1 10 3 https://openvalley.org/files/original/f4bcbcac3b8a3387391c4026e8ec8d54.jpg aecb6d6532db9b2c67cffc0b19b5ae5a Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as photograph, map, drawing, painting, etc., and any additional data Comic strip Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 14 x 11 in. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource One of Our Bombers is Missing Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Raboy, Emanuel (Mac) 1914-1967 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943-10-19 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Look Magazine 7.21 (Oct. 19, 1943): 52-53 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg, 597 KB Description An account of the resource Emanuel (Mac) Raboy began his early professional life working in the Federal Art Project's Graphic Art Division, spanning the second half of the 1930s. His high-contrast wood engravings, dramatically composed subjects, expressive bodies, and social concerns eventually led to a very successful career as a comics artist. His first break came in 1942 with <a href="https://www.comics.org/series/306/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Captain Marvel Jr.</a> Raboy's well-regarded work eventually led to his taking on the syndicated Sunday edition of Flash Gordon in 1946, a job he held until his death in 1967.  This short work seems to have elements both of Raboy's amplified social realism and his work in comics. It describes a real-life episode of war--about the crew of a B-17 bomber forced to ditch their plane in the North Atlantic--using the structures of comics. Actions occur across sixteen panels; there are dramatic tracers, explosions, and speed lines; facial expressions match the lift-and-death actions. Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Comic Strip Federal Art Project Mac Raboy World War II https://openvalley.org/files/original/fedc597e3b9d0028fd0641bb6894b439.jpg f0a44252c2f7566a89dfe07a141e1060 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as photograph, map, drawing, painting, etc., and any additional data Color comic strip Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 14 x 10 in. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flash Gordon: The Fire Plain Description An account of the resource Flash Gordon was a comic-strip hero dating to 1934, created by King Features to compete with the successful Buck Rogers series. It ran until 2003 under various artists, for our purposes including Emanuel (Mac) Raboy between 1948 and his death in 1967. Raboy began his working career in the Federal Art project, already developing a visual style in wood engravings that would translate successfully into the comics medium: high-contrast lighting, dramatically composed scenes, and expressive bodies captured in moments of action. Four of those works are in the New Deal Museum collection. Here, we see a typical episode of the Flash Gordon series, where Raboy had to navigate the constraints of small panel size and large blocks of speech balloons. Dramatic tendrils of fire--in red, orange, and yellow--surround the protagonist and his girlfriend Dale Arden. These visual elements contrast with the blues and violets of rocks, one of them hurtling downhill toward them in the last panel, in typical cliffhanger fashion. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Raboy, Emanuel (Mac), 1914-1967 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available King Features Syndicate Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1957-02-03 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Image courtesy of Ken Cooper Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg, 777 KB Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Comic Strip Federal Art Project Flash Gordon Mac Raboy New Deal Gallery https://openvalley.org/files/original/0ea2533508c5b3b3bf1bb27084149359.jpg d4d9cac3bf7d2d7f5cf739712a9238c4 https://openvalley.org/files/original/a417dbb1ae586d8f74b72ecbd7627fe8.jpg 3bfd1732b5efa3f45171b99ae8b214a8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New Deal Gallery Description An account of the resource This collection of more than 200 paintings owes its existence to two primary causes: allocations from the Federal Art Project to a New York state tuberculosis sanatorium located at Mt. Morris--the landscapes and still lifes were thought to be restful--and to the committed volunteers who helped preserve the paintings after the hospital closed. For several decades the canvases were stored in non-climate-controlled basements; it appears that doctors and staff removed at least three dozen works as "keepsakes." Despite the seeming tranquility of the paintings, they were created by artists primarily from New York City whose background was more political and aesthetically adventurous than this rural location would indicate. <a href="https://openvalley.org/exhibits/show/green-new-deal/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Follow this hyperlink to a short introduction to the New Deal Gallery collection</a>. We're grateful to the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts for access to their collection, which has been re-photographed and appears here at two resolutions: a cropped, web-friendly file size of around 1 MB; and a high-resolution file including the painting's frame. Items in this collection were created according to a consistent format: a short description of each painting in formal terms, followed by a biography of each artist. Where possible we have supplied hyperlinks relevant to their lives and to other examples of their art. In order to better view them using the Omeka program, click on the "View All" option at the bottom of this page to access various sorting options. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935-1940 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken (project director) Ritz, Abigail (photography and project assistant) Additional research: Justin Anderson, Jessica Apthorpe, Jay Bang, Kristopher Bangsil, Julia Caldwell, Sydney Cannioto, Sabrina Chan, Paige Closser, Victoria Domon, Elana Evenden, Yadelin Fernandez, Michael Griffin, Madison Jackson, Niamh McCrohan, Ben Michalak, Ricky Noel, Elizabeth Ramsay, Skye Rose, Samantha Schmeer, John Serbalik, Marianna Sheedy, Emily Spina, Alison Stern, Ravenna VanOstrand, and Nicholas Vanamee. Special thanks to: Deborah Bump, Mark Calicchia, Elizabeth Harris, Melissa Moody, Rebecca Lomuto, and Mai Sato. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as photograph, map, drawing, painting, etc., and any additional data Wood engraving Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image 6 x 4 5/16 in. (image) 11.5 x 9 in. (sheet) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cropper's Return Description An account of the resource In a small, virtually unfurnished shack three people receive the titular sharecropper—two women and an elderly man, perhaps his father. Raboy’s possible allusion to the Prodigal Son’s return, however, is a sad moment: highlighted at the center of Raboy’s wood engraving is an empty hand above an empty table. Whether this moment captures the conclusion of a day’s work or some longer migration isn’t clear. The two women look out the door into a dark future; surely this would have resonated with many Americans in 1935. Despite no visible lighting source, the print is illuminated with high-key drama encircled by dark shadows. Clothing, wood grain, laundry, wooden siding, and even a beard all ripple with patterned light. It is a style characteristic of the artist’s other FAP works and successfully translated into a later career in comics. There also may be an autobiographical dimension to this print since the artist’s immigrant father, Ayzik (Isaac) Raboy, worked in agriculture for several years and wrote about his North Dakota experiences in Yiddish novels and short stories. “Cropper’s Return” was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of Art and singled out at a National Academy of Art show by the New York Times critic, who placed it “at the head of the list” (27 Mar. 1938: 142). About the Artist: Raboy is one of the better-known Federal Art Project lithographers among collectors, albeit for his subsequent work in comics, where some original drawings sell for hundreds of thousands at auction. He was born in New York City to Sarah and <a href="https://congressforjewishculture.org/people/896/Raboy-Ayzik-Isaac-November-15-1882-January-10-1944" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ayzik (Isaac) Raboy</a>, the latter a well-regarded Yiddish novelist who explored the contradictions of immigrant culture in works like The Jewish Cowboy (Der yidisher kauboy, 1942). Mac Raboy was a precocious artist who studied at the New York School of Industrial Arts and The Pratt Institute Art School; he marked his twentieth birthday submerged in the Great Depression. Between 1935 and 1939, Raboy created more than a dozen prints for the Federal Art Project. His high-contrast wood engravings, dramatically composed subjects, expressive bodies, and social concerns already were cohering into a distinctive style. His works were exhibited at the National Academy of Design, Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. In 1940 Raboy began working as an illustrator for Fawcett Publications, specifically its comics division. His big break came in 1941 with a spin-off series called Captain Marvel Jr., whose disabled newsboy protagonist can transform into an heroic version of himself—not entirely different in outward appearance. Raboy became known for fine detail and dynamic, <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/MasterComics34.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">almost gravity-defying composition</a>. With the outbreak of WWII, his series—along with work on other titles like Bulletman and Green Lama—joined the Allied Forces with strong anti-Nazi storylines. One especially interesting work during this period was a true-life story for Look Magazine in 1943. “One of Our Bombers is Missing” recounts an American B-17 bomber crew that is forced to crash-land in the Atlantic, still calling upon Raboy's FAP knack for human drama and <a href="https://openvalley.org/files/original/f4bcbcac3b8a3387391c4026e8ec8d54.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told in sequential panels</a>. In 1948 Raboy achieved what he considered his dream job: illustrating the (color) Sunday newspaper series of <a href="https://openvalley.org/files/original/fedc597e3b9d0028fd0641bb6894b439.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Flash Gordon</a>, which he continued until his death in 1967. <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/artist/mac-raboy-3916" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Four works</a> at Smithsonian American Art Museum. <a href="https://www.artic.edu/artists/44426/mac-raboy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Four works</a> at the Art Institute of Chicago. <a href="https://www.pct.edu/gallery/victory-for-a-dime/mac-raboy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Two works</a> at The Gallery at Penn College. <a href="https://onlinecollections.syr.edu/people/5002/mac-raboy/objects" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Three works</a> at Syracuse University Art Museum. Three more images at <a href="https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/federal-art-project-photographic-division-collection-5467/series-1/box-18-folder-45" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FAP</a>. <a href="https://www.comics.org/creator/8531/covers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">142 comics covers</a> at Grand Comics Database. Mac Raboy Fan Group (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/580202255388383/posts/9271122572962931/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facebook</a>). Works Consulted: Alex Jay, “Mac Raboy” at Stripper’s Guide: Explorations in Newspaper Comics History 14 Dec. 2022 <a href="https://comicstriphistory.com/?s=mac+raboy&cat=all&year=All+Years&monthnum=All+Months&order=desc&posts_per_page=10&post_type=post" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a>; Roy Thomas, Mac Raboy: Master of the Comics (2019) <a href="https://13thdimension.com/a-tribute-to-captain-marvel-jr-s-mac-raboy-by-roy-thomas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a>; Peter Hastings Falk, ed., Who Was Who in American Art (1999) <a href="https://archive.org/details/whowaswhoinameri0003unse/page/2689/mode/1up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Link</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Raboy, Emanuel (Mac), 1914-1967 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Federal Art Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1935 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cooper, Ken (description & biography)  Helquist, Morgan (photography) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived New Deal Museum Object #FA1437 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpeg, 1.4 MB jpeb, 566 KB Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Agriculture Federal Art Project Mac Raboy New Deal Museum woodcut