The Errol Flynn Blog

Marty Links who did the pipular series Emmy Lou in the 50’s was actually a woman named Martha B. Links. Belown from Wikipedia is a description of how she worked on the series.

When I first started with the syndicate, I drew only daily panels. After we sold to a few papers, they asked for a Sunday page. This was impossible to handle alone, so Jerry Bundsen and Ted Martine came into my life. Jerry, who works for The San Francisco Examiner with Herb Caen, the columnist, has been writing my daily gags for 11 years. Once a week, he sends me a large batch of gags from which I select what I want and like. If there aren’t enough to make up a week, I fill out with my own ideas—which drives Jerry mad! He claims if he sent me 60 gags I would be unable psychologically to select more than four out of the bunch. This isn’t so at all. After selecting the four best gags, I pencil in the whole week of dailies. These go to Ted Martine, the world’s best artist. (I should be working for him.) He inks in all the pencilled backgrounds. When they are returned I ink in the figures. I have pencilled them in rough enough so that I change as I go along. This keeps the action loose and fresh. In addition, I draw from models constantly, then use the sketches as reference. With the outlines of the furniture inked, for instance, I add details like prints and upholstery, flowers in bowls, fringe on curtains, etc. My husband claims I can’t stand a plain white space. But it’s this detail which gives a homey touch. As a matter of fact I draw all the furniture in our home. I often think I’d like to recover the worn upholstery in a Popsicle-colored background so the Popsicle stains will not show. As to the Sunday panels, these I dream up myself, and it is more work than everything else put together. I feel each idea is the last one I’ll ever be able to eke out. Also I meditate (or should I say brood?) on my own girlhood, which was a long time ago, believe me. But once the mind starts going back, it’s amazing how much it remembers.

The pilot for a proposed series based on Emmy Lou aired as a second-season episode of Mister Ed. The role of Emmy Lou was played by Noanna Dix. Her parents were played by George O’Hanlon and Jeff Donnell.

By the time her children became adults, Links felt the strip no longer represented teens, as she told columnist Caen, “Everything I know about teenagers today is unprintable.” Thus, she brought Emmy Lou to an end in December 1979.

— David DeWitt