Milton Caniff: A Leprechaun

It's generally a good idea to avoid making unfounded assumptions, particularly online. Nevertheless, I would guess that a fan named Mike Mongan wrote to the popular comic strip artist Milton Caniff back in the day, and requested, perhaps, a souvenir. I further imagine he was not disappointed with the color artwork he received in reply. Whatever the story, though, the drawing of a winking leprechaun, pipe in mouth, seems a fitting work to bring out ahead of St. Patrick's Day. Caniff has embraced an unfortunate stereotype, and that leprechaun appears to be rather inebriated. What we have then is a smoking, winking, drinking leprechaun—or so I would assume.

Milton Caniff
AbeBooks listing accessed April 11, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Leprechaun-Sketch-Signed-CANIFF-MILTON/32177586780/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=viewbook

Milton Caniff
AbeBooks item description

05226

A Seasonal Diffee Doodle Print

A Diffee Doodle print by Matthew Diffee offered on eBay in 2017 seems to be an especially apt image for this time of year. Diffee created some 1,500 unique Diffee Doodles and they were offered as gifts to the first 1,500 subscribers to his newsletter back around 2015. There were also prints made of these drawings, or at least of some of them, based in part on demand, but some were given to later subscribers. The prints are signed and dated but not numbered.

Matthew Diffee
eBay listing  as of January 10, 2017

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matthew-Diffee-Rejection-Collection-New-Yorker-Signed-Autograph-Card-Doodle-/252713410624?hash=item3ad6e4a040:g:55UAAOSwjDZYcG6Y

Matthew Diffee
eBay item description

04785

Rube Goldberg's Pipe

If you hang around New York enough, you'll find traces of the great cartoonists of yesteryear all over. Last night, after dinner on West 36th Street at Keens Steakhouse—the apostrophe has been abandoned to history—we admired a display that was a small part of the world's largest collection of churchwarden pipes. The chop house's past patrons included more than 90,000 members of the Pipe Club, whose pipes were registered and stored on the premises by a pipe warden, and dutifully retrieved when the customer returned by pipe boys. Many twentieth century luminaries were members of this club: Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Albert Einstein, Enrico Caruso, Will Rogers, Babe Ruth, Robert Benchley—and cartoonist Rube Goldberg. I've given his pipe it's own photograph:

Which is not to say that Goldberg's pipe doesn't share the display case with the pipes of some mighty fine people.

There are some more recent members of the Pipe Club as well. Some of the names may be familiar.

04367 

Newton Brand, Jr.,'s Copy of Omnibooth: The Best of George Booth

Newton Brand, Jr., was a Texas banker who, we have seen, collected cartoon books drawn in and signed by preeminent New Yorker cartoonists. It seems likely he built his collection over time from a distance, by mail. His copy of Omnibooth: The Best of George Booth (1984) has just come to light thanks to David from Manhattan, who reports getting it for $115. George Booth is a beloved cartoonist who delights us by populating his world with an endless variety of quirky characters: people, dogs, and cats, sometimes even chickens. In this book, there is a drawing of a somewhat unkempt-appearing codger viewed from behind while he enjoys his pipe.

Photo by David from Manhattan

This cover photo is of a different copy of the book:

https://www.ebay.com/p/5154231?iid=333810248479

Note:  My thanks to David from Manhattan for adding this book to our virtual recreation of the library of Newton Brand, Jr. This is David's forty-second contribution to Attempted Bloggery, give or take.

Any other personalized cartoon books from the library of Newton Brand, Jr., would, of course, be of interest.

Images of other original works by George Booth are sought after here as well. Of course.

03519