'Robin Malone'.
Bob Lubbers was an American comic artist, especially known for his "good girl art". He began his career in the comic book industry during the so-called "Golden Age of Comic Books", drawing for companies like Centaur Publishing and Fiction House. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, he worked on many syndicated newspaper comics, including 'Tarzan' (1950-1954), 'Secret Agent X-9' (1960-1967) and his own creation, 'Robin Malone' (1967-1970). Lubbers was also notable as an assistant of Al Capp. He drew the hillbilly humor comic 'Long Sam' (1954-1962) for him and, between 1958 and 1977, assisted on his signature series 'Li'l Abner'.
Early life
Robert Bartow Lubbers was born in 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. As a student at Manhasset High School, he played the trombone in the school band. Lubbers started drawing for his high school newspaper at Manhasset and designed the school mascot - the Manhasset High School Indian - which is still used today on the band's drum logo. Later, at the Art Students League in New York City, one of his teachers was painter George Bridgman. He attended the school during the day and played in a big band in the evenings. Among his graphic influences were the cartoonists Alex Raymond, Hal Foster and Ray Van Buren, as well as the illustrators Albert Dorne, George Bridgman and Matt Clark.
Cover illustrations for Ranger Comics issue #42, 10 August 1948, and Wings Comics issue #82, June 1947.
Early career
In the late 1930s, Wright's Hardware commissioned Lubbers to make a weekly cartoon for the newspaper the Manhasset Mail. He started to work in the upcoming comic book industry at age eighteen, together with his pal Stan Drake. He sold his first feature about "daring adventurer and soldier of fortune" 'Reef Kinkaid' to Centaur Publishing. Between May 1940 until May 1941, it became a regular feature in the company's title Amazing Man Comics issues #12 through 22. He also drew covers and stories for the short-lived title 'The Arrow' (1940-1941), and appeared in Stars and Stripes Comics, Liberty Scouts Comics, C-M-O Comics and Man of War Comics with features like 'Liberty Scouts' and 'Red Riley' until Centaur went out of business in 1942.
'Firehair', from Rangers Comics #38 (December 1947).
Fiction House & other 1940s-1950s comic book publishers
By 1942, Lubbers was employed by Fiction House, where he served as art director. At this point, he dropped his activities as a musician. He contributed to mostly patriotic war-oriented comic books like Fight Comics ('Rip Carson'), Wings Comics ('Captain Wings and the Hell-Diver Squadron') and Rangers Comics ('U.S. Rangers', 'Firehair'). The young artist was called to war in 1943 and served in the United States Air Force Air Transport Command until the end of World War II in 1945. Back in civilian life, Lubbers resumed his post at Fiction House and continued most of his features in Rangers Comics and Wings Comics. He also appeared in Jungle Comics ('Captain Terry Thunder', 'Camilla') and Movie Comics. Lubbers' tenure with Fiction House lasted until 1950. Other post-war comic book work included a couple of stories in 'Adventures into the Unknown' for the American Comics Group (1949-1950), romance stories for Pines and Lev Gleason (1949-1950), the 'Vigilante' feature in three issues of DC's Action Comics (1949) and some covers for St. John Publishing (1948-1950). Besides comic stories, he also stood out for his cover illustrations featuring good-looking women.
'Tarzan'.
Tarzan
By 1950, Lubbers shared a studio with Stan Drake and John Celardo, and switched from comic books to newspaper comics. He was employed by United Feature Syndicate, where he initially worked on the 'Tarzan' newspaper comic from July 1950 through August 1954. He succeeded Nick Cardy on the daily strip, and Burne Hogarth on the Sunday page. Lubbers later admitted he was only familiar with cartoonist Hal Foster and movie actor Johnny Weissmuller's work with the jungle hero, and never read any of Edgar Rice Burroughs' original novels. He and writer Dick Van Buren managed to fill their stories with a lot of action, jungle animals, colorful backgrounds and exotic girls. In 1954, 'Tarzan' was continued by Lubbers' studio mate John Celardo.
'Long Sam'.
Long Sam and Li'l Abner
On 31 May 1954, Lubbers was assigned art duties on a new comic series scripted by Al Capp, titled 'Long Sam', syndicated by United Features. Set in the Deep South, Long Sam is a pretty young woman who was raised far away from civilisation, making her very uninformed about the outside world. Her mother, 'Maw’, is a misandrist who believes all men are obnoxious and dangerous. She shields her daughter away from them, but once the young woman discovers the existence of an opposite sex, she desperately wants to go outside her village. Being sheltered for so long, Long Sam is very naïve and often falls in love with every man she meets, while being oblivious to how many other men lust after her. This leads to witty misunderstanding and other shenanigans.
The prime selling point of 'Long Sam’ is the gorgeous artwork. Lubbers was an expert in graphically rendering pretty young girls, giving the series a sensual undertone. Nevertheless, it couldn’t be denied that the comic’s main premise was very similar to Capp's signature comic 'Li’l Abner’. Instead of a naïve male hillbilly living with a feisty mother, 'Long Sam’ starred a naïve female hillbilly, living with a mother who looked exactly like Mammy Yokum from 'Li’l Abner’. While in 'Li’l Abner’, young women chase after naïve, reluctant males, in 'Long Sam’, it’s the opposite situation. Capp had actually used a character very similar to Long Sam in 'Li’l Abner’, namely Cynthia Hound-Baskerville A.K.A. Strange Gal, who lived in an isolated swamp with her overprotective, man-hating mother and became oversaturated with men once she left her home. Capp quickly passed the scriptwriting of 'Long Sam’ to his brother Elliot Caplin. Stuart Hample was a ghost writer on the series for a while, but by the turn from the 1950s into the 1960s, Lubbers himself took care of the plots. ‘Long Sam’ was discontinued on 29 December 1962. Lubbers continued to work with Capp in the 1960s and 1970s as an assistant on 'Li'l Abner'.
'Long Sam'.
Comics work in the late 1950s and early 1960s
During a couple of months in 1959, Lubbers additionally drew the newspaper comic based on Leslie Charteris' antihero 'The Saint' for the New York Herald-Tribune, succeeding John Spranger. He did ghost work on several strips for King Features Syndicate, such as John Cullen Murphy's 'Big Ben Bolt', and Frank Godwin's 'Rusty Riley' after the latter had passed away in 1959. In March 1960, he succeeded Mel Graff as writer and artist of the 'Secret Agent X-9' detective comic, originally created by Alex Raymond and Dashiell Hammett in 1934. Lubbers drew the comic under the pseudonym "Bob Lewis", and was succeeded by Al Williamson in January 1967.
'Secret Agent X-9'.
Robin Malone
On 19 March 1967, Lubbers launched his own comic strip, in which he could fully showcase his talent for drawing sexy girls. The main character was the beautiful and voluptuous 'Robin Malone'. The series was distributed through the News Enterprise Association. Lubbers got assistance on the writing from Paul S. Newman (1967) and Stuart Hample (1967-1970), while Mike Peppe and Tex Blaisdell participated in the artwork during a couple of weeks. In a mix of exotic backgrounds, adventure and melodrama, Lubbers and his writers told the story of an independent career woman who had just lost her husband. By 1968, the comic changed its tone to more humorous and satirical storylines, although in 1969 the Sunday page returned to drama, when it shifted focus to Robin's secretary Jo.
'Robin Malone' 1969.
Although Malone was presented as a strong independent woman, by modern standards the strip would be deemed sexist. Especially the 1968 storyline in which the villainess Victoria Eagle forces Robin to run for President probably alienated much of the female readership. The main goal of the "Femocratic" party is making men vote for it by having their wives threaten them with withdrawing their sexual favors. Despite Lubbers' talented artwork, 'Robin Malone' was not picked up by many papers. The final storyline involved the return from the dead of Robin's amnesia-suffering husband Mike. The strip of 11 March 1970 ended with Mike attacking Robin on a rooftop, which resulted in a major cliffhanger. An unidentified character falls down, but it was never revealed who he or she eventually was, since the syndicate had dropped the strip. Lubbers later admitted to researcher Tom Heintjes that the car pattern on the road contained a hidden message, revealing that Robin had indeed died together with her strip. It must be said however that the syndicate offered some alternate versions of this final strip to newspapers, which show Robin's survival. Other papers even printed rectifications clarifying that Mike died and Robin lived on happily ever after.
The final 'Robin Malone' strip of 1970, with Lubbers' hidden message. The cars read "R.I.P., R.M.".
Work in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s
In 1967, Lubbers made his return to comic books in 1967 with a story published in Gold Key's 'The Twilight Zone' ('The Crime-a-Day Town' in #19). Between 1978 and 1979, Lubbers briefly drew for the Marvel titles 'The Defenders' and 'The Human Fly'. But by then, he mostly concentrated on other artistic disciplines. He specialized in drawing storyboards for television ad agencies, and retired in 1989.
Recognition
In 1998, Lubbers was awarded with the Yellow Kid prize at Rome's Expo Cartoon Festival, and in 2002 received an Inkpot Award. Later in life, he also created crossword puzzles for the Creator's Syndicate, printed in Newsday and the New York Times Sunday puzzle. In 1995, he even won the award for 'Best Sunday Crossword'.
Final years and death
Lubbers remained closely involved with his hometown Manhasset, a small hamlet on the North Shore of Long Island, and wrote many nostalgic articles for the Manhasset Press. Many of Lubbers' 1940s 'Captain Wings' and 'Rio Rita' stories were reprinted in comic books published by the independent label AC in 1994-1996, for which Lubbers provided new cover art. He passed away in his sleep on 8 July 2017, at the age of 95.
'The Human Fly' #17, 31 December 1978.
Legacy
Although he has not become a household name among comic fans, Bob Lubbers has been praised for his "Good Girl Art". Especially in Italy, where his work was collected in the 100-page 'Glamour International: The Good Girl Art of Bob Lubbers' in 2001.
Bob Lubbers.