Daily News from New York, New York • 20

WAS I WELL, FERD. PROBABLY ILL. I TOOK IT A PLUGGED CHECK. RIGHT? YOU WERE PUMP? OUT, BUT IT GAS GETTING SEEMED O.K. WARMER.

-Zu 5 MOC Martin Branner Dead; Created Winnie Winkle New London, May 20 (AP) -Martin Michael Branner, 81 creator of the comic strip "Winnie Winkle," died last night in a convalescent home. He had been confined to a wheel chair since a stroke in 1962. "Winnie Winkle," introduced April 20, 1920, in the New York NEWS, is now published in more Martin Branner Cartoonist dies at 81 than 150 daily newspapers through the Chicago Tribune-New York News undicate. It Will Continue Max Van Bibber, Branner's longtime assistant, has been drawing the strip ever since Branner suffered a stroke. The story is written by Jean Sparber.

The syndicate plans to continue the feature. Asked several years ago for advice for would-be cartoonists, Branner shook his head and said: "You can't learn how to become a cartoonist in art school. Those schools all look down at comics, call them the lowest form of art." Typically American "But I believe that comics are the most typical features of the American people. They portray their slang, reactions to everyday events and a thousand other things. "The way I look at it a cartoonist must have a good sense of humor, a full knowledge of life and the ability to portray in a comic manner.

In addition, the comic artist must be an author." Once in Vaudeville Branner in his youth performed in vaudeville, in a dancing act called Martini and Fabrini. His partner was his wife, Edith, who died in 1966. Branner was a member of the Lambs Club, a theatrical group in New York City. While in vaudeville, he kept his interest in drawing, which had started when he was a boy. In 1919 he sold a Sunday feature called "Looie the Lawyer" and then drew a cartoon called "Pete and Pinto" that hal a 20- week stand in a New York news- paper.

And Then Winnie The following year he created "Winnie The National Cartoonist Society voted "Winnie Winkle" the best comic strip in 1958. Branner entered the Nutmeg Pavillion convalescent home here several days before his death. His home was at 27 Riverside Drive, Waterford. Survivors include two sons, Bernard D. Branner of Waterford; Robert J.

Branner of Baltimore; a twin brother, Randolph, of Laguna Hills, a sister, Mrs. Ethel Gordon of New York City grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A Requiem High Mass will be offered at St. Matthias Church in East Lyme Friday at 1 0a.m. Burial will be at Maple Grove Cemetery, Kew Gardens, Queens, Monday.

Seeks Reversal On Bar Exam Ban The New York Civil Liberties Union announced yesterday it had submitted a brief on behalf of itself and 14 other organizations calling upon the New York Court of Appeals to reverse itself and permit students from law schools which suspended final tests to take the bar exam. Shortly after President Nixon announced the Cambodian strike, a number of law schools suspended classes to permit their students to demonstrate in Washington. But the state's highest court ruled last week that no one would be allowed to take the bar final "unless he had first taken and been tested by an authentic written examination in each of his law school courses." THAT'S DIFFICULT TO SAY AT THIS TIME, DR. WHAT PROGNOSIS? IS GRANT, THE IN JUNE! THE FRACTURE---AND HE SPINAL HAS A FLUID THE SKULL BLOOD INDICATES SOME POSSIBLE BRAIN INJURY! BRADLEY EDGINGTON 1521 3 Revival MARY HINKSON will be one of the principal dancers in the first revival in 18 years of Martha Graham's "El Peni tente" to be presented by the Martha Graham Center of temporary Dance at 8:30 p.m. next Thursday at the YMHA, 92d St.

and Lexington Ave. DeLury Raps Medical Cost Washington, May 20 (AP) The leader of the nation's largest sanitation union accused the federal government today of contributing to the rsing cost of hospital and medical care. John J. DeLury, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association of New York City, said medicare and medicaid rates for doctors and hospitals pegged to so-called "reasonable and customary" rates, are among chief causes of "runaway costs galloping inflation, if you will." "Reasonable and customary means whatever the trafic will bear," he told the Senate's antitrust and monopoly subcommittee, "and that means whatever the consumer, organized or unorganized is forced to pay." DeLury suggested a reorganization of "our funding vehicles, such as Blue Cross--make them consumer coperatives." Stoky Premiere Leopold Stokowski will conduct the world premier of a new cantata by Polish avant garde composer Andrzej Panufik in a free concert, Sunday afternoon at 4, in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Drum Beating Barrault Leads Noisy 'Rabelais By JOHN CHAPMAN Jean-Louis City Center Tuesday atrical spectacular of Francois Rabelais. "Hair" and "Beggar Barrault brought his "Company" to the evening for a two-week run in a thecalled "Rabelais," based on the writings It is, I would say, somewhere between on in French. And it is noisy. Most of the 30 actors and actresses play dual roles, which makes them twice as noisy. The orchestra, playing music by Mitchel Polnareff, will brook no opposition.

Even Barrault, performing as a sideline commentator and beating a drum vigorously is far from suave. A Lively Show This "Rabelais" is not a classic but a new work, very often in hippie style. If your French is as rusty as mine, you'll have to unearth the plot from the program, which is in English, or hear it through a transistor headset, which the management rents. (I got mine free, but forgot to use it.) Barrault, as author-director, has put on a lively show wihch is not precisely literary. It seems to be a consideration of some of the works of Rabelais, who is described in my encyclopedia as a humorist, even though, in approximately 53 years of life, he also had been a monk, a doctor and a teacher.

He may have been the originator of the dirty joke, altough the proceedings at the Center Theater are more earthy than dirty. Like the beginning scene about the birth of Gar- 2d Edition "I Am Curious (Blue)," at the Cine Malibu, is just more of "I Am Curious (Yellow)." More of Lena, director Vilgot Sjoman's pigeon-plump mistress. More of Sjoman himself who takes ego trips through his films. More of Lena's rambling interviews with the Swedes-on-the-street. More of those discussions about the class structure.

A few new questions about the prison system and religious hypocrisy. Amazingly, there is less sex. Lena, who has grown fatter and duller, has become a voyeur, and a listless one at that. Apparently, she can't wait for the thing to be over and one knows exactly how she feels. KATHLEEN CARROLL gantua, who was a very big boy at the start.

Tuesday night's epening was for the benefit of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Paramount Release Jean-Louis Barrault Beats his own drum Paramount Pictures has. acquired "L'Aveu (The Confession)" for release in the U.S. and Canada. The latest film by Henri Costa-Gavras, who directed relates the imprisonment of a high Communist official doing the Stalinist purge in Eastern Europe of the early 1950's.

Yves Montand and Simone Signoret are starred. 'Love' in Showcase MGM's "Brotherly Love." starring Peter O'Toole and Susannah York, has opened at 19 Showcase theaters in the metropolitan area. The drama revolves around the stormy relationship between brother and sister and her husband. 'Prom' Exhibit "Designs for an international exhibition of scene and costume designs for opera and ballet. will be on display at Philharmonic Hall during the New York Philharmonic's "Promlenades," May 27-June 20.

WHY DON'T YOU WAIT UNTIL I GUESS I'D BETTER GET BACK MAY I LATER THIS AFTERNOON TO THE OFFICE! I HAVEN'T HAD SEE PERHAPS HE WILL HAVE TIME TO CANCEL OUT HIS APPOINTHIM 7 REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS. MENTS FOR TODAY! I'M HAVING PRIVATE DUTY NURSES WITH HIM AROUND I'D EXPECT IT BEST THE CLOCK! THAT YOU CANCEL HIS APPOINTMENTS FOR THE OF NEXT WEEKS, COUPLE JUNE! Field.