I say "flip through it" because I never actually bothered to stop and read anything in Jack and Jill. Nothing of interest there to this 10-year-old Marvel Comics fanatic.But to this 42-year-old classic illustration fanatic, Jack and Jill magazine is suddenly very interesting - mainly because this Hallowe'en issue from 1962 contains a story illustrated by "H. Tom Hall". Could this Tom Hall be that Tom Hall?
Certainly the style is similar ( dare I say "generic"?) enough to have been done by the same artist - but let's face it, there could have been several artists named "Tom" and "Hall" working in the commercial art industry at any given point in time.
Still, I've noticed that quite a few mainstream magazine illustrators who had more than enough ad industry work in the 50's started producing children's book and textbook art in the 60's, when their traditional markets were in decline.Want to take a closer look so you can draw your own conclusions? Go to my Tom Hall Flickr set and click the "All Sizes" tab above each image.
"Spook Skool"? Must be the CIA's training academy! :~)
ReplyDeleteThe Jack and Jill illustrations were done by H.Tom Hall, my granddad, he didn't do any of the others on this page. He used the H infront of his name because there was another Tom Hall before him.
ReplyDeleteThe illustrations in "Halloween Tiger" are the same style as H. Tom Hall's work in the 1967 children's book "Let's Catch a Monster" by Ann Herbert Scott. Another Halloween story, it has quite lovely artwork which inspired me to find out more about this talented artist!
ReplyDeleteIn fact, "Let's Catch" is like a missing link between the advertisements on your Flickr page and "Tiger". They are ink drawings with a similar feel to the Jack and Jill story, but have the finer details and facial features of the advertisements.
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