MAN THE BEAST by Virgil VIP Partch Part 2

This past Saturday, the 17th of October, was the 99th birthday of cartoonist Virgil "VIP" Partch. To celebrate, let's look in on some rare photos and cartoons:

Here are some cartoons from MAN THE BEAST. It's copyright 1951, 1953 by Virgil Franklin Partch, II, "the funniest cartoonist in the world."

This is Part 2. Part 1 is here.



There is an apocryphal story that Virgil VIP Partch never got into The New Yorker magazine.

"It's because how his characters looked. He drew nostrils on his people," I was told, more than once, by a cartoonist colleague."The New Yorker didn't like it."

It's not true. I mean it's true that VIP did draw nostrils -- but he DID get into The New Yorker more than once. (According to Michael Maslin's great NYer Cartoonists A-Z list, six cartoons of Partch's appeared between 1942 and 1976.)

And does everyone know about Virgil Partch drawing six fingers?

Cartoonist Ed Nofziger said of his friend:

"As a 'Disney man,' Partch was required to follow such strict edicts as, for example, drawing four fingers on Mickey Mouse to make it easier for animating. So VIP went the other way and drew six to eight fingers on his cartoons. It was sort of teasing (the Disney style) in a way." -- LA Times

More Partch to come ...