Generally speaking, paperback cartoon collections that sold for a quarter when new aren't all that valuable today. Therefore, to see a copy of Cartoon Laffs from True newly offered for sale at $75 is surprising until one notes that it has been signed by Gahan Wilson, the popular cartoonist whose passing we just learned of on Friday. He wrote "To Dave from Gahan Wilson" on page 138 below his two-panel cartoon about an unfortunate door-to-door salesman. The AbeBooks listing dates the collection incorrectly to 1975, but other sources give the date more plausibly as 1958. True ceased publication in 1975 and at the time wasn't going about issuing new collections.
Gahan Wilson was soon to develop a distinctively macabre style, but his 1950s work shown here is at best only marginally more bizarre than the other art shown on the pages. The cartoon at the bottom of the page, for example, is recognizable as the work of Virgil Partch whose own quirky style may also be discerned on the cover of the paperback. That unsigned cover drawing was specifically selected to sell the book to readers of "True, the Man's Magazine." It was meant to be clever, but today we would more readily characterize it as misogynistic.
The drawing on the opposite page by Ed Dahlin is labeled "Too Good To Be True"—and that is the whole point. It's really more of a universal gambling fantasy than a gag. Finally, the humorous passage at the bottom of the page is an anecdote about selling brassieres that strains to be amusing but is nevertheless quite tame by today's standards.
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Gahan Wilson was soon to develop a distinctively macabre style, but his 1950s work shown here is at best only marginally more bizarre than the other art shown on the pages. The cartoon at the bottom of the page, for example, is recognizable as the work of Virgil Partch whose own quirky style may also be discerned on the cover of the paperback. That unsigned cover drawing was specifically selected to sell the book to readers of "True, the Man's Magazine." It was meant to be clever, but today we would more readily characterize it as misogynistic.
The drawing on the opposite page by Ed Dahlin is labeled "Too Good To Be True"—and that is the whole point. It's really more of a universal gambling fantasy than a gag. Finally, the humorous passage at the bottom of the page is an anecdote about selling brassieres that strains to be amusing but is nevertheless quite tame by today's standards.
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| Gahan Wilson Cartoon Laffs from True AbeBooks Listing Retrieved November 23, 2019 |
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