Showing posts with label *9. Show all posts
Showing posts with label *9. Show all posts

Friday, August 2, 2024

Stan Cohen's Copy of The Art in Cartooning

I have no idea whether the Stan Cohen who obtained a personalized copy of The Art in Cartooning: Seventy-five Years of American Magazine Cartoons (1975) was also the sociologist  who coined the term moral panic. The original drawings in the book added at a signing by cartoonists George Booth, Sam Gross, Gahan Wilson, and Bill Woodman don't necessarily shed any light on the possibility. If there's panic in any of these four drawings, it isn't particularly moral.


The dust cover illustration is The Closed Mind, an experimental drawing by Charles Saxon. The interior drawings dedicated to Cohen are the work of Booth (a flea-ridden cat sitting in a corner), Wilson (a flea-ridden "Horrible Thing" sitting in a Boothian corner), Gross (a disturbed man pointing out a "cockeroach (sic!)"), and Woodman (something buggy fleeing the bottom of a birdcage while the bird's delighted owner listens in). Or, as the listing from Rare Book Cellar, the rare book seller who offers this unique copy for sale, succinctly puts it, "Signed by multpiple [sic] cartoonists with muliple [sic] cartoons." I couldn't have written it better.

The Art in Cartooning
Rare Book Cellar listing accessed August 1, 2024



Note:  There are now nine—go ahead, count 'em—unique copies of The Art in Cartooning posted in the archives here, a claim no other blog can match. Is this then a good place to stop? Of course not. Collectors in possession of their own interesting copies of the book are urged to forward images of the interesting parts to the proprietor of this blog. With a little luck, there won't be any more cucarachas.



04707

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Ronald Searle: Macbeth, or Local Thane Makes Good

Cartoonist Ronald Searle (1920-2011) was born on this day one-hundred two years ago. One of the leading illustrators of his day, he was never know for comics, a  territory into which he seldom ventured. It is exciting to be able to reintroduce an early, forgotten work of his in comic book form, courtesy of Jeff Nelson.


Macbeth, or Local Thane Makes Good, was first published in the Punch issue of November 7, 1949, on pages 32-33. It was later picked up in the American market by the Saturday Review of Literature in the December 2, 1950 issue. After that, it was not collected in any of Searle's collections or anywhere else, for that matter. For all practical purposes, it has been hidden from view for seven decades.


But now all that has changed with this rediscovered two-page satirical comic irreverently riffing on the plot of "MacBeth." Searle's version of the Scottish play doesn't strike one as especially literary, let alone Shakespearean. Rather, it is a deliberately anachronistic and breezy retelling of the plot, which shuns quoting any of the great lines we all remember. In short, this isn't your high school "Macbeth."


Macbeth, or Local Thane Makes Good
Ronald Searle
Saturday Review, December 2, 1950
Image courtesy of Jeff Nelson



More than anything else, these pages recall Capsulysses, Searle's four-page condensed version of Homer's Odyssey written by Richard Usborne. It was published in the Punch number of May 25, 1955. You can read that here.



Note:  My thanks to Jeff Nelson for rescuing this Searle work from seeming obscurity. This is Jeff's ninth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.


 

03893

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Morice's Copy of Here We Go Again by Virgil Partch

A woman struggling against a man's unwanted advances is the subject of an original drawing in Here We Go Again (1951) by Virgil Franklin Partch who usually signs his work as Vip. There is no signature though on this particular page. Men should take note that it is no longer considered acceptable to forcibly put one's shoes on the upholstery.

Scan by Scott Burns


Note:  My thanks to Scott Burns of Burns Bizarre for this scan of original Partch art from one of his books. He is now up to nine contributions to this blog.

There are still a lot of unphotographed and unblogged Partch books out there. Attempted Bloggery is looking for additional images of original Vip cartoons or signed Virgil Partch books with drawings.

03415
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Robin and Al's Copy of Art Linkletter's Kids Sure Rite Funny!

Art Linkletter (1912-2010) was a television personality and the compiler of the well-known Kids Say the Darndest Things! (1957). He was also the author-editor of other such compilations, including Kids Sure Rite Funny!: A Child's Garden of Misinformation (1962). Tom Bloom shares a copy of this latter book with us that is inscribed by illustrator Whitney Darrow, Jr. (1909-1999), with a sketch made in the year of publication. It is signed also by the author some forty-one years later with an enthusiastic "Me, too!!"
Kids Sure Rite Funny!: A Child's Garden of Misinformation (1962)
Compiled by Art Linkletter
Illustrated by Whitney Darrow, Jr.

Photograph by Tom Bloom

Inscribed by Whitney Darrow, Jr., "For Robin/& Al/from Whitney/Dec. 2-1962"
 with a sketch of a boy riting funny.
Inscribed with a heart "Me, too!!/Art Linkletter/ 5/5/03"
 in Kids Sure Rite Funny!: A Child's Garden of Misinformation (1962)
Photograph by Tom Bloom

 Note:  My thanks once again to Tom Bloom for contributing these photographs of this uniquely twice-signed book. This is Tom's ninth contribution to the blog.

 To me, this doubly-signed book recalls Frank Crowninshield's copy of The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans which bears two self-portraits by Miguel Covarrubias drawn eighteen years apart. Read all about it here. 

 Other books uniquely signed, inscribed, drawn upon, or otherwise embellished by New Yorker personalities are eagerly sought after for inclusion on this blog. Please have your cameras and scanners at the ready.

03144
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Blog Post No. 3100: Frank Beaven's Dickensian Christmas

It seems my friends all know how to make good use of their scanners, something I seem to be constitutionally unable to learn to do with my own. My good friend Jerome Wrinkle has contributed a superb set of scans of an original Christmas cartoon by Frank Beaven, one of his favorite cartoonists. It was published in the Saturday Evening Post at the end of 1940. He writes:

I have scanned both front and back, the tear sheet I have, and an isolated scan of the published cartoon.

I bought this on eBay. The seller thought it was from 1955 as 55 is scrawled on the front but, of course, that was what he was paid—$55.00. That's why, in those days, a cartoonist needed to hustle to make as many sales as possible to make a living. That meant turning out many, many cartoons each week. And, for the lucky ones, scaring up advertising assignments. Gagwriters were a necessity in order to turn out enough batches each week. Nobody, except Addams and Arno, could make a real living by simply working for the New Yorker.
To which I would add a simple note that even both Addams and Arno took on plenty of illustration and advertising work, and they published some cartoons in magazines other than the New Yorker as well.
"All I want to know is what gave you the idea I wanted
the complete works of Dickens last Christmas?"
Frank Beaven
Original art
The Saturday Evening Post, December 28, 1940, page 64
Scan by Jerome Wrinkle 

Well, I think we can all agree that such a gift is not exactly age-appropriate and therefore the premise of the gag is probably not so believable. But multivolume complete sets of Dickens were sold widely in those days, proud testaments to the owners' literary taste whether they were read or not, and perhaps even if they were given to budding young readers.

 Although published seventy-nine years ago, the scenario remains a familiar one. Some period details stand out: the density of the sales staff and the fact that all the customers, even the boy, have hats.
Verso
Scan by Jerome Wrinkle
The published cartoon shows shades of red added in production.
"All I want to know is what gave you the idea I wanted
the complete works of Dickens last Christmas?"
Frank Beaven
The Saturday Evening Post, December 28, 1940, page 64

Scan by Jerome Wrinkle

"All I want to know is what gave you the idea I wanted
the complete works of Dickens last Christmas?"
Frank Beaven
The Saturday Evening Post, December 28, 1940, page 64
Scan by Jerome Wrinkle 

Frank Beaven's 1940 New Jersey home—the address is written on the back of his cartoon—was built either in 1928 or 1930 (Zillow mentions both dates). It is a three-bedroom single-family dwelling. No word on how many works of Dickens it housed.


 Note:  My thanks to Jerome Wrinkle for his wonderful scans and commentary. This is his ninth contribution to this blog. He notes that the original cartoon shown here is no longer in his possession.

 I asked my father about his own complete set of Dickens. He believes a "door-to-door salesman sold it to us when I was a young boy." You would "pay a little bit each week"—or perhaps it was each month. They would drop off a new book and the subscriber would pay there and then. He adds, "I was the only one who read them." So…perhaps the cartoon isn't quite as implausible as I thought!

The Attempted Bloggery Centennial Posts 💯
Blog Post No. 100
Blog Post No. 200:  A Shaggy Dog Story

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:
03100
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)