Gene Hazelton Original Art

Years ago, animator/cartoonist Gene Hazelton mailed some original cartoons to Maggie Marker and her siblings. Now, 35 years later, Maggie pulls out that old envelope of his originals and shares some large scans of the art for The Flintstones and Yogi Bear newspaper comic strips at her blog.


My deep thanks to Maggie for letting me know about this project. Gene's lovely letter to the Marker children is a great introduction to what a syndicated cartoonist does.

Review: GOOD GIRL ART by Ron Goulart

Prolific author Ron Goulart wrote one of the best books. His history of comic strips in America THE FUNNIES is one of my all-time favorites. When I heard about his latest book, I thought that Goulart was wasting his time.

GOOD GIRL ART is a large, over-sized glossy trade paperback full of good girl art from comic books of the 1930s through today. What's Good Girl Art? From the Hermes Press Web site:

"The term refers not to magazines that contain drawings of virtuous girls but rather to those featuring good drawings of attractive women. These pretty girls are most often scantily, sparsely or provocatively clad."

We're not talking about girls that are "good," we're talking girls that look good --designed to appeal to young men.

One of my favorites is Madame Satan, a woman who hunted men down so she could deliver their souls to her master, the Devil (who else?)! Darn silly stuff. Ironically, she first appeared in Pep Comics, the title that would showcase the squeaky clean Archie.

The art is particularly great fun to look at, of course. From the cover by Frank Cho to Sheena to Vampirella, flipping through this volume will show you the people at Hermes took a lot of time and care with the lush visuals, focusing on published and very rare original art. The art is particularly well photographed -- I love looking at originals and all their blemishes are there to linger over.

Along with the GGA visual sizzle, Mr. Goulart provides plenty of steak. And the themes of the book are with us today.

There are a couple of books out about the government crackdown on torrid comics in the 1950s, but none of them do the scholarly job that Ron Goulart does in linking the cause of the publishers (sales) with the effects of their good girl art (corrupting America's youth).

"Packaging, as with most mass market products, is almost always an important factor in selling. At Standard [a comic book company], it had obviously been decided that Good Girl Art was now selling better than Superhero Art and that was what went on the covers. The idea was that you could trigger an impulse to buy more easily with the image of a young woman in a bikini than with one of a muscleman in mask and cape."

Goulart paints a picture in the chapter "The Wertham Crusade" of an American public ready and eager to accept the assertion that comic books, "the bastard offspring of newspaper comics,*" were the cause of growing juvenile delinquency.

This is, of course, again, darn silly in hindsight.

I was wrong when I said that Mr. Goulart was wasting his time on a frivolous subject. Even now, we have trouble sorting out decency in a free country.

Are there really a dozen Danish cartoons so indecent that they are the direct cause for riots and deaths and cannot be shown in the newspapers or on TV? Do creators have the right to produce what they want? Should the Web be censored?

GOOD GIRL ART has, of course, some great and rarely seen art by Matt Baker, Lee Elias, Bob Lubbers, Nick Cardy and many others. It's the scholarly Goulart who gives this big book some serious historical heft. An excellent addition to your bookshelf.


Paperback: $29.99 ISBN #1-932563-88-1, 224 pages, color, 9" x 12"
Hardcover: $49.99 ISBN #1-932563-87-3, 224 pages, color, 9" x 12"

*Time Magazine, October 4, 1948, as quoted in GOOD GIRL ART.

Bill Griffith Video Interviews

From COMIC BOOK CONFIDENTIAL (1989):



From a local NBC TV station in Hartford, CT (2002):



Another local interview from Hartford, CT TV (2003), which includes the ZIPPY theme song:

MORE BOBBY SOX by Marty Links

Above: Marty Links circa 1954 from her bio page at Lambiek.

Animator John Kricfalusi has posted a number of Bobby Sox single panel newspaper cartoons at his blog. Go and see!

Some background:

Bobby Socks (later retitled Emmy Lou, after the bobby socks craze was moribund) was the creation of a female cartoonist, Marty Links, who passed away in January.

"By the way, if you happen to be confused by the the given name of the cartoonist, you're not alone. So, apparently, was The National Cartoonists' Society, of which she was one of the first female members. Correspondence from the Society was addressed to 'Mr. Marty Links' even after she'd given birth to her first child. She offered to send them her bust size."

- from Don Markstein's Toonpedia

Shaenon K. Garrity has a tribute to Bobby Sox's creator Marty Links here.

Hat tip to Journalista!

Photo of Marty Links at left from the Heritage Series site.

SITA SINGS THE BLUES by Nina Paley

SITA SINGS THE BLUES is a new movie making the film fest circuit. It was animated by my colleague Nina Paley. I knew her when she used to cartoon on pieces of paper, but then she began animating. All by herself she did this. Over five years it took to make. Here's the trailer:



Nina's blog.

H/t to THE BEAT!

SOUTH SEA CARTOONS compiled & edited by Harold Myers

A selection of desert island cartoons from SOUTH SEA CARTOONS, a well-used Ace Paperback, compiled & edited by Harold Myers and copyright 1955 by Avon Publications Inc.

This book, as you have astutely observed for your own self, is a theme book. There are challenges with this narrow and not so deep theme. You will realize within moments why there aren't any companion cartoon cliche books from Ace like THE BIG BOOK OF BOSS CHASING THE SECRETARY AROUND A DESK CARTOONS or PRISONER SHACKLED TO THE WALL CARTOONS, etc.
"What goes on on a desert isle -- and what comes off???" reads the back cover blurb. Above is an unsigned (and well drawn) wordless cartoon the epitomizes the tone of the book. Ahh. The 1950s, back when being pervy was fodder for laughs!

"Been here a while?"

I really like a lot of the line work in the cartoons. It's crisp and looks professional. Problem is -- most of these cartoons are unsigned. Those that are, I don't know the cartoonist.

"Keep it up, Dearie, the wind is rising"

Above is a cartoon that had an interesting gag -- and it reminded me of brass player cartoony pal Mark Anderson as well.

"Oh no! Not chewing gum here too!"

The woman in the background seems greatly amused by this fellow getting annoyed. One touch that I liked was the drawing of the clenched hands; each one in a slightly different position, just like it would be in real life. The cartoonist who drew this is not afraid to draw. A good working-in of the palm in the background; a necessary visual tell to let us know we're on a desert island.



Above: a rather lush and large island, with the typical gag of the desert island guys and gals.





One of my favorite cartoons from the book. There's another cartoon that has a similar gag (see just below), but this one (one of the few to showcase that a woman also has her needs) is put together with such an expert reclining figure. Look at her dainty left foot, dangling languidly, as she smilingly daydreams.

"But aren't there any male mermaids?"

Does it make sense for a desert island to have a cactus instead of a palm tree? It's the only cactus in the book, except for the partially obscured on on the cover. I like the little fish jumping out for a brief ogle.

"Alright, already! Have your daily track workout, but not all day!"

It's good to keep yourself in shape. Above, a good gag about what to do with all the time on your hands when shipwrecked.

"Dearie, I have some great news for you!"

Another cartoon about what has gone on over time on a desert island.

"And now the mast is installed and all we need is a little bit of cloth."

Looks to me like he has more than her. I look at this and am confounded by the crosshatching. Is it a sky effect? A twig canopy?

"I don't know why we're running ... in a week we'll probably be chasing him."

Another concession that sex runs rampant on these "nautical but nice" (quote from the frontispiece) South Sea islands. A nice conceit that the lady chasees may soon become future chasers. One mistake: cropping off the top of the seminal palm tree. Now it doesn't read like a palm tree and the only way I know it's an island for sure is because it appears in the book SOUTH SEA CARTOONS.

"Hands off! It's for Daddy's birthday!"

And, last but not least, let's include a cannibal gag. If SOUTH SEA CARTOONS were published today, there would be Lost and Gilligan's Island references in place of these politically incorrect cartoons.

Tom Tomorrow

4/26/08, Johnny D's, Boston MA - Tom Tomorrow (AKA Dan Perkins), Mark Parisi, Mike Lynch

On Saturday, April 26th, Tom Tomorrow spoke at a National Cartoonists Society New England Chapter get together. This is the NE chapter's "Post-Post-Post Holiday Party."

Tom Tomorrow is not his real name. He's actually a regular Midwestern guy named Dan Perkins. But Tom Tomorrow was the pen name he used in his 20s and it stuck. The name of his editorial cartoon is This Modern World. It can be seen at Salon, and some other sites. But Salon gets it first. Dan encouraged us attendees to go to Salon and register, so they can comment on the cartoon.

A couple of highlights:

He showed us some really early cartoons, including his first ever published illustration from a 1983 Des Moines Register. His pay: nothing, but at the time he was so happy to be published, he didn't care. He also showed some early strips, drawn in what he called his Kliban-influenced style, before he moved toward his "found art" style.

Known for his wordy cartoons, he showed a jam strip he did with Bill Griffiths, who also draws the very wordy Zippy. He also showed a large number of his This Modern World cartoons. We got to see Keith Olbermann read "Bill O'Reilly's very useful advice for young people, as channeled by vile left-wing smear merchant Tom Tomorrow," from the November 30, 2007 editionof the TV show Countdown.

As I mentioned, Dan's cartoons can be seen in a lot of places (The Funny Times, The Village Voice, etc.), but what I didn't know is that The Huffington Post, which will post a This Modern World cartoon from time to time, does not pay for content. In HuffPo's case, to paraphrase Dan, that makes it 25 years of working "for the exposure." Ugh!

1949 King Features Exhibit Cards

Via my inky pal's Mark Anderson's Andertoons blog is a set of 22 promotional 1949 King Features Exhibit Cards. I agree with Mark, I've never seen anything like these and assume they are tied into a promotional aspect; placards for newsstand display, for instance. They do provide a fun glimpse at the comics nearly 60 years ago.

Related: 1949 Famous Artists & Writers King Features Syndicate book.

Easy Gardening

We got nine cubic yards of compost for our raised beds. The dumptruck dumped it here on Monday. We have three 6x12 raised beds. It took me about an hour to fill up one of them. Then my neighbor drove over in his back hoe. That's him, above. He filled the other two in five minutes. Wow!



I got connections!

Now to figure out what to plant! We're using the rest of the compost for planting flowers along the side of the house.

Magazine Gag Cartoons Online UPDATED

Or, if you prefer, Magazine Gag Cartoons Without Papercuts.

I'm asked if you can see magazine cartoons online. What with the price of gas, this is a good, frugal question! I think pretty much everyone knows that there are New Yorker cartoons online, but what about the other major markets?

Here is a list, in no particular order, of magazines and where on line you can see the magazine cartoons (if the have them online, that is). I would alphabetize this list for you, but I am lazy. Please forgive! And if anyone has corrections, please let me know!

• First for Women This grocery checkout line mag which runs anywhere from one to maybe four cartoons, is published every three weeks. The cartoons are not online. They run cartoons about overworked moms, crazy things kids say, clueless dads, and some low-lying puns.

• Women's World Ditto.

• Good Housekeeping is getting out of the gag cartoon business, despite what they say. No longer publishing original submissions, the Hearst-owned monthly runs four New Yorker cartoons per issue. But there are no cartoons in the May issue. I was told last year that they are still in the gag cartoon buying business, but I still don't get my SASEs returned.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Why oh why is Hearst buying content from Conde Nast (New Yorker's parent co.), one of its big competitors?

• The New Yorker You can click and see the slideshow for the current issue, as well as their caption contest cartoon. New Yorker buys all rights.
  
  
• Playboy has no online cartoon content for the gen pop. Their content might surprise: it's a great mix of some racy, sexy cartoons, as well as some really funny general cartoons. Playboy buys all rights.
  
  
• Prospect (UK) Prospect is a monthly magazine of ideas. In March, they began showing their single panel gag cartoons online, beginning with their April issue. This month, the cartoons are missing not only for the current May issue, but they were also scrubbed from the April Web page.
  UPDATE APRIL 26, 2008: I was promised by the editor that the cartoon will appear and -- BEHOLD -- they have, at least in part. The cartoons are up for the current May issue, but the April cartoons are still AWOL. They are still having trouble converting the JPEG color palate to that limited GIF colors, making the cartoons look grainy, washed out and off-hue.
  
  
• The Oldie (UK) from their Web site:

"What is THE OLDIE?

"RICHARD INGRAMS WRITES: 'After editing Private Eye for over twenty years, I decided in 1992, along with a group of friends (Auberon Waugh, Alexander Chancellor and Stephen Glover), to launch The Oldie. The aim was to produce an antidote to youth culture but, more importantly, a magazine wih emphasis on good writing, humour and quality illustration. Sixteen years later, The Oldie can well claim to be a success story, attracting some of our best writers, illustrators and cartoonists.'"

I've sold a few to The Oldie, but they are hard market to crack -- as is the Spectator (UK).

• Wall Street Journal Above is a free link to its editorial page with its long-running five-day-a-week Pepper ... and Salt gag panel.
  
  
• Barron's No cartoons online for this premier business weekly. This is too bad because they have some terrific ones!
  

• Harvard Business Review Above is a link to the current issue. You can navigate by going here and toggling the drop down menu on the right, that will take you as far back as July 1995.
  
  
• Punch This is a link to the Punch Magazine cartoon library. Punch folded in 2002, and its obviously not a market today, but there is an extensive digital library of images from its history, which began in 1841.
  
  
• Reader's Digest RD doesn't have a place to read the current cartoons per se, but there is a newsletter site where you can browse through some of their recently published (the last 5- 6 years) cartoons.
  
  
• Saturday Evening Post is aimed at an older readership, and publishes a good number of cartoons in every issue. The mag has a "Cartoon of the Day" at the page and I don't see a backlog available. Please tell me if I'm wrong since they would have one of the world's largest backlogs! SEP runs a lot of family-friendly cartoons, with emphasis on kids and moms, and they like fishing gags a lot too. Warning: SEP pays on publication.
  
  
• Spectator (UK) This UK weekly runs up to a dozen cartoons a week. The interface for viewing the cartoons is not the best, and sometimes the reproduction is unnecessarily dinky. Quirky editorial comments appear in call out boxes as you hover your arrow over the thumbnails, too.

Of course, a number of magazines have gotten out of the magazine cartoon business: Better Homes & Gardens, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, etc. I'm not showcasing some specialized markets like The Chronicle of Higher Education or Hustler. Some markets, like Medical Economics, I just don't know much about and haven't ever seen the actual magazine.

Again, if you have some corrections, if you see omissions -- please let me know.

A tip of the hat to Pletch for letting me know about Prospect's site in the first place. He heard it from Dave Carpenter, who told me about the WSJ link.

Lunch with Delgado, Weber, Piro & Lynch

At eleven AM last Friday, I was watching some Larry Semon comedy shorts with live piano accompaniment. It was part of Mirthquake, a 4-day long annual silent comedy festival in Manchester, NH. Semon was a cartoonist turned comedian. He was big in the 1920s, but forgotten now. A very young Oliver Hardy was the heavy, and the films stuck to the hero-fight-villain-rescue-girl formula. Most of it involved chases, pratfalls, and lots of mugging. It's eighty years later, and the Semon shorts do not look as innovative as they must've looked back then. Richard M. Roberts writes astutely about Larry Semon's career here, and why Semon is forgotten now.


Above: Roy Delgado and Stephanie Piro.

Anyway, here's the background on last Friday: Stephanie Piro and I drove across the state of New Hampshire, to Manchester, to meet with gag cartoonist Roy Delgado and King Features cartoonist Bob Weber. We got there early to see some of those silent movies, and then we headed to the local Irish pub Shaskeen to talk cartoon shop talk.

Stephanie is one of King Features Six Chix, and she also syndicates the humor panel Fair Game. She has a variety of great t-shirts and other items in her shop. I own many of them!

Roy Delgado is one of the most published gag cartoonists today. His new book A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE NEW YORKER, in which he talks about what drives him and his multi-year campaign to get published in The New Yorker.


Mike Lynch and "Moose & Molly" cartoonist Bob Weber.

Bob was showing us a Sunday section of a Trenton newspaper that a fan had given him. There, at the top of the page was "Moose," and underneath was his son's comic "Slylock Fox." Right there, on the same page: Bob Weber, Sr., and Bob Weber, Jr.

Note: There are three Bob Webers actively cartooning; the two above, and Bob Weber of The New Yorker magazine.

We had a good time, talking about cartoons and projects and editors and so on.

Roy told us about his job before cartooning: head of his own sign making company. The drive that he had in that job has now been transferred full-time to his cartooning career.

The hours passed too quickly by.

On the walk back to the car, we went past this old timey soda shop. It had seen better days.

We walked inside. Yup, there were stools and an old marble counter. I saw an Al Ross cartoon from the 1970s on the wall . All right, Dilbert and Far Side I have seen -- but I've never seen anyone tape up a 35 year old Al Ross cartoon.

I asked if I could take a photo. I got the fisheye look from the woman who ran the place, then she shrugged her shoulders and made an "Eh!" sound. I took this to be an OK.

"Winning is crucial to my retirement plans."

Amen!

Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship Winner Announced

Juana Medina, a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, has won the Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship. Administered by the National Cartoonists Society Foundation, the $5000 award will be presented at the annual NCS Reubens dinner on May 24, 2008. More from Daryl Cagle's site here.

Congratulations, Juana!

MOST OUTRAGEOUS Review

Steve Duin writes a thoughtful review of MOST OUTRAGEOUS THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF DWAINE TINSLEY AND CHESTER THE MOLESTER by Bob Levin.

I know nothing about the life of the late Dwaine Tinsley. The fact that the book cover looks like a plain brown wrapper is your tip-off that this is a guy who was the cartoon editor for Hustler magazin. He was best known for drawing the "Chester the Molester" cartoons.

In 1989, he was arrested on several charges, including child molestation. The accuser was his stepdaughter, "Veronica."

"'To those in the front lines of the war against child sexual abuse, Dwaine must have seemed the Target of the Decade,' Levin writes. 'He worked for the most despised magazine in the country. He had created the most reviled character in cartoon history. And he thought child molestation -- the most loathsome bogeyman than rattling our national imagination -- a fit topic for humor ....'"

The harrowing trial went forward. Tinsley claimed that Veronica was a cocaine addict who wanted money and a car. When Tinsley didn't acquiesce, she made up a story about being abused.

Neither stepdaughter nor stepdad backed down from their stories. 3,200 of Tinsley's cartoons were allowed into evidence.

Read the whole review here.

H/t Journalista! (Get well soon, Dirk!)

Kal on Kal

More on Kevin "Kal" Kallaugher: in the video, he talks about his life as a cartoonist, and some particular stories behind some particular covers of The Economist:

Ed Sorel Interview

I missed this interview of cartoonist/illustrator Ed Sorel by Zina Saunders that was posted last week. He talks about starting Pushpin Studios with Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser -- and not being able to draw until he was in his 40s (!):

"That was when I realized that my sketches have more artistic value than my finishes. My wife and I did a book called, 'Word People', which was about people whose names became part of the language like Sandwich and Boycott and stuff like that. And there turned out to be 60 or 70 such people. When I did that book, I resolved that I would do it direct, without tracing. And I think for the most part I did. So suddenly I had a book that looked like nobody else’s, sort of like a signature. If you don’t trace you get a signature.

"I'd realized that tracing was death and I tried to do more and more direct drawing, which is possible to do if you don’t have to have too much information in the picture. If you don’t have to compose Custer’s Last Stand, you can work direct; if you have to paint Custer’s Last Stand , then you have to do a lot of preparation and a lot of tracing. And composition is always very hard for me. That’s why I do a lot of parodies of great painters, because they figured it all out and all I have to do is make fun of them."

I was stunned to see how critical Sorel is of his own work. I really like it, and find his sense of color to be wonderful. Now I know that he is one of those fellows (like me) who chooses to draw right there on the page, with no pencil foundation, to maintain the vitality of the pen line!

Portrait of Sorel by Zina Saunders.

Ed Sorel Web site.

Steve Brodner's "Naked Campaign" Videos

Here's another great chance to see Steve Brodner draw, as well as comment about, the "content-free road to the White House." This is part of The New Yorker's "Naked Campaign" outstanding series of videos by Gail Levin.

Brad Bird on Management

We have all had some bad bosses. I've had a lot of bad bosses. The kind who would blame HIS boss for me not getting a raise that year. The kind that would berate me in front of colleagues and then take me aside to apologize profusely in private. The kind who would take steal my ideas. The kind who told me I was so invaluable to the company that, this year, I could not take a vacation. (I quit that job.) I could go on. We've all been there, right?

Mark Mayerson's Mayerson on Animation blog gives us a peek at Pixar director Brad Bird's management techniques and how he was able to make such good movies by NOT being one of those kinds of bad bosses.

"Before I got the chance to make films myself, I worked on a number of badly run productions and learned how not to make a film. I saw directors systematically restricting people’s input and ignoring any effort to bring up problems. As a result, people didn’t feel invested in their work, and their productivity went down. As their productivity fell, the number of hours of overtime would increase, and the film became a money pit."

Kal Presents The Debate We'd Like to See

From The Economist's editorial cartoonist Kevin "Kal" Kallaugher comes a parody of The 2008 Democratic Debate:

Please Do Not Buy This Book

Some nasty news. Some book publisher in China stole a bunch of art from a Web site and has now published it in a fancy $100 coffee table book. See Luc Latulippe's My illustrations, stolen and published in new book.

Also see his update here.

Hat tip to John Martz & Mike Sterling.

HOW TO BE A SUPER SECRETARY

From the must read A Hole in the Head blog, my pal Johnny C. gives you the HOW TO BE A SUPER SECRETARY 1950s brochure, complete with kitschy (and uncredited) two-tone drawings. He's even added a whole PDF of the entire brochure!

Some selected things a Super Secretary is not to do:

• Chews gum
• Smokes at her desk
• Bobby socks
• Tactless in correction others... even the boss
• Her slip always showing
• Egotistical...smart but not smart enough to hide it

Mike Lynch Cartoon in April 22, 2008 WSJ

Today's Earth Day edition of the Wall Street Journal has a cat cartoon of mine. This cartoon actually has a couple of themes, or keywords, that could be associated with it: cats. technology, ring tone, relationships. Sometimes a little bit of serendipity occurs and a cartoon could just as easily fit in a technology mag as well as a cat lovers publication and a women's magazine. And, like some cartoons, there is a bit of a personal touch in the drawing.

I was thinking that you can put anything on your ringtone these days, and so the gag was a natural. The cat "Sebastian," was modeled after my sweet Bertie, a tiger cat of ours who hung out with me in my Brooklyn studio, while our other 2 cats slumbered the day away in the bedroom. He was a great cat, who fought diabetes the last five years of his life. We had to give him injections twice a day.

He passed away a couple years ago. So, it's nice to pay a little personal tribute in a cartoon. I named the cat Sebastian just because it seemed like a funny name -- and more cat-like than "Bertie."

Maybe five years ago, Bertie was on my board. This is, literally, a board that I draw on. He was startled (by some noise outside -- probably a garbage truck going over the Pacific Street speedbump right outside our apartment), and he scrambled away, scratching the living hell out of the board. The board surface was ruined. So, I flipped the board over and started using the other side. I still draw on it, and the deep scratches are still there. I'll always use it, of course, and think of Bertie -- and of all of our other sweet cats (Gus, Opie, Max) who have come and gone.


Above: From a few years back, going clockwise; Bertie, Opie, Mike.

I better go and pat our three current cats: Roo, Sam & Trout now ....

Two from Evan Shaner

Here are a couple of mash ups by Evan Shaner that have been making the Webby rounds, in case you didn't see them. His Ketcham take is darn good!


The Fantastic Four reimagined by Hank Ketcham (scroll down).

The Peanuts gang as Watchmen.

Cartoon Consultants Calendar for April

Hey! Here's that cool Cartoon Consultants Calendar for April over at Craig Yoe's blog. You can tell by his headline that I was nagging him to put it up on his blog by the title Cartoon Consultants Calendar for April, okay Mike Lynch? It's full of great ideas for gag cartoonists!

Here's Craig's description:

"From 1952 this was a guide for gag cartoonists and their writers. It’s set up four months in advance so it gives ideas to creators who can work on and submit ideas that will be printed down.. The calendar is illustrated by Jack Markow whose work I like a lot. I’ve included a little auto-bio thing he did in another publication put out by Cartoon Consultants. This is all fun to look at, but seeing it might actually have some practical use for the gag cartoonists out there still slugging it out. So, I will post a new page on the first day of each month for the rest of 2008."

Thanks, Craig!

In case you missed them:

Cartoonist Consultants Calendar for January

Cartoonist Consultants Calendar for February

Cartoonist Consultants Calendar for March

OFFICE LAFFS Edited by Charles Preston

Above: The OFFICE LAFFS cover. The woman is saying, "Thanks for the raise, honey!" The gag line, which was at the bottom of the cover, got accidentally unscanned due to slovenliness of the man at the scanner (me).

Since when did Bennett Cerf's name sell a book of cartoons? Well, not recently, that's for sure.

Here's a collection of Wall Street Journal cartoons titled OFFICE LAFFS*, copyright 1957, E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. This is the first Crest printing, February 1957, which I have mercilessly bent the spine of to scan in for you. You see? Nothing is too good for you!

"Save 88 cents for the milkman."

Doug Follette showcases the undermining, dead end marital relationship at the heart of a WSJ reader. Follete drew the most distinctive sucking-on-a-lemon pouted lips in cartoon history.


Mr. Stamaty with a nice to look at clean line style. Look at all the wonderful details in the kitchen. His son, Mark Alan, went on to cartoon as well!
Above: Dad looks too happy about reading the dry contents of the Congressional Record to his child. Today, Dads have no time to read to their children, and so C-Span is merely streamed on the kids' computer the kid's heard snoring. The cartoon is drawn by Sid Gordin, who created the cartoons along with Vicky, his wife, so (to quote Orlando Busino) "hence the signature 'Sivic.'"




Above: another unhappy marriage cartoon. This one is by Martin Giuffre. I could not, for a moment, figure out exactly where we were supposed to be. It took a few extra seconds.


The one and only Mort Walker, in one of his most reprinted gag cartoons: the quintessential WSJ Salt ... and Pepper cartoon.

"Well, stupid, there's four days work we don't get paid for!"

You see? Not only does management get a poke, but labor as well. John Gallagher wields the ink on this good cartoon. related: John Gallagher is one of the featured cartoonists in 1000 Jokes magazine #79.

"Who's the new man?"

Serrano, who drew the lovely juxtaposition of the wispy smoke rings and the piles of paper, is like so many gag cartoonists; a name on a page, with so little more information on the Web.



Above: Another Serrano cartoon, with some good composition. If he had made the choice to put black on those shoes, or do a grey wash on the suits, then the visual gag would be lost.

"If we can get a subsidy we can give this country what it needs, a good five cent cigar."

Scott Brown draws some cigar smoking board members in a gag that's lost in time. I like how we can see every cigar and every cigar's wisp of smoke clearly.

Above: Brad Anderson of Marmaduke fame, with a breezy styled wordless cartoon that would enrage the unionized waste management people for that guy's building.

"Parasite!"

Follette, once more, with one of the funnier cartoons in the volume. Look atthe Book Ends Salesman, crouched and ready to make a sale in the wake of the Book Sales Salesman. I admire the gag so much.

"Don't be upset if my wife gives you a nasty look, boss.
She doesn't know about those last two raises."

Bob Schroeter; another cartoonist showing us the life of deceit that husbands lead. Again, I'm beholden to Orlando Busino for being able to recognize Mr. Schroeter's signature, which fluctuates from legible to hieroglyphics from cartoon to cartoon.

"I got the worms -- let's go!"

What I noticed here is that Mr. Folette disavowed the showing of the sunrise, a clock, or anything else that would be a "tell" as to the time of day. The expression on the Dad's face is all you need.


Jerry Marcus -- the one and only -- with a joke on the WSJ Cartoon Editor himself.



* from the indicia: "OFFICE LAFFS was originally published by E. P. Dutton &Co., Inc., under the title HEY, CAN'T YOU FORGET BUSINE$$? and this new and expanded Crest edition is reissued at 25 cents through arrangement with that company. "