-1955/2021 Great Shakes

The first installment of Don Freeman’s “Graphic Saga”, Great Shakes, was released in 1955 but the entire work was only published posthumously in 2021 by his son, Roy Freeman.

The images for Great Shakes were executed in scratchboard. Typically scratchboard has a black surface (or some other dark colour) and the artist uses a sharp tool to scratch off the dark surface exposing a (usually) white layer underneath resulting in a black and white picture. I assume Freeman used a photo-lithographic method to copy the scratchboard drawing and then printed the resulting image. I also assume the scratchboard drawings were all done in, or about, 1954/55.

Newsstand April 1955 – Installment

Freeman never published Great Shakes but he did release some images through his self-published magazine, Newsstand. According to Freeman’s son, Roy Freeman, Newsstand was printed on an irregular basis with no consistency in the numbering of the editions or even naming of the series.

Newsstand April 1955 New Series Vol I No. 1 Los Angeles Number introduced Great Shakes with 9 images from the story on 4 sheets of paper by way of a pocket in the back of the issue.

No further installments were released via Newsstand or otherwise (email July 22, 2024 Roy Freeman to Ken Martens)

The 2nd last page of Newsstand April 1955 was reprinted as the back cover of the 2021 Great Shakes publication.

Great Shakes 2021 – Mostly Wordless

Freeman released a first installment (nine images) of Great Shakes in his 1955 Newsstand magazine and he referred to it as a “graphic saga”. In a 1956 introduction to an exhibition, Freeman referred to Skitzy as “a story without words”. An inference could be drawn that Freeman never intended Great Shakes to be wordless.

Other than the first installment in the 1955 Newsstand magazine, Don Freeman never published Great Shakes so there can not be any certainty as to his intention.

I came across the images for Great Shakes shuffled up in a box long after my father died. I had to organize these into a story-line. For most of the pages, this was clear, but I did run into difficulties at Shakespeare’s visit with the Black family in Watts, particularly his exit. In the end, to make the transition more clear in a wordless setting, I did (re)create two new images using different originals and adding some details. I am not 100% satisfied with this, but it was the best I could do using the images I had.

Email July 24, 2024 from Don’s son, Roy, to Ken Martens

Great Shakes was published posthumously in 2021 by Don’s son, Roy Freeman. Roy had access to the scratchboard drawings his father executed, most of which had wording associated with the illustrations. Some of the wording may have been there merely to give the artist a sense of direction as he developed the story line but Freeman did not leave any notes as to how he intended to publish the story. It is not possible to know which, if any, words the artist intended to include in a final publication.

Almost all of the illustrations have some text. Some are with Don’s typical humor! I decided to go with “almost wordless” because the pictures convey the complete message, the words are more-or-less an extra help. I wanted to make the reading interesting, even a bit challenging. I know it was a risk.

(email July 22, 2024 Roy Freeman to Ken Martens)

Roy made an editorial decision to use some of the wording and exclude others in the 2021 publication.

Bibliographic information for 2021 Great Shakes

• Posthumous publication
• Publisher: taotime verlag – freeman editions
• Book design: Roy Freeman
• ISBN 978-3-906945-28-6
• Printed in Italy by Intergrafica Verona S.R.L.

2021 Front Cover – reworked 1955 image

….2021 cover image was a very slightly reworked 1955 image for the purpose of making a cleaner impression for publishing purposes. (email July 22, 2024 Roy Freeman to Ken Martens)

eg Don Freeman’s name is much more readable in the 2021 cover, etc.