Comments on: RETRO REVIEW: Tex Benson # 1

By: Greg Turner

Greg Turner — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 18:28:14 +0000

In reply to Greg S. Gilday. You're certainly welcome, Greg S. Gilday! I love sharing finds like this!

By: Greg S. Gilday

Greg S. Gilday — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:42:07 +0000

Wow! Thank you for sharing this.

By: Greg Turner

Greg Turner — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:36:01 +0000

Mr. Stout, thank you for you comments on “Chuck” Roblin, from your first hand knowledge. Wow, that is some lineage indeed! Personally I loved his art, but most of my friends wouldn’t even give it a second look. Cool that you were such good friend during art school, but as usually happens unfortunately , we slowly lose touch with friends we held dear while growing up, due to family and business responsibilities, as time pulls us more and more into “the real world”, i.e. working and providing for our families.

I’m not sure which is worse, losing touch for whatever reason or losing you best friends to early death, as I did with my two best friends from high school days. Maybe the later, as there is always a slim chance of reconnecting with a “misplaced” friend, but none when they have past on too soon.

Thanks again for finding my post and taking the time to leave your memories of Tex Benson and Mr. Roblin. I did not realize that his Tex strip was syndicated in both Europe and in South America!

By: William Stout

William Stout — Sat, 17 Aug 2019 23:41:20 +0000

Charles (“Chuck” to me) Roblin was my best friend at art school (the Chouinard Art Institute, aka California Institute of the Arts). Chuck and I were just about the only two artists at that school interested in comic art. He had an incredibly illustrious family. His grandfathers wrote Mutiny on the Bounty; his uncle Conrad Hall was an Academy Award winning cinematographer (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). His dad was English, his mom French Tahitian. Chuck was raised in Mexico City. He turned me on to Heinrich Kley (for sure) and Joseph Clement Coll (maybe). Elsie Segar, the creator of Popeye, was a Santa Monica neighbor. We both shared a love of Frank Frazetta’s and Wally Wood’s art. Chuck owned an extremely rare three-wheel Morgan in perfect condition which he rarely drove for fear of damaging it. He could also play some swell ragtime. At art school he practically lived on coffee and cigarettes, which I studiously avoided. I don’t know what happened to Chuck after Tex Benson (which was a syndicated strip in Europe and South America; according to the internet, the strip lasted from 1980 to 1989). We spoke rarely once he was involved in Tex (he found the work very demanding, as he did nearly everything on it). Most of that was my fault. His phone calls always lasted for hours and I eventually just couldn’t spare that kind of time. It has now been decades since we last spoke.

By: Greg Turner

Greg Turner — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 22:05:53 +0000

Thanks for all your thoughts and information on this “lost” artist, Dave! His style is a bit crude, but definitely shows talent. I wish he did more in the comic medium! I own Hot Stuf’ # 8, so I guess I better dig it out, as I do not remember his strip within!

By: Dave Ryan

Dave Ryan — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 01:44:12 +0000

The only series I can think of in a similar good-girl-art mode is CAVEWOMAN: PANGAEAN SEA 1-11 (been waiting about 8 years for issue 12!) by Bud Root, as well as CAVEWOMAN: JUNGLE TALES 1-3, CAVEWOMAN: BEAUTIES AND BEASTS 1-2, and the earliest stories reprinted with about 10 new Root pages per issue CAVEWOMAN: RELOADED 1-6.
As well as Frank Cho’s LIBERTY MEADOWS and SHANNA 1-7 miniseries, about 10 years aago.

By: Dave Ryan

Dave Ryan — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 01:34:39 +0000

I've often wondered whatever happened to Chuck Roblin. I thought he was a very talented and fun artist. There's definitely a Wallace Wood/Williamson/E.C. influence visible in Roblin's art, particularly on his TEX BENSON series. I'd also argue an Alex Raymond Flash Gordon influence. A plaayful adventure series with terrific good girl art, Roblin in the 1978-1993 era was doing material in the vein of Dave Stevens' ROCKETEER/Betty Page work, mostly in the same era Stevens began doing it. Although I see Roblin as more in the Wood template than Dave Stevens. Roblin's first work to my knowledge is HOT STUF' issue 8 (also an imprint of SQ Productions) a more amateur-looking Wood/EC type 5-page story titled "Star Blind". The Metro Comics 4-issue TEX BENSON series as far as I can tell is the next thing Roblin did, and I think his art made a great leap in quality in between. Published in 1986-1987, TEX BENSON is 24 pages per issue, divided into 12 segments of 8 pages, 3 segments per issue. It looks to me like they were intended to be serialized in an anthology 8 pages per issue, before being reformatted into the 4-issue series. Then the second 4-issue TEX BENSON series in 1990-1991, which again shows another great leap in art quality. These issues are harder to find than the first series. I currently only have issues 1, 2 and 4. Roblin also did covers and/or art for other Ray Zone comics projects, such as DRACULA 3-D (1991, Roblin cover only, interior is reprint of 1950's material). Also FORBIDDEN 3-D and ZORI J's #-D BUBBLE BATH. After Metro Comics, SQ Productions had another comics imprint, Quality Comics, that reprinted a lot of British material, including "Skizz" and "D.R. and Quinch" in 2000 AD MONTHLY. Roblin did a cover for 2000 AD MONTHLY 26 (July 1988) that somewhat resembles the characters in TEX BENSON. Another SF anthology Quality Comic published was TIME TWISTERS, with early stories almost every issue by Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, that ran about 20 issues. Also STAINLESS STEEL RAT, that also has Moore material (as I recall, the ANNUAL issue). Nicest of Roblin's art is a TEX BENSON PORTFOLIO advertised in Metro's TEX BENSON 3 and 4. These more than any others show off Roblin's detailed Wood-esque linework and panoramic decorative style. I'm so glad I picked this folio up when I had the chance.