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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132134
Posted: 16 March 2023 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Thru my early teens I was often exposed to those “We’re looking for people who like to draw” correspondence art school ads in the comics I read. One of the people fronting these pieces was Albert Dorne, whose name I knew only thru those ads.

Today, thru the magic of the interweb, I decided to look him up. Damn! Guy was GOOD.

Worth a google!

(Sadly, he died in 1965, aged 59, just around the time these ads were running.)

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Doug Centers
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Joined: 17 February 2014
Location: United States
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Posted: 16 March 2023 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

REALLY GOOD!
Yes, I've seen that ad many, many times. Along with the Norman Rockwell one.
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Rick Senger
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
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Posted: 17 March 2023 at 7:30am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I concur. Can’t even guess how many beat up 1960s reader comics I
bought with that back cover ad…. I wonder if many artists were really
‘discovered’ through it. Always assumed the test was some sort of money
making come on but given Dorne’s talents, maybe I was being overly
cynical.
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 17 March 2023 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Looking at his art, he certainly seemed to know his drapery. Also seemed to have a tendency for having people shove their butts out, for some reason. But very good art; nice synthesis of having a clear comic-type style but also looking realistic.
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132134
Posted: 17 March 2023 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

The husband of one of my mother's friends signed up for one of these correspondence art courses when I was in my middle teens. I don't know if it was the one Dorne promoted, but it seemed like a bit of a scam. Al (the would be artist) received regular instruction thru the mail, and completed many tests. but somehow never quite seemed to get any further along than the next level. "Graduation" seemed not an option.

As far as I know, he did not attain a career in art.

(This guy had an interesting backstory. He'd been in the Luftwaffe as a young man, and had in fact become a bombadier. He had a whole album of aerial photos of cities, especially Paris, taken from the nose of a Heinkel. His plane was shot down over the Russian front after he had been in the service only six months, and he spent the rest of the War, more than five years, in a Soviet POW camp. Not fun.)

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Rebecca Jansen
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Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
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Posted: 18 March 2023 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I knew of someone who'd responded to one of those "Draw Me" contests/ads, and then not winning free enrollment signed up and paid for for the correspondence course. I got a couple of the lessons booklets handed down! Some actual person somewhere marked up the work she'd returned and gave advice directly written on the art exercise/paper. That person dropped out pretty quickly though and I think there was a bit of an aura of having bought the equivalent of Sea-Monkeys, but the instruction booklets were okay, pretty basic stuff. You could buy a book anywhere by John Hamm or others with the same kinds of lessons. I was mad she/I didn't get something more on perspective which I really fought to comprehend when I thought there was some great secret to it that I hadn't found.
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