New ZIM Book Forthcoming

Above: One of Zim's covers to Judge around the turn of the last century.

From the ASIFA Web site comes news what a collection of Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman's cartoons is coming along. Zim was a major name in cartooning way back in the days of Puck and Judge magazines. His work was gorgeous and meticulous. He also depicted racial stereotypes.

If you can place his content within the context of the times, and just look at the skillful drawings (some people can, some people cannot), his art deserves to be better showcased.

I was fortunate to visit the Zim house in Horseheads, NY in the early 1990s. It was a treasure trove. He designed it and his daughter, who never married, maintained the house as he had. Up in the attic were these little lead bits, and when I tuerned them over, I saw they were castings -- lead castings -- that were used to print his cartoon course.

Glad to hear that ASIFA is cleaning up his series, perhaps the first "how to cartoon" correspondence course.