Tuesday, November 21, 2017

A Powerful Dream: Otto Soglow in College Humor, September 1937


A man asleep in bed dreams up some increasingly incredible feats of strength. But how will he feel by the morning? In this full-page cartoon from the September 1937 issue of College Humor, cartoonist Otto Soglow gives us six clean panels with no shading and no speech. Note that Soglow has drawn male characters with a straight nose, a hooked nose, and an upturned nose. In 1937, this constituted diversity.


Otto Soglow
College Humor, Vol. 6, No. 1, September 1937, page 27



Note:  I photographed this cartoon in a copy of the September 1937 issue of College Humor, just one delightful page out of some 5,600 publications in the Steven Boss humor magazine collection. I found it, as you might very well guess, in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University. The comic art collection is always growing and is accessible to the general public. Just contact Curator for Comics and Cartoons Karen Green. She'll make sure you find what you're looking for and don't fall asleep in the stacks.

Does Otto Soglow's work leave you weak at the knees? Help me keep his art in the public eye right here on Attempted Bloggery. I am looking for high-quality scans or photographs of original cartoon art by Soglow and other artists of his ilk whose work appeared in magazines like College Humor or The New Yorker. Please send along examples of rare or even forgotten published work like this beautiful dreamer cartoon.



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