Shipping August 2012: RACONTEUR #2

 

Above: The cover to RACONTEUR #2 by Jeff Pert.


COMING AUGUST 2012:

RACONTEUR #2!

Preorder the second issue! I just talked with the printer and the book will be out in the next ten days.

My thanks to all of you who have preordered the book. It will be shipped to you via first class mail the same day I get it.

RACONTEUR is a comic book with new autobiographical stories by cartoonists who usually draw those single panel gag cartoons like you see in The New Yorker, Reader's Digest, Down East Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, etc.

Artists this issue: David Jacobson, John Klossner, Mike Lynch and Jeff Pert. 20pp, color cover, B&W interior, 8.5" x 5.5," staple bound.

Ship To ...

USA Address$5.99 USD Rest of World$9.99 USD

Arrow Logos 1960s-70s

Clockwise from top left, logos for: New Brunswick Telephone Company, Communications Institute, the Office of Economic Expansion and British Rail (natch!).

Graphic delight: The Aqua Velvet blog shows us a series of B&W logos that utilize arrows in the designs. All of these are from the 1960s and 70s.

All of the Cartoons From March 1963 McCALL'S Magazine

A gag cartoon from McCALL's by my friend Don Orehek above.


Rescued from a Pennsylvania barn, here are scans of all of the cartoons from the March 1963 issue of McCALL'S Magazine.

My thanks to Tom Sager who found a whole stack of magazines that were

"... in poor shape from 50 years in a PA barn/garage (The smell of damp on them could knock you out.) They had to be disposed of, but not before saving the cartoons. I hope you enjoy them." - Tom Sager

Thanks, Tom! I sure appreciate your scanning all this in. 

Stan and Jan Berenstain:

Peter Porges:

Vahan Shirvanian:

Donald Reilly:

 Harry Mace:

Ed Dahlin:

Whitney Darrow, Jr. illustrates Art Linkletter's "A Child's Garden of Misinformation:"

And here's the one and only Rube Goldberg:

Thanks again, Tom! These are wonderful to see!

Convention Appearance: Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo - September 29, 2012

I'll be at the MICE convention in September. Come and say hi.

Virgil "VIP" Partch: 1961 BIG GEORGE Tour Part 1

Some rare photos of the cartoonist Virgil VIP Partch, along with a 1961 Seattle Times article on his syndicated BIG GEORGE panel..

Below: a BIG GEORGE Sundaty page from Januray 22, 1961 via Ger Apeldoorn.

 

July 26, 1961:

Big George has come to Seattle.

It probably doesn't need to be said, but Big George is the bombastic, needle-nosed character who appears daily in the pages of the Seattle Times.

BIG GEORGE is the "man" most men would like to be -- including his creator Virgil (Vip) Partch, who is in Seattle too.

Partch and Big George plan to prowl through Seattle checking on Seafair, hydroplanes, the Century 21 Exposition, totem poles and ferryboats.

Big George's reactions to it all will be shown to Times readers in several special cartoons.

Partch was invited to Seattle to address a luncheon of the 30th Annual International Toastmasters Convention Friday. The cartoonist arrived at the Tacoma-Seattle Airport yesterday, accompanied by his wife, Helen. He spoke at a luncheon of the Seattle Rotary Club today.

With the Partches were Mr. and Mrs. Phil Interlandi. Interlandi is a free-lance cartoonist and art director for the Toastmasters.

BIG GEORGE flew into Seattle too, bottled up in Partch's pen, nimble fingers and his humor-seeking eyes. Who, what and why is Big George?

"He has given the American male a shot in the arm," Partch said. "In American humor the male is the fall guy, a goof. We wanted to develop a fellow who occasionally will not end up with the short end of the stick.

"He's a wonderful release. I'd like to be like this guy. I want to have the nerve to tell the waiter to take the steak back, but ...

"He's part of my belief that this is not a matriarchal society, that life is a 50-50 deal."

Bog George was not an overnight inspiration. Something had been tickling Partch's mind for year. That something was Big George.

Big George came to life in a studio built over a garage at Parthc's home in Capistrano, California.

A former Seattle cartoonist, Dick Shaw, helps Partch.

Although he has been away since 1922, Partch, 44, feels closer to Seattle than any other city because it is the original home of some well known cartoonists, including Dick Shaw, Irwin Caplan and Hank Ketcham.  Caplan still lives here.

Seattle was familiar to the young Partch, who was reared in Alaska. He was born on St. Paul island, Alaska, where his father was stationed as a Navy radioman.

The cartoonist has been selling his work to national magazines for many years. He became a hero of servicemen during the Second World War for his pen and ink jousting with the military.

--



Related:

MAN THE BEAST Parts one, two, three
Rare illustrations for BY THE NUMBERS
VIP's ARMED FARCES
Color TRUE magazine Illustrations
Partch's table gnawing frenzy

Cartoonist Photos Part 7

Above: John Romita, Sr. and his wife Virginia in the Marvel offices.

What does a cartoonist look like? Aside from maybe some ink-stained digits, he or she looks pretty much like a normal, regular person. Here are some rare photos of the faces behind the lines, in no particular order.

More Cartoonist Photos:
Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four
Part five
Part six 

Al Capp sitting with Mrs. Louis Sigel and Mrs. Milton Silverstein, October 31, 1957:

The one and only Bill Lignante:

Walt Disney with his "cartoonists" (no identification given), 1949:

Ferd Johnson of MOON MULLINS who wears a hat when drawing:

Famed editorial cartoonist John Fischetti, 1973:

Comic book artist Bob Layton draws for some very happy Boston area kids, 1983:

Eugene ZIM Zimmerman, who drew for PUCK and JUDGE, 1925:

More Cartoonist Photos:
Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four
Part five
Part six 

Doctor Seuss and the Holocaust in France

Doctor Seuss and the Holocaust in France shows that the cartoonist was ahead of the curve in his 70 year old editorial cartoon above portraying Hitler and Vichy leader Pierre Laval singing happily, while the forest in the background is full of hanging corpses with "Jew" signs on each of them. The cartoon is courtesy The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

Rafael Medoff writes for the Jewish Journal:

The brutal details of the roundup process were amply reported in the American press. The New York Times described the “scenes of terror and despair” in the streets of Paris, including suicides, Jewish patients dragged violently from hospital beds, and children violently separated from their parents. Unfortunately, the article was relegated to page 16.

Theodor Geisel, who drew editorial cartoons for PM under the pen name “Dr. Seuss,” was outraged by the news from France and decided to use his cartooning skills to help publicize the plight of the Jews.

The entire article is here.

Hank Ketcham Gag Cartoons

Ger Apeldoorn shares some late 1940s/early 1950s gag cartoons by Hank Ketcham.

The Garden As of Mid-July 2012

It's big and bushy and yielding much squash and cucumbers.

Above: the raised beds of vegetables. Let's move in for a closer look:

Winter squash and sweet potatoes. The dribble of dark earth is from me watering.

Yellow squash and a few partially obscured sweet potatoes.

Tomatoes and, on the right, kale.

Burpless cucumbers in front, lettuce in back.

above: some baby back-up lettuce in a long window pot by the compost which will be ready in August.

And here are some photos from the perennial garden:

That's Not Uncle Arthur!

Here's a much-trafficked blog entry from 2010. It's mostly about old TV shows:

Above: Sherilyn Fenn. Yes, she could NEVER be mistaken for Uncle Arthur. More about her in a moment.

There is a little known tradition in TV series. The tradition has no name, so I just call it the "That's NOT Uncle Arthur!" effect.

If you watch TV shows, you know what I mean. You're watching an old show and suddenly, a familiar character is acting a strange way.

Let me explain.

OK, here's Uncle Arthur:



Here's a description. There is an episode of BEWITCHED with Paul Lynde NOT playing Uncle Arthur -- he's this nervous driving instructor. Here's a clip from the first time Lynde appeared on the show. It's from the very first season.

 

This is a bit of the 1965 Bewitched season 1 episode 26 titled "Driving is the Only Way to Fly."

Paul Lynde would return the following fall, in his new role as the recurring Uncle Arthur character.

This is the Uncle Arthur Effect.

OK, here's another example if what I mean. Harry Morgan appeared on M*A*S*H as 2 characters. The first: a one-time appearance as Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele. Here he is in his 1974 episode:



And the next season, he returned in a different role: that of Commanding Officer Colonel Sherman T. Potter. He would stay with the series until its demise in 1983 -- and would reprise his role in the short-lived spin-off series After M*A*S*H.


So, how many times have actors wandered in, played a guest part -- and then are asked to return for a regular role in a series?



Above is Vincent Gardinia, who played Frank Lorenzo in ALL IN THE FAMILY. But before he played Frank, he played two other characters in 2 earlier episodes of the sitcom.


And the same thing with veteran character actor (and ubiquitous cartoon voice talent) Allan Melvin. Melvin was, like, in a zillion shows like PHIL SILVERS, DICK VAN DYKE, ANDY GRIFFITH and GOMER PYLE USMC. With both VAN DYKE and GRIFFITH, he played different characters before being brought in as a semi-regular character.

Alex Borstein, maybe best known for her long running gig as a great comedic character actress in Mad TV, played "Drella," a sarcastic harp player in the first few episodes of the Gilmore Girls series. It was the producer's hope that she play the second banana role of Sookie, but her Fox TV contract prevented that commitment. She returned a 3 years later to GG as "Miss Celine," and is now featured in Amazon's Mrs. Maisel series.

Sherilyn Fenn played 2 characters in Gilmore Girls: she was first cast in a pilot-within-the-series as Jess' mother figure and then, later on, a semi regular role as an ex-lover of series regular Luke

And then there's Dennis Franz. Back before NYPD Blue, he was on Hill Street Blues for a short multi-episode arc. He played Detective Sal Benedetto, a drug-hooked, crooked cop for 5 episodes. He returned two years later, portraying Detective Norman Buntz for the remaining two years of Hill Street's network run, and starred in the 12 episode spin-off series Beverly Hill Buntz.


Freema Agyeman played Adeola Oshodi, a "red shirt" who had to die in "Army of Ghosts" to emphasis the danger of the invading Cybermen in Doctor Who. (To quote Guy Fleegman in Galaxy Quest: "I'm just "Crewman Number Six." I'm expendable. I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I've gotta get outta here.") In less than a year, Freema was back, this time in her new continuing role as series regular Martha Jones.

And on it goes.

That's all I can think of. But there must be more. Please let me know.

-- This is a rerun blog entry from June 16, 2010.

I'm Away From the Blog

Batch or no, this next week I'm at Long Island Museum, teaching cartoon classes. Updates will be sporadic or not at all. Please turn the computer off and enjoy some real life, my friends. See you!