The Garden As of Mid-June

 

Here’s the garden as of mid-June. Everything is coming up fast: cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, runner beans. I’m mowing the lawn ever 5-7 days. The birds are eating a lot. 

Tank the cat "working."

 

All of the Cartoons From January 1963 McCALL'S

Above: my fellow Berndt Toast colleague David Gantz illustrates "Four Successful Methods of Getting Your Husband Up in the Morning."


It's been a good couple of weeks! We have seen a great selection of cartoons from some 50+ year old magazines that Tom Sager has been kind enough to scan in before tossing. Here's the latest: all of the cartoons from the January 1963 issue of McCALL'S Magazine.

Stan and Jan Berenstain:

Bo Brown:

Donald Reilly:

 Reamer Keller:

- Edited from a blog entry that originally ran on August 8, 2012.

HENNY by Henny Youngman and Art Cumings

There is nothing new, only the history you don't know. I have seen a lot of these strips pop up on Facebook this week. It'd otf interested to me since the artist was a friend and fellow Berndt Toast Gang member. So, here's an edited version of my blog about the Henny Youngman comic strip that I originally posted in July 16, 2013.

There have been a lot of showbiz related comics. I knew about the Woody Allen comic strip, but I had not heard of this "King of the One-Liners" one until chancing upon it in an old issue of Cartoonist PROfiles magazine (No. 32, December 1976).

The HENNY comic strip, from the trove of musty, misogynistic old jokes that Henny Youngman celebrated, and illustrated by my friend Art Cumings, ran for about a year. Art does his best with a strip that's appeal is verbal, not visual.  The format was always the two panels: the set up and the gag.

Syndicated by Field Enterprises (and copyright 1976 by same), here is a smattering of strips from 1976, its debut year. Same year as the Woody Allen comic strip, which would run until 1984.

Related: Stu Hample and Dick Cavett talk about DREAD AND SUPERFICIALITY: WOODY ALLEN AS COMIC STRIP at the Strand book store in NYC on November 23, 2009. Here is part one:

What Disaster Leaves Behind: Brian Fies on Memory, Loss, and Recovery

My friend and award-winning graphic novelist Brian Fies is interviewed about his book A Fire Story. Brian talks about his experience in the fire, which destroyed his California neighborhood and creating the book. 

Here's Brian:

"Here's a podcast I did with my friend Jennifer Gray Thompson about the firestorms of 2017, which destroyed my home among many others and which I wrote about in my graphic novel "A Fire Story." 

"Jennifer heads a great organization called After The Fire USA, which was formed as a direct result of our fires. The nonprofit goes to communities after they suffer large-scale disasters like ours to share what we did right, what we did wrong, and what we've learned in the meantime to help them toward recovery. It also lobbies for legislation to help disaster survivors, and is in general a good resource for anyone who's been through something like we experienced.

"Many thanks to Jennifer for having me on her podcast, and to her and After the Fire USA for the important work they continue to do!"

Jack Davis’ Illustrations of NBC’s 1965-66 Season for TV Guide

 

Over at the TV Series Finale blog there is a scan of a large illustration of the 1965 NBC TV shows that originally printed in the fall preview issue of TV Guide. 

 The detail and the fun of perusing this old illustration reminded me of the power of using art, and the unique genius of the one and only Jack Davis. 

"MAD magazine artist extraordinaire Tom Richmond and the great comics/TV writer Mark Evanier both recently did posts highlighting a certain piece of TV-related artwork from the 1960s.

"For the 1965-66 Fall season, it seems NBC commissioned legendary MAD artist Jack Davis to create a special piece of artwork to promote their primetime line-up. The large piece of art was run across six pages of the September 11-17, 1965 issue of TV Guide, in full color."

More here.

Behind the Scenes: Local Hero (Forsyth, 1983) with Burt Lancaster and Peter Riegert

This comedy from the 1980s is well worth watching and there is nothing quite like it. Here's a behind the scenes documentary of Local Hero (1983), a comedy film by Bill Forsyth and starring Peter Riegert and Burt Lancaster.

Rodolphe Töpffer: “The True Story of Monsieur Crépin" 1837

Rodolphe Töpffer (1799–1846) is considered the "father of the comic strip." 

He's the guy who created characters and narratives that were specialized to the graphic story. No drawing of famous figures from history or religion (like many of his predecessors in comics history did), these people with names like "Mr. Jabot, "Mr. Crépin" and "Dr. Festus" sprung out of his own imagination and were unique to his stories.

This all happened by accident. Or rather, accident of birth. Töpffer's eyesight was so bad he could not follow his father and become a painter. So he became a professor and doodled on the side. When friends saw his dashed-off doodles -- which were raw and scratchy due to his bad eyesight -- they encouraged him to publish.

Here is "The True Story of Monsieur Crépin,” first published in 1837, which is about a long-suffering father who is trying to find a tutor for his children. Chaos and hilarity ensues.

Hat tip to Print Magazine.