Happy Birthday, Charles Addams

Charles Addams with wife Barbara, an attorney, in 1955, AP Photo. "He was married three times, and in between marriages dated the likes of Greta Garbo, Jackie Kennedy and Joan Fontaine," so says the Mental Floss blog.

Happy 98th birthday to cartoonist Charles Addams, whose new ADDAMS FAMILY musical is now in previews in Chicago.

His childhood nickname was "Chill."

During World War II, Addams made animated training films for the Army while serving served in the Signal Corps Photographic Center in New York.

He sold his first cartoon to The New Yorker at the age of 21 for $7.50. He would sell over 1,300 drawings to the magazine until his death in 1988.

In the tradition of Sidney Smith and Sam Cobean, Addams loved cars.

Addams was a lady's man and was married three times.

Janet Maslin writes in the NY Times:

"The second Barbara [photo above], whom he married in 1954, combined Morticia-like looks with diabolical legal scheming. Ms. Davis [in her biography CHARLES ADDAMS: A CARTOONIST'S LIFE] describes the remarkable tug of war that began once Mr. Addams’s second wife, a practicing lawyer, began persuading him to sign away rights to much of what he owned. She wound up in control of the 'Addams Family' television and movie franchises and even bewitched Mr. Addams into taking out a $100,000 life insurance policy.

"'I told him the last time I had word of such a move was in a picture called ‘Double Indemnity’ starring Barbara Stanwyck, which I called to his attention,' wrote Mr. Addams’s lawyer, whom he dared to consult only on the sly. In the film, Ms. Stanwyck’s character plotted to murder her husband for insurance money."

Maslin further notes, "Addams's persona sounds cooked up for the benefit of feature writers ... was at least partly a character contrived for the public eye."



Links to all things Addams.

Fiona Murray wrote this fascinating bio of the man and his cartoons and his women for Dan's Papers here.

Michael Maslin provides even more links, including the video bit below -- it's from William Castle's THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1963). Charles Addams is credited with "specially desginign" the title house in this B-picture starring Tom Poston. Here, William Castle shows us what's in store if we DARE see THE OLD DARK HOUSE:

Via Wikipedia:

"On September 29, 1988, Addams, a sports car enthusiast, had just driven back to his apartment in Manhattan from a visit to friends in Connecticut when he parked his Audi 4000 in front of the apartment building. He was struck by a fatal heart attack while still behind the wheel."

The "Morticia doll," from the early 1960s. For sale for $19.95. I believe this is before the TV series.

Jean-Marie Bertin also has an amazing bibliography of Addams's books. Below is a portion of it: his comprehensive list of Addams's solo books.

Auteur(s)		Titre		Editeur	Lieu		Date	n°
Addams, Chas		Drawn and Quartered		Random House	New York		1942
Addams, Chas		Addams and Evil		Simon & Schuster	New York		1947
Addams, Chas		Monster Rally		Simon & Schuster	New York		1950
Addams, Chas		Homebodies		Simon & Schuster	New York		1954
Addams, Chas		Nightcrawlers		Simon & Schuster	New York		1957
Addams, Chas		Dear Dead Days. A Family Album		G.P. Putnam’s Sons	New York		1959
Addams, Chas		Chas Addams’ Black Maria		Simon & Schuster	New York		1960
Addams, Charles		The Penguin Charles Addams. Penguin 1845.	{1962}	Penguin	Harmondworth		1965
Addams, Chas		The Groaning Board		Simon & Schuster	New York		1964
Addams, Chas		My Crowd		Simon & Schuster	New York		1970
Addams, Chas		Le monde de Chas Addams. [édition française incomplète de My Crowd ]		Hachette	Paris		1973
Addams, Chas		Favorite Haunts		Simon & Schuster	New York		1976
Addams, Chas		Creature Comforts		Simon & Schuster	New York		1981
Addams, Charles		The World of Charles Addams		Alfred A. Knopf	New York		1991
Addams, Charles		La famille Addams. Presses Pocket 4580.		Presses Pocket	s. l.		1992
Addams, Charles		Chas Addams Half-Baked Book		Simon & Schuster	New York		2005

My thanks to Jean-Marie Bertin for the scan of Morticia, as well as the MY CROWD and CREATURE COMFORTS covers.

BEST CARTOONS OF THE YEAR 1944

Here are a few scans from BEST CARTOONS OF THE YEAR 1944, edited by Lawrence Lariar (natch!) and copyright 1944 by same.


The nice thing about the first few years of the BEST CARTOON series is that there is an autobio, accompanied by a self caricature, of most of the contributors.

Dave Gerard was part of what was called the "Sugar Crick Art School" — a term for a group of Crawfordsville, Indiana area artists, the most famous of which would be Bill Holman.



The one and only Al Ross, one of four brothers, all of whom were successful gag cartoonists.



Early Ross cartoons are very illustrative, with a flowing, strong ink line. His later cartoons are wonderfully sketchy.



Above: the word "sipsies" is always funny. A Virgil VIP Partch at the top of the page, while a rare and risque Lariar cartoon is at the bottom.


More VIP, and another one by Al Ross.



Mary Gibson was one of the handful of female cartoonists.


Colin Allen is another cartoonist whose work I see but know little about. Love this overcrowding cartoon. This guy could draw!

Charles Allen was not only a fine draftsman, but also an African American cartoonist.



Dave Huffine lived in the Catskills and was married to a painter, Ruth Huffine. Dave assisted Denys Wortman before going solo.



This was the first time I saw Ving Fuller's cartoons and I really enjoyed them. Vig was a veteran cartoonist who did a lot of gag and syndicated work.


Cartoonist was, according to his Wikipedia entry, doing cartoons for Hearst at the age of 15!



Salo and Ben Roth, were 2 of the 4 Roth brothers. See Eli Stein Cartoons for more info!




Reamer Keller is one of my favorites. There is a happiness to his lines and I always like seeing his cartoons. He is a fearless drawer.


Brroklyn-born Leo Garel was one of the most prolific gag cartoonists around.



Virgil VIP Partch is one cartoonist who is getting more and more popular as people on the Internet discover him.


Ed Nofziger drew the best animals.



Greg D'Alessio was so very illustrative. He was married to Hilda Terry.



Leo Salkin's work reminds me of VIP's.


Merrylen Townsend -- another rare female cartoonist. I have no further information on her and wish I had.


Ditto Frank Bevan.


Ted key, who wrote screenplays and created Hazel. A prolific, smart guy.



4 time NCS Gag Cartoon Division Award winner George Wolfe.

Burr Shafer. I used to study his strong inking style.


Vic Herman created "Winnie the Wac" and drew Little Dot for Harvey Comics.

Comix Journalism: Send Ted Rall Back to Afghanistan to Get the Real Story

Via Kickstarter, Ted Rall asks you consider supporting his proposed trip to Afghanistan.

From Ted's blog:

So it's like this:

In the old days, before the economy collapsed and newspapers and magazines thought it was important to pay people to collect news for them, and even paid their travel expenses, I traveled to places like Afghanistan and Central Asia on other people's dimes--POV magazine, Men's Journal, KFI Radio, Universal Press Syndicate, The Village Voice. (Psst--I still love you guys!)

Sadly, it's much, much harder now to get financing. So I'm turning to you...not for the work itself, but for the ridiculously exorbitant travel bill involved with getting to and from Afghanistan...which will likely run 35,000 or more for 3-4 weeks "in country" but for which I can scrape up $10,000 or so.

My plan is outlined in this link at Kickstarter, a site that allows people to pledge funds toward various projects.

Video: Jamaica Dyer

Kane Lynch interviews Jamaica Dyer, whose webcomic Weird Fishes ( http://jamaicad.com ) was recently published by Slave Labor Graphics.

Dog Cartoon Inspires Theatrical Play

©2010 The New Yorker Collection from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Peter Steiner's New Yorker cartoon, now 16 years old, is one of the most well known in the magazine's history.

And the subject of dogs and the Internet has been mined for other jokes, like my friend Nik Scott's four panel cartoon on Internet Spying, taken from the Prometheus6 blog.

But I had no idea that the "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon inspired an entire theatrical play.

"Nobody Knows I'm a Dog" by David Alan Perkins ...

" ...is a full-length play about six people who are unable to connect to other people IRL (in real life). They find the courage to socialize by joining a singles newsgroup on the Internet, taking comfort in knowing that they won't be seen. They all choose to hide behind lies and false personas to achieve their ultimate desire - connecting with other people - though it is these lies which keep them from connecting. This morality tale explores the notion that though people try to manufacture fantasy personas in cyberspace, their real personality eventually comes through."

More at David Alan Perkins' site.

Hat tip to Michael Maslin!

Charles Addams Links

To quote Doctor Who, Things sometimes don't happen to me in the right order.

Case in point: at the ECC Cartoonbooks blog, Jan Oplinus writes about (1) discovering the ADDAMS FAMILY TV show and then (2) finding out later -- much later -- that they were based on cartoons. He shares links to all things ADDAMS. Well worth a moment to look at some amazing links.

By a weird quirk of (a) where and (b) when I lived, I never knew that there was an ADDAMS FAMILY TV show until I was a teen. This was back in the day before the homogeneous effects of nationwide cable. I had, by that time, read all of the New Yorker cartoon collections I could find.

Charles Addams would have been 98 years old this Thursday.

Thank You

This has been a busy year for me and busy is always good. My cartoon classes have doubled. My comic books -- sold via this blog -- sold out within 45 days after being offered.

I am thankful to my friends and family for their support.

I am also fortunate to have a couple of grand friends who are cartoonists.

And you out there -- the person who reads this blog -- I am especially grateful to. The visitors continue to increase, with more making the Mike Lynch Cartoons blog a routine stop every day. And the average time that peoples' eyeballs are on this site is over a minute -- which is a really, really long time in Cyberspace.

Thank you to everyone out there.

Happy 2010!

Video: The New DOCTOR WHO

Here's a one minute clip of the new DOCTOR WHO, Matt Smith. This contains no spoilers if you haven't seen "The End of Time" yet.



Hat tip to The DOCTOR WHO News Page.

Danish Police Shoot Cartoonist Attacker

BBC News has the details in its Somali charged over attack on Danish cartoonist article.

Hat tip to Claude Haber.

Video: Mort Drucker

Via Stephen Silver, here is a snippet of a longer film on Mort Drucker.



This is video of Mort reflecting on his life and of him drawing. Lots of video of him drawing. Thank you, Stephen, for sharing this. And, as Stephen says:

To watch the 2 hour and 15 minute film go to www.schoolism.com and click on "The Masters Series" banner located on the bottom. The film will debut starting January 2oth 2010.

USPS 2010 Stamps

Bill Mauldin, Calvin & Hobbes, Mother Theresa and more -- all honored with 2010 USPS Postage Stamps next year.

66 years ago this very day -- December 31st, 1943 -- Life magazine photographer John Phillips snapped the above photo of Bill Mauldin in Italy. In March 2010, the above commemorative stamp will be for sale.


From the USPS press release:

"The Sunday Funnies stamp pane honors Archie, Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. The stamps will go on sale in July."

There are paragraph-long descriptions of each of the comic strips in the press release, but why oh why are there not the names of the creators? These newspaper comic strip did not spring out of nothing! They should be acknowledged:

• Archie Bob Montana
• Beetle Bailey Mort Walker
• Dennis the Menace Hank Ketcham
• Garfield Jim Davis
• Calvin and Hobbes Bill Watterson

There are also stamps commemorating Winslow Homer, abstract expressionist painters, cowboys of the silver screen, Kate Smith, and the Negro Leagues, among others.

More hi res images at the Washington Post's Postal Service releases 2010 stamps article. Beware: you will be held hostage to a 30 second Bank of America ad.

USPS announcement is here.

My thanks to the ever vigilant Sean Kelly for the heads up. Thanks, Sean!

Off-topic, but she's one of my fave actresses: the USPS honors Katharine Hepburn with this art based on a still from WOMAN OF THE YEAR. Stamp for sale May 12, 2010.

Sale

Christmas is over, time to buy what you really want! Check out the SALE at my Zazzle Store!

Merry Christmas

Here are a few Holiday links of cartoony interest from a few of my friends and myself.

Above: Enjoy this rarely seen Pogo spoof: "A Visit From St. Nicholas (To the Moon)."



My friend, the one and only great gag cartoonist Don Orehek, gives us some Christmas cheer!


The NY Times shares some Tintin Holiday cards.


Walt Kelly's rare 1942 giveaway comic The Little Fir Tree is presented by the Hairy Green Eyeball blog. The more Kelly the better, I say.


Remember when the paper would run a special Christmas comic strip during those pre-Christmas weeks? My friend Ger Apeldoorn does and he shares Heavenly Daze by Ben Martin today.


Sam Henderson showcases Holiday covers to humor magazines, as well as his annual gag cartoon.


Sandra Bell-Lundy reminisces about her favorite TV special, The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. The Vintage Children's Books My Kid Loves blog scans in some of the Brigg's drawings from the book.

My pal Brian Fies showcases his annual Holiday greeting card. I love getting these in the mail, and here's Brian telling the significance of these 2 young women:

"Above is this year's drawing for our family Christmas card, featuring, as it has for 21 straight years, my twin girls. The cards make a real neat family history all strung together on a knotted ribbon across our living room wall."

And then he gives us the lyrics to Deck the Halls With Boston Charlie!



Petey has a Christmas dream at my friend Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac blog. If you know Petey, you know things go awry.


My inky pal Mark Anderson scans in a 1958 Will Eisner comic: Spaceman Discovers Christmas.

Happy Holidays to all my friends out there!

The 12 Rejections of Christmas

Ahh! The gag cartoonist's life! All true, all dialogue verbatim.