Play Football

Although unsigned, this 1934 box cover for a Play Football board game bears all of the earmarks of a Vallely. In previous years he had illustrated two football themed dust jackets for Elmer A. Dawson's Garry Grayson series, and two years later would provide the cover for William Heyliger's tale of the gridiron, Fighting Blood. This is his first artwork for a board game that I'm aware of.

Vallely In The Comics

One year after the publication of S.O.S. Coast Guard (BLB 1191) in 1936, the story was adapted and modified for the fourth issue of The Comics. The Comics was a bi-monthly Dell publication which primarily reprinted newspaper strips, similar to their earlier effort The Funnies, though this time in the standard comic book format. This usage of material that was created exclusively for the Whitman Publishing Co. preceded by one year a partnership that Dell would enter with the Western Printing and Lithographing Co. (Whitman's parent company). A Republic serial of S.O.S. Coast Guard starring Ralph Byrd was also released in 1937.

Sirrah, a Shepherd Dog

Dog Stories was a collection of classic canine chronicles adapted and condensed for children by author Frances Cavanah. While it was published at least 4 times (once as part of the book Big Big Favorite Stories, as well part of Annual Whopper Book), the back cover image presented here is from the Whitman Publishing Company 1944 edition. It's possible that it was published with a painted cover of a boy hugging his collie (also rendered by Vallely) to capitalize on the success of the first Lassie movie, Lassie Come Home. This particular dog in Frances Cavanah's book is a shepherd named Sirrah whose owner was James Hogg, the shepherd-poet of Scotland.