Freddy Wertham page 1: Seth's roughs plus Langdon's finished work

Here is page 1 of the Freddy Wertham story. On top is Seth's rough drawing, which I posted a couple of days ago, and below is the finished page that Langdon Foss did from it. Langdon does gorgeous work on his own, and though he used Seth's general blocking, he did not feel the need to follow slavishly the exact positions of people and things on these pages. It must have been a little difficult so soon after Seth died not to retain as much of Seth's sensibilities as possible. But Langdon, of all people, knew that an artist must follow his own artistic muse, or what he produces will have nothing in it of value. That was one of the things Seth stressed to artists he was trying to encourage: "Don't copy me or anyone else."

Langdon used Seth's page set-up: the size, shape, and content of each of the frames. But he drew the mugging from a different angle, and in the center panel he drew Freddy falling in a quite different manner from Seth's preliminary drawing. Seth himself changed things routinely from his roughs, so there is always leeway to do so. Langdon also added all the little squares of explanations, his own humorous labels (though I don't think they are legible in these scans). And of course all the details of the scenes.

Look how Langdon curves the buildings just slightly in the center panel, where Freddy is being knocked backwards. That's no doubt how Freddy's mind would perceive it, and it gives the whole scene an out-of-whack, hit-in-the-head feel.