic artist, best remembered as the second assistant of Charles M. Schulz on the 'Peanuts' comic books. Later in his career, he also wrote comics with Hanna-Barbera characters and he was active as an animator and scriptwriter for animated TV series. Hale created two newspaper gag comics of his own, namely 'Figments' (1971-1976) and, with Patte Wheat LeVan as scriptwriter, 'You're Getting Closer' (1976-1983).
Early life and career
Dale Hale was born in 1933 in Onawa, Iowa. He majored in art at the University of South Dakota and six weeks before his graduation in college, he already went to look for a job. In 1956, he headed for Minneapolis, where he applied for a job at Art Instruction, Inc, where he worked for several years. There, he also met Charles M. Schulz, who was a reviewer for the school's correspondence course.
Peanuts
In the late 1950s, Hale began to work for Schulz on his 'Peanuts' strips. Together with Jim Sasseville, he ghost-penciled and -inked the 'Peanuts' comic books issued by Dell/Western Publishing, but never the newspaper comic strip. In 1959, Sasseville left over a disagreement with Schulz. Hale continued his assistance work until 1960, after which he wanted to move on to other things. Schulz's other assistant, Tony Pocrnick, remained. Dell ended its 'Peanuts' run in 1962, after which new 'Peanuts' comic books appeared in Western's Gold Key comics line, but containing only reprint stories. In 1965, Hale illustrated another 'Peanuts'-related work again, namely a book version based on the animated TV special 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'. He later claimed that his drawings were used as designs for the animated short.
'Ambushed' (from Peanuts #11).
Animation career
In the early 1960s, Hale moved to Santa Monica, where he worked as a technical assistant on the very limited animated TV series 'Clutch Cargo' (1959-1960) by Cambria Productions. He also worked as a gag writer for Friz Freleng's 'Pink Panther' cartoons and the Warner Brothers animated series 'Road Runner' by Chuck Jones. Later in his career, he also worked as a writer on other animated TV shows, of which the most memorable were 'The Real Ghostbusters' (1986-1991), 'Ducktales' (1987-1990) and 'Tiny Toon Adventures' (1990-1992).
Ghost artist for newspaper comics
Hale spent eight years (1965-1973) working for Hanna-Barbera, writing and drawing for daily newspaper comics based on their popular TV shows 'The Flintstones' and 'Yogi Bear', of which the production was overseen by Gene Hazelton. In the mid-1970s, Hale also ghost-drew Kim Casali's romantic one-panel cartoon series 'Love Is...', as her husband was dying from cancer and she was in no mood to draw the comic. However, Hale got tired of the feature after a year and passed the pencil on to Bill Asprey. As Dale explained (interviewed by Tom Heintjes for cartoonician.com, 2012): "I really had a hard time drawing that poorly. Maybe if I draw it with my left hand, it'll look bad enough".
'The Flintstones'.
Figments
On 3 May 1971, Hale created a daily syndicated newspaper comic of his own, 'Figments' (1971-1976). This gag-a-day comic centered around a nameless family and visualized their inner thoughts. It initially got syndicated by the Register & Tribune Syndicate in Iowa, until in 1974 it switched to the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. While Hale claimed 'Figments' ran until 1988, in reality the series ended in 1976 and after that date relied on reprints, syndicated by Manson-Western (1976-1978), Dickson-Bennett (1981-1984), Whitegate Features (1985-1986) and American International (1987-1994).
You're Getting Closer
Hale also drew the one-panel gag cartoon feature 'You're Getting Closer' (1976-1983) for King Features Syndicate. Each episode features an example on how to "get closer" to parent your children into decent people. The lines were written by educator Patte Wheat LeVan.
Later career
Later in life, Hale wrote and illustrated four children's books: 'Couldn't Say No Joe and the Rabbits with Bad Habits', 'Flag Bears', 'A Childen's Book for Adults (Who Forgot A Lot)' and 'Willy's Walk', although it is unknown whether, when or where these were published.. He was also an idea writer for toy companies like Mattel and Revel.
'You're Getting Closer'.