In Otto Soglow's four-panel gag cartoon from the February 1938 issue of College Humor, it's all about mind over matter. The cartoon suffers from devoting the right two-thirds of each panel to an unchanging poster of Alfo the Lion Tamer. Soglow tries to compensate for this monotony by shifting his point of view very slightly to the left with each successive panel, so that the poster moves imperceptably off to the right. This helps a little bit, but it's simply not satisfactory to limit all the action to the left side of each panel.
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| Otto Soglow College Humor, Vol 7, No. 2, February 1938, page 29 |
Note: Last year I had the privilege of photographing this cartoon in a copy of the February 1938 number of College Humor, just one full magazine page out of some 5,600 publications housed in the Steven Boss humor magazine collection. It is kept in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University and the collection is accessible to the general public. For information, contact Curator for Comics and Cartoons Karen Green who was a big help to me.
It's almost time for me to move on from Otto Soglow to other extraordinary artists, but from time to time I'd like to keep his work in the public eye here on Attempted Bloggery. Therefore, in the spirit of Mr. Soglow dutifully drawing Alfo the Lion Tamer over and over, I repeat once again my request for high-quality scans or photographs of original cartoon art by Otto Soglow. Please also send me examples of rare or forgotten published work so we can all stay as mentally-focused as Mr. Soglow's carnival barker.
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