It's fall and the leaves here in Northern New England are going from green to red to brown pretty rapidly. Here's a cartoon of mine from Reader's Digest for this occasion. I drew this (ink on paper) and did not like the digital colors I was getting. I wanted soft, fall colors. So, I took out the dime store watercolors I had in a drawer, and colored it that way. Sometimes old school methods are the best.
There's scant biographical information about illustrator Tom O'Sullivan on the web. But here's a look at one of my favorite books that he illustrated: "I Live In the City ABC" by Lou Moore, A Whitman Book, copyright 1969 by Western Publishing Company.
On the cover, a little girl leans into the wind as her pinwheel turns. It may look like she is off balance but her smile tells us otherwise. All of her friends lean into the wind as well. Look at "F is for Father going to work," and see him angled, running toward us, while turning at his pelvis to wave goodbye. The city itself is full of architecture, trees, cars signage, traffic lights, fire escapes -- all lovingly detailed. In this edition, the kid who owned the book before me got so excited that he/she got out a purple crayon, adding some frantic lines to the last couple of pages.
I think you can tell by the cover of Keeping Women In Line by Mischa Richter (1910 - 2001) that this book of his King Features gag cartoons is going to be a little risque -- at least for midcentury America. The Avon paperback collects 120 of Strictly Richter panels from 1948 to 1953. His bold linework was a good style for newsprint publication. He tends to frame most of his panels closely and his pen strokes swift. His trademark bold, inky style was popular, and his clients included the Saturday Evening Post and The New Yorker.
Some great behind the scenes information about illustrator Constantin Alajalov and his creation of a finished New Yorker cover for the November 18, 1942 issue. Look at all the sketches and the research.
Here's the article from the December 1942 American Artist Magazine:
