A Maus in Profile: Art Spiegelman's Comix, Essays, Graphics and Scraps

A copy of Art Spiegelman's scarce Comix, Essays, Graphics and Scraps (1999) is personalized with an original drawing of his Maus in profile. It's simple and delicate.

Inscribed with a drawing of his Maus in profile
"FOR STEPHEN + AVIVA
W. WARM WISHES
Art Spiegelman
2000!"

The book's cover I interpret as a surrealistic comics riff on the David and Goliath story with the title character of Frederick Opper's Happy Hooligan grieving, a monumental pipe and that chin from E. C. Segar's Popeye, a lightning bolt straight out of C. C. Beck's Captain Marvel, not to mention a stray brick reminiscent of George Herriman's Krazy Kat. The landscape recalls the work of Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte. Your results may vary.

Art Spiegelman. Comix, Essays, Graphics and Scraps (1999)

Note:  My thanks go out to Stephen Kroninger for providing this scan of a wonderful copy of a Spiegelman book I didn't know existed. Shazam!

I'm always looking for scans or photographs of uniquely personalized books by Art Spiegelman and other New Yorker artists. Go ahead, surprise me!

What's more annoying, Spiegelman's spelling of comix or his avoidance of the Oxford comma? I think it's the spelling. Keep your comments under 500 words please.

By the way, the new American Bystander #5 will carry the very first classified ad for this blog. My wife told me it won't drive any traffic here and—you know what?—she's absolutely right!

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02304

Art Spiegelman Against All the Odds

Art Spiegelman has personalized a copy of his 2004 book In the Shadow of No Towers and included the salient words "All the best against all the odds!" The strange character in the drawing is "a Hapless Hooligan," Spiegelman's cartoon alter ego from plate 10 of the book based on Frederick Opper's classic strip Happy Hooligan.

Inside back cover inscribed with a drawing of "a Hapless Hooligan"
"For Stephen and Aviva and my favorite twins!
All the best against all the odds!"

Note:  Thanks to Stephen Kroninger for sharing this unique copy of the book.

Attempted Bloggery is eager to publish scans or photographs of personalized books by Art Spiegelman and other New Yorker artists, especially books which contain original drawings.

Don't forget to get your copy of The American Bystander #5 and see this blog's very first classified ad.

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02301

Peter Arno's Negligee Negligence

Reader and contributor David from Manhattan writes about a 1932 Peter Arno original sold on eBay last spring. It has a fascinating provenance and some related caption variants, prompting him to offer up some research too.

Peter Arno, "Do I know anything about this, Parsons"
Original art, The New Yorker, July 23, 1932, page 10

Photos courtesy of David from Manhattan

"Do I know anything about this, Parsons?" was published in the July 23, 1932 New Yorker. Dimensions are 15 x 12. According to the Long Island seller, the art was a gift from Arno to John Hay Whitney. Parsons was changed to Edgar to amuse Mr. Whitney. The real Edgar was Edgar Woodham, his "pilot-valet." At least that's the story via the seller's grandfather, who was employed by the Whitney family. He came acrosss it in the 1960s, while helping to clean out Greentree, the Whitney estate in Manhasset. I've included an article I found on-line that mentions Woodham ("Local Pilot Makes Forced Landing," etc.). His injuries were pretty serious, though I could not determine if this ended his career. It sounds morbid, but I like that Fred Opper's obituary is in an adjoining column, not to mention Andrew Mellon's headline.

The Kingston Daily Freeman, August 27, 1937

Edgar Woodham hurt in plane crash, right.
Frederick Opper obituary, left.
The Kingston Daily Freeman, August 27, 1937

Before he sent it off to the framer's, Arno made a change in caption, as can be seen on the back. I don't know who's hand that's in. The original mat, which had damp stains, repeated the new caption; condition made it impossible to use, and Arno's use of an exclamation point rubbed me the wrong way, so I printed up a new version, as can be seen in an iPhone shot. The change is entirely this owner's responsibility. While the magazine preferred a question mark, Arno's exclamation point feels dated and wrong. Any future owner is free to go back to the magazine's caption.

Amended caption:  Arno's Parsons becomes Edgar

New caption:  "Edgar! Do I know anything about this?"

Why Arno never reprinted this, I have no idea, even though a number of New Yorker cartoons from this period suffered the same fate. I realize a lot of the early stuff just hasn't held up too well, but the Edgar/Parsons drawing still feels fresh. Oh well.

Is this a likeness of Edgar Woodham?

Photos courtesy of David from Manhattan

Thank you, David! Now here's last summer's eBay sale which shows the damp staining to the mat:

Peter Arno, "Edgar! Do I know anything about this!"
Original art, The New Yorker, July 23, 1932, page 10

Peter Arno, "Edgar! Do I know anything about this!"
Original art, The New Yorker, July 23, 1932, page 10

Arno caption variant: "Edgar! Do I know anything about this!"
Water damage is evident on the mat.

Verso. Arno's original caption was apparently "Parsons! Do I know anything about this!"

eBay Listing Ended June 14, 2015

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Cartoon-Drawing-by-Famed-New-Yorker-Cartoonist-Peter-Arno-1900-1949-/141686761023?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20fd30663f&nma=true&si=Zv4PhLp6HocGRC23iqci2JeQ2LI%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

eBay Item Description

eBay Bid History
The auction goes to the bold. The bidder placing multiple bids with small increments loses.

[End of eBay Listing]

Peter Arno, "Do I know anything about this, Parsons?"
The New Yorker, July 23, 1932, page 10

Peter Arno, "Edgar! Do I know anything about this!"
Original art, The New Yorker, July 23, 1932, page 10

Note:  Thanks once again to David from Manhattan for helping to make this blog—not to mention this world—a better place.

Anyone possessing a likeness of pilot-valet Edgar Woodham should come forward now.

Got some of your own original New Yorker cartoon art to show off? Why not join David and share it here? Got an idle pilot-valet on your hands? Why not offer his services to a congenial blogger?

Sure, Hemingway and Fitzgerald they've got covered, but do you realize not a single university offers a graduate degree in Arno Studies? The good news is you can still do some rigorous independent study and I can get you started. Follow these links to obtain the higher education you deserve:

Peter Arno's new biography by Michael Maslin is for sale at Amazon.com and, pretty soon, everywhere.

Peter Arno is the subject of a conversation coming to the Butler Library at Columbia University on April 18. It's doesn't count as credit towards a PhD, but what do you want for free?

Peter Arno posts appear on Ink Spill, which happens to be the blog of Arno's biographer. Small world.

Peter Arno is also featured in Chris Wheeler's Cartoon(ist) Gallery.

Peter Arno is in the April Vanity Fair.

Peter Arno is in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Peter Arno posts are right here on Attempted Bloggery too. The things I do for you!

01832

Book Review: In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) by Art Spiegelman

In the Shadow of No Towers (2004)

Art Spiegelman

The centerpiece of this deceptively-thick board book is a section with ten large-scale comic pages recounting Art Spiegelman's harrowing experiences in his lower Manhattan neighborhood on and after September 11, 2001. This difficult subject should have been a good topic for him--in Maus he brilliantly took on the Holocaust, after all--but unfortunately none of this misguided effort really pans out anywhere near as well as his original note-perfect work on the subject, the monumentally expressive black-on-black New Yorker cover that sadly graced the issue published after 9/11.

Art Spiegelman's New Yorker cover back when he got 9/11 right.  In the actual printed issue, the shades of black are very close and one can just barely discern the towers.

Spiegelman's graphic inventiveness is here all right, in fact all over the place, but his hodgepodge of styles pales next to the old comic masters, a comparison he himself invites throughout. Visual references are made to a variety of comic strip classics, and there is a smart essay and then a generous sampling of unfamiliar old Sunday pages included at the end for those who might not otherwise be conversant with their styles.

Spiegelman's own tale, however, is not so much a story as a long, angry, self-absorbed rant, one that the New Yorker wisely refused to publish. I had hoped for much more from the author of the finely-nuanced Maus.

In the Shadow of No Towers, Plate 1 

At least five distinct styles are present in this one spread, but I don't see much synergy between them. Yes, we were "waiting for the other shoe to drop." Yes, we still are. Yes, it's a tired metaphor.

"Equally terrorized by Al-Qaeda and by his own government...

Detail of Plate 2

"Equally terrorized?" Read it for yourself. The professed inability of Art Spiegelman, the son of Holocaust survivors, to make a basic moral distinction between the actions of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda and those of the government of the world's most vigorous democracy truly infuriates me. Those enthralled by the compelling narrative of Maus should realize that it is not in any way typical of Spiegelman's other output. Maus was highly personal but transcendent. This book is highly personal and solipsistic. Spiegelman at least acknowledges this with his reference to himself as "a heartbroken narcissist."

Plate 3

For me, the episode where Spiegelman and his wife retrieve their children from the locked-down school was one of the most moving and memorable.  

Plate 4

At the top of the page, Vice President Dick Cheney slashes the throat of the American bald eagle with a boxcutter, the very weapon used by the 9/11 hijackers. How's that again? Who is the enemy here? Islamic extremists staged the most devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil in history, and Spiegelman's villain is the Bush Administration! Go figure. 

Plate 6

The image of a lone Spiegelman tumbling from the towers, left, is typical of the author's self-obsession, as if he, a survivor, is the only victim of the tragic events. The falling sequence is actually concluded in the final panel at the far right with the offbeat reference to Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland.

Plate 10. The final page's twin-tower layout is simple but ingenious. The content of the page is not so simple and probably not so ingenious. Happy Hooligan, though, with his perennially sunny disposition in the face of hard times, is still an inspired counterexample to Spiegelman.

The Comic Supplement, page 1

The Comic Supplement, page 2

R. F. Outcault

"The War Scare in Hogan's Alley," The Yellow Kid

Plate II

For a single panel gag, this is exceedingly busy, a characteristic of many early comics and of Spiegelman's own work in this overwrought volume.

Rudolph Dirks, Frederick Opper, "Bunny" Schultze, et al.

"The Glorious Fourth of July!" 

June 29, 1902, Plate IV

From 1902, when the Sunday comics page, like the Fourth of July, was glorious. This is one of the detailed, large-scale, color comic pages reprinted at the back of In the Shadow of No Towers.

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