Sunday, June 30, 2019
A Crowded Life in Comics –
George Priceless
One of the great stylists of the New Yorker stable of
cartoonists, George Price, lived near me when I was growing up. After all these
years, New Yorker cartoon fans will still name one or two of his
cartoons as their favorites.
His drawings for Judge, in the 1930s, were fluid and loose.
His style evolved, through his New Yorker period, into angularities,
sharp edges, and almost abstract, geometricshapes that coalesced into the trademark “look” of George Price’s world.
As if Modigliani drew cartoons.
He lived in Tenafly NJ, near railroad tracks and a block from the
iconic Clinton Inn; and I lived 10 minutes away in Closter NJ. I consigned many
collectibles to the charming Collectors Corner of Veronica Ronyets in Tenafly,
so I was there often.
The first time I met George Price was when I cold-called him and
requested an audience. Surprisingly, he cheerily invited me.
“Surprisingly” because – while he was never unfriendly – George
was about the most dyspeptic person I ever met. It was almost appropriate,
because his cartoons were populated by a cast of thousands equally divided into
groups that were bewildered, bonkers, and… incurably crabby.
George was crabby. Angry. Complaining. Resentful. Like many of his
characters. Sitting in the living room, fists clenched, ready for an argument.
… not with me, but with the world. I never really had much of a
conversation with him, but rather our meeting were like He was the commentator,
I was the audience. Which was fine; a lot of celebrities are like that, or need
that. He was always cordial and welcoming before clearing his throat and
starting rants. And I can be a good audience. But there are a hundred questions
I would like to have asked. Instead…
A propos of nothing (I did not raise the subject) – “Bob Hope. He’s not a
comedian. He’s not funny. Just a glib wise guy.”
OK. This was the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Price was extremely
left-wing and, locally, famously so. Again, out of the blue. “I know those
bastards just want to harass me. It’s an organized plot. Here’s how I know. I
get piles of postcards, all signed God Bless America. It’s all BS.”
OK. One of the cartooning facts I did glean was that he never
wrote his own gags, which surprised me, and still does. All his cartoons were
so idiosyncratic, organic, and seemingly personal, that to buy – or have The
New Yorker provide – premises and captions seemed unusual. And – by the way
– was not George Booth the natural inheritor of Price’s Funny Farm Folks? The
same mood; the same percentage of crossed eyes and bare light bulbs; only more
(in Booth’s case) original drawings with corrections-upon-corrections, Scotch
Tape, and no straight lines to be found...
George Price was unusual. Thank goodness he was prolific, too. We
are left with several anthologies of his work. I had him inscribe one of them, George
Price’s Characters, about a comprehensive a title as one could imagine. He
did sketches of the New York Mets, too, from his skewed perspective. Until
1969, his favorite team would have fed anybody’s dyspepsia.
At a time in my Crowded Life in Cartooning when I was meeting a
lot of cartoonists who loved golfing and cocktail parties; and cartoonists who
retired to Florida and… to golfing and cocktail parties, it was almost
refreshing to meet a talented misanthrope. Whose cartoons reflected his eternal
dissents, or vice-versa, and still made millions laugh.
God bless America, indeed.
44
Sunday, June 23, 2019
A Crowded Life in Comics –
Jim Scancarelli drew this
poster design for an exhibition I organized in 1988 for the Salina (KS) Art
Center and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
Birthdays
Two legendary comic strips celebrate their centenaries this year,
in fact about these same mid-year weeks.
Gasoline Alley and Barney Google sprouted in the fertile soil that was
Chicago cartooning of the ‘teens and ‘20s. For all of the camaraderie and
cross-pollination of theChicago
“school” who fraternized, were students at, or taught at, the Chicago Academy
of Fine Arts, there are no substantial records of a close relationship between
Frank King and Billy DeBeck, respective creators of those strips.
Otherwise they were nurtured by common ferment and the glories of
a great era in American cartooning.
Frank King was born in Wisconsin, but moved to Chicago and lived
in the northern suburbs before the Florida sun seduced him late in life. Gasoline
Alley was self-consciously set in those Chicago neighborhoods where garages
faced each other behind rows of Sears Catalog Homes. Billy DeBeck first
cartooned in Youngstown OH and Pittsburgh before moving to Chicago. Before
settling in Tampa, after Chicago he mostly lived where good times and golf
courses beckoned.
The halcyon days of the Chicago School produced an amazing Who’s
Who of talent and influence in American cartooning: Editorial cartoonists John T
McCutcheon, Carey Orr, Luther Bradley, Vaughn Shoemaker; strip cartoonists King
and DeBeck, Sidney Smith, Harold Gray, Frank Willard, Ferd Johnson, Carl Ed,
William Donahey, E C Segar, Sals Bostwick, Penny Ross; panel cartoonists Clare
Briggs, H T Webster, Quin Hall; illustrators Garrett Price and Dean Cornwell…
and others too numerous to mention.
Long were the careers – and influence – of many of these creators.
Gasoline Alley and Barney Google are unique in that they have
survived a hundred years, the latter albeit largely having been kidnapped and
eclipsed by Snuffy Smith.
When I was the young cartooning-enthusiast son of indulgent
parents, the last day or two of annual family vacations to Florida were given
over to visiting cartoonists. The only condition was that I be bold and clever
enough to arrange appointments in advance. Al (Mutt and Jeff) Smith, my
mentor, and other professional friends, and Marge Devine of the National
Cartoonists Society, helped me with addresses and phone numbers. After that, I
reliably trusted on the native good will and friendliness of professional
cartoonists.
So, criss-crossing the Sunshine State for many vacation years, I
first met Frank King, Roy Crane, Leslie Turner, Jim Ivey, Ralph Dunagin, Dick
Hodgins Sr., Lank Leonard, Zack Moseley, Fred Lasswell, Mel Graff, Don Wright,
Worth Gruelle, and others.
Frank King was old and slow, but with a quick memory, when I met
him and visited several times. The strip then firmly was in the hands of Dick
Moores. On each visit Frank would give me an autographed, vintage Gasoline
Alley original. They ranged from the week after Skeezix appeared on Walt’s
doorstep (depicting him holding the baby before the Alley gang) to the 1930s.
I have several distinct memories. One is tragic. Frank said he
could dig out an old original for me, and went to a shed out back… where he,
evidently, had not been for years. There were stacks of old Gasoline Alley originals,
but the years – and Florida humidity, maybe a leaky shed roof – had taken a
toll. They were mildewed, stuck together; hundreds and hundreds of them. He was
shell-shocked.
Other things I remember, and I hope they were saved by his family.
For his own amusement Frank created what he called “shadow boxes,” scenes
mostly from Gasoline Alley. Each was a large wooden box, open at
the front and top. He painted backgrounds on the sides, bottom, and back; and
then he painted characters and image details on panes of glass that slid into
grooves. The one I remember was of Walt and Judy raking Autumn leaves – when
you looked into the shadow box at eye-level, you beheld a three-dimensional
cartoon of Walt and Judy and hundreds of colorful leaves all around them,
including behind and in front of them.
Frank had many originals on his walls, and I remember being struck
by names I had not heard of – Sals Bostwick, a talented assistant who died
young; and Quin Hall; and his friends from the early days whose names I knew as
illustrators but not as cartoonists, like Garrett Price and Dean Cornwell.
Audacious camera angles, meticulous detail, masterful shading, dialog revealing mature character delineations – hallmarks of Dick Moores’ work on Gasoline Alley)
Later I became a friend of Dick Moores, also as his Editor at the
syndicate. An amazing talent, as was the next successor and current resident of
the Alley, Jim Scancarelli. A friend who discusses mountain fiddling and
Uncle Fletcher’s washrag collection (from radio’s Vic and Sade) as
readily as he discusses comics history.
Gasoline Alley can be read as The Great America Novel. For my money, the
continuity lines and characterizations in Billy DeBeck’s creations (including
in Parlor, Bedroom, and Sink and Bunky) rival Dickens in craft,
depth, and invention.
I did not knowe DeBeck, of course; he died in 1942. But I got to
know his successor Fred Lasswell very well. One of the most colorful figures in
American cartooning; surely the inevitable cut-up in any room he filled with
his outsized personality. And body. King Features Present Joe D’Angelo was
resigned to being, in some innovative way or another, the butt of a Lasswell
practical joke whenever Fred visited New York. For instance having a waiter
deliver a bottle of champagne and flowers to every table in a restaurant…
charged to Mr D’Angelo.
By the time DeBeck died, relatively young, during World War II,
Barney, Loweezie, and assorted hillbillies had taken over the strip. Barney himself
receded as a side-character – Spark Plug even more so – and the mountain-folk
indeed were a national sensation. Never a casual about any of his passions,
DeBeck became a first-rate scholar of Appalachian life, lore, and language. He
read all the dialect humorists of the mid-1800s, and caught the mountain folks’
personalities and ways. Phrases he did not borrow, he manufactured… with
authenticity.
Such things were not in DeBeck’s background; neither Lasswell’s;
but he was a quick study. The stock cast has dominated the strip for nigh-on 80
y’ars naow. Fred was an “A” personality, and even starred in “Uncle Fred’s
Cartooning Lessons” videos in the 1980s. We occasionally appeared together in
the mid-1990s promoting the US Postal Service’s “American Classic” set of
commemorative stamps. We each sported ties, by coincidence, with hand-painted
Yellow Kid figures on them.
Snuffy and other denizens of Hootin’ Holler comfortably are in the
capable hands of John Rose these days. As in life itself – I mean real life; or
realer life than comics – longevity can be attributed to many factors. With Gasoline
Alley the old characters and new faces surely have attracted readers’
sympathies. It was the first comics strip where characters aged in real time.
(I remembering urging Dick Moores to have Walt die, something that he would
have handled sensitively; today Walt should be at least 120 and Skezzix 100. It
would have maintained the comic-context realism, and garnered publicity.)
But the changing cast of Gasoline Alley and the
frozen-in-time setting of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (it probably
has been a half-century since Barney or Snuffy visited a big city, the strip’s
original setting) explain only parts of the strips’ longevity. Obviously the
talents of the successors are responsible as well.
But as in real life, as I said, in strips there is a healthy gene
pool that is dominant. The premises and conceptions of the progenitors
obviously are the gloriously guilty parties. I feel especially blessed to have
known, in my Crowded Life, some of the gifted people who have managed these
precious creations so well.
43
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
A Crowded Life in Comics –
An Idol with Kley Feet
by Rick Marschall
Heinrich Kley is an artist whose talents were virtually (and
wonderfully) schizophrenic in their impressive variety, but who remains
generally a cipher to historians and students of cartooning.
This dichotomy, in itself, is not a rare thing that needs to confound
researchers. It is we, rather, who are perched between curiosity and
selfishness, wanting to know everything we can about those creators whose work
impresses. When all is said and done – anyway, not a horrible status to settle
for – an artist’s work will speak for itself.
When I engaged in research for my biography of Johann Sebastian
Bach, I was struck (and, yes, dismayed) by the paucity of information about the
man, particularly by the man. There were comments by some other
composers, occasional letters by his children, a few minutes of town-councils
and church boards. But scarcely any diaries or letters or journals by old Bach
himself; no introspection.
… except through his music. Which is exactly what satisfied
Sebastian.
So with Heinrich Kley. We know what he did – although, you
eventually will see, far from all of it has been reprinted – and we know what
jobs he held through the years. But like Bach and other geniuses through the
centuries, we have little sense of what he was like; his creative
inspirations; his prejudices and enthusiasms; whether his multi-facted output
reflected his passions… or were some activities jobs-on-commission?
Again, we don’t have to know everything. His work does not
merely speak to us: it shouts. Kley was born in Karlsruhe in 1863 and died in
Munich in 1945. In his 82 years he was a remarkable artist, impressing cartoonists, painters, and connoisseurs in Europe and the United States; and mastering – seemingly
from the very start – several distinct genres.
Any one genre would have been astounding. But Heinrich Kley was a superb
pen and ink artist and illustrator; he became identified with fantasy and
erotic drawings; he executed hundreds of watercolor cityscapes and landscapes;
he depicted, in exquisite and accurate details, mighty industrial scenes; he
illustrated several books, from The Swiss Family Robinson and Reynard
the Fox to science-fiction novels. Were all these thematic preoccupations
passions of the same man? None ever betrayed a pedestrian approach.
It is difficult to make too much of my own “crowded life” in
relation to Kley, for I was born after he died. Yet, like countless readers and
aspiring cartoonists, I discovered his work in two trade paperbacks that Dover
published in the early 1960s. Thereafter the story became a little personal,
because I eventually was able to collect many European first editions; runs of
the magazines he drew for; original artwork; rare art portfolios; the post
cards of his stunning watercolors… and even tracked down, on a trip to Germany, the house that seemed
to be his when he died. (There is no plaque there, nor any memorial. And his
burial was in a small-town cemetery, marked by a small and modest stone.)
Mystery about aspects of his life are, and were, many; and mostly, as mysteries anyway, silly. His modesty possibly invited some of it. When the American magazine Coronet
in the 1930s published portfolios of his work in three succeeding issues, it
stated that Kley “reportedly went insane” and was institutionalized; other writers were to suggest that he died a suicide. But that all too likely was to cover for
old-fashioned piracy, the unauthorized theft of his work.
“Sanity” and strange seclusion were also convenient explanations
for those who could not understand any artist, or any one, not fleeing Germany
or consigned to a labor camp, during the Third Reich. But he remained, he
continued to draw – as did other cartoonists for Jugend and Simplicissimus
– even through the War, and was a creative force who continued to create.
Similar putative anomalies were Wilhelm Furtwangler and Carl Orff (the composer whose
output and personality, as far as we can tell, bore resemblance to his fellow Munchner
Kley).
The satyrs and orgies of blended creatures never were judged
“degenerate art” by the Nazis. And while on the subject, it is interesting to note that many
ofAdolf Hitler’s own watercolors and
submissions to art schools in Munich and Vienna, in the days prior to the Great
War’s outbreak, closely resembled Kley’s popular postcard art.
Heinrich Kley can be characterized as a male Aphrodite – he
appeared, full grown and almost perfect, on the scene in 1886. (Maybe not a
real stretch; Aphrodite was born of sea-foam, and the famous petrified sea-foam
called Meerschaum is native to Kley’s Bavarian Alps… and “kley” means loam
or clay) To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the University of Heidelberg in
that birthplace of the university-system, a “Leporello” book – one drawing,
folded accordian-style, depicting a parade of scholars and townspeople of the
five centuries – was drawn by Kley in incredible detail.
I have mentioned the other fields he visited, and conquered, and
for now, for here, that will suffice. I share with you images not usually seen… a couple
of sketchbook pages from my collection (almost all his drawings were
virtual sketches, masses of lines coalescing into perfect anatomy) that show
that Kley did use a pencil! … and a letter from his widow Emily.
She wrote this letter to publisher Emanuel Borden of Los Angeles.
It seems that Borden was at first another pirate, but after the war he produced
two more handsome Kley collections; and appears – from this letter – that he
earned Emily’s trust, and perhaps paid her royalties. Her letter is pathetic, sad. Three
years after the War’s end; Munich devastated and still occupied; and the widow
of one of the century’s great artistic geniuses – she is hardly a military threat to
the American troops – finds it difficult to send or receive mail, or find
bread.
I hope this letter, from my collection, is legible. Click twice
and squint.
It might be appropriate that the genius who was Heinrich Kley be
relatively obscure to us and more than a little enigmatic. Already attracted to his
work when our eyes meet it, we are, perhaps, compelled not to merely look, but
to enter his scenes – his fantasy-flavored perceptions of reality, and realistic depictions of the his wild imagination.
–42
Sunday, June 9, 2019
A Crowded Life in Comics –
by Rick Marschall
I intend to write more about the great Lucca Comics Festival in
Tuscany, as I did a few weeks ago with photos and sketches. Especially after
the death this week of its manager for many years, Rinaldo Traini. I am gathering
photos, drawings, and memories; and will share them soon.
When I lived in Weston CT my home was 15 minutes’ drive to
Redding, where Mark Twain spent his last years. He moved there in 1908 and
built his great home “Stormfield,” and died there in 1910, the year of Halley’s
Comet, summoning one of the writer’s many superstitions.
As an aspiring humorist and cartoonist myself since I was old
enough to laugh, I virtually worshiped Twain, and had all of his books, including
first editions. An additional Mecca for me in my Connecticut years was the
annual Mark Twain Library book sale. As in many places where I have lived or
nearby – Weston, Westport, Greenwich; Abington and Bryn Mawr PA – book sales in
neighborhoods once populated by accomplished artists, writers, cartoonists, and
illustrators frequently yielded rare and often inscribed books.
I also honor Twain for the cartoonists he introduced or showcased
as illustrators of his books. E W Kemble was a little-known aspiring cartoonist
barely cracking the pages of the New York Daily Graphic and Life when
the famous Twain noticed his cartoons and thought he had a flair for drawing rural
folks, black and white. Thus the obscure Kemble illustrated Huckleberry Finn
and subsequent books.
F Opper, A B Frost, Dan Beard, True Williams, Baron DeGrimm, and
eventually Norman Rockwell were among the scores of illustrators and
cartoonists who accompanied Twain’s prose.
As a collector of original art as well as first editions, I was
always happy to discover visual treasures. Here, photographed from a very large
watercolor caricature, is Mark Twain by “Vet” Anderson. Largely forgotten
today, Anderson (no relation to his contemporary Carl Anderson of “Henry” fame)
drew full-page caricatures in this style of panache and boldness, for Sunday
New York Herald entertainment sections early in the 20th century.
Born in Bear Lake MI, midway between my current home and Traverse City, he
later was an animation pioneer in the studio of Raoul Barre and others.
The other caricature of Twain is by Albert Levering, prolific book
illustrator and frequent contributor to Puck and Life (for which
this was done). Besides Twain, he illustrated works by John Kendrick Bangs;
Ellis Parker Butler; and Edward W Townsend, author of Yellow Kid texts.
To bring this little Mississippi River cruise (of sorts) back to
port – it was Albert Levering who illustrated the last book Twain published in
his lifetime, and one whose title was an inside-joke calling upon his estate in
Redding – Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven.
↓
41
Friday, June 7, 2019
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Sunday, June 2, 2019
A Crowded Life in Comics –
Good Sports
by Rick Marschall
[TOP] Pap
Depicted is the dean of
all sports columnists, Grantland Rice. Trivia: I own (or my son does, now)
Rice’s golf clubs. Bequeathed to his friend, syndicate pioneer John Wheeler,
and passed on to me.
Sports cartooning is, or was, a category of cartooning that
arguably can be considered an incubator once on a par with political cartoons,
magazine panels, and book illustration. The National Cartoonists Society used
to present a category award for Sports Cartooning, and hands out plaques for
New Media, Greeting Cards, and On-Line Short-Form Comics… but discontinued the
Sports Cartooning honor more than 25 years ago.
This situation surely is attributable to an ossified genre and
reduced population as much as the NCS’s institutional distractions.
But some of the finest cartooning talents in history have Protean roots…
and indeed some practitioners never “graduated” to other levels of cartooning.
I will share, here, some memories of sports cartoonists I have
knownin my Crowded Life.
When I was a kid – I mean so young I had to take buses and subways
from our suburbanNew Jersey home into
Manhattan, and visit cartoonists and syndicates three times a year, Easter
holiday, summer vacation, Christmas break – I ventured to the bullpen of the
Associated Press.
In those days (obviously the halcyon times of virtually no
security in public buildings and newspaper offices) the AP had its own
syndicate operation. It was small but significant; and among its “graduates”
through the years were Milton Caniff, Noel Sickles, Al Capp, and Frank Robbins.
R B Fuller created Oaky Doaks for the AP, and remained all
his life. During the time I am writing about, Ralph Fuller was a neighbor in Leonia
NJ. He willed me volumes of Judge Magazine from his time on staff in the
1920s. At the AP I also met Dick Hodgins Jr. I thought him austere in his
horn-rimmed glasses and looming height, but he encouraged me by looking at my
sketches and saying if I were five years older I could get a job in the
bullpen. I never did apply, but in five years or so I was taller than Dick, and
learned how affable he was. He became one of my best friends in this business.
But the end of the row of drawing-tables, in the corner, was Tom
Paprocki, sports cartoonist. On every visit I would check in with Dick, and
editorial cartoonist John Milt Norris, panel cartoonist Joe Cunningham
(“’ham”), and others, before sitting next to “Pap.” I remember two things
especially: a warm friendliness beneath his gruff visage; and a stack of his
original daily sports-cartoon panels. Added to for who-knows how many years,
the pile must have been 40 inches high! Pap gifted me with a few… but I have
always wondered what happened to them, ultimately.
The AP was a “service” organization for newspapers, not a true
syndicate. As with its news, features, and wire-photo services, newspapers
subscribed, or not, and received everything, to use as they wished. Comics,
cartoons, columns, and material offering advice to the lovelorn, bridge and
poker strategies, kids’ puzzles, and such, were part of the “package.” (It is
difficult to gauge, therefore, the popularity or client lists of its comic
strips, as editors variable commitments to cartoons and comics).
So Pap’s cartoons were run by major newspapers, many minor
newspapers seeking the look of a pro in their pages depicting major
personalities and events, and even Sunday color sections for a while. He was a
consummate professional indeed, composing this panels in the form associated
with (but not originated by) Willard Mullin – a large realistic
portrait, realized by aid of a Pantograph, from photo reference; smaller line
drawings, often humorous, illustrating facts and stats in an orbit around the
star of the day.
Pap
Yes, THAT Ozzie Nelson, later of Ozzie and Harriet;
father of Rick Nelson
Here are a couple of Sports Slants by Pap. The color
feature was offered to Sunday supplements; the AP struggled to maintain a
foothold in those venues, with minimal success. Nevertheless features like Things
To Come by Clyde Barrow; Scorchy Smith by Frank Robbins, Rodlow
Willard, and others; Neighborly Neighbors by Morris; and Oaky Doaks ran
for some years.
Charlie McGill
Charlie McGill was a local sports cartoonist – local to me in the
North Jersey suburbs of New Jersey – and he lived in my town of Closter. The
example here is a spot drawing he did for a sports column. McKevin McVey also
drew for the Bergen Record, a paper I delivered after school. McVey, who
joined the ADK hiking club I belonged to in upstate New York, drew more
theatrical caricatures than sports or editorial cartoons.
Ray Gotto “Play Ball! – New York Mets logo
I knew Ray Gotto in several capacities. I seldom read The
Sporting News, where his mannered sports cartoons often graced front pages.
I was a fan of his two baseball-themed comic strips, Ozark Ike and Cotton
Woods. But to many of us Ray’s place in history was cemented as the
designer of the New York Mets logo. My hometown team, wherever I have lived;
suffering with them today. Ray’s design was their first, in 1962, and is on
uniforms and licensing products still.
Sometime, here, I will share more of Ray Gotto’s artwork,
non-sports. Back in the 1970s Max Allan
Collins and I dreamed up a 1930s detective strip, Heaven and Heller, and
Ray was one of the artists who auditioned, drawing two weeks of dailies, and a
Sunday page. Collins successfully roamed the landscape, subsequently, with
premise in various permutations and plain mutations. I have read about them.
Bill Gallo drew, and wrote (mostly about boxing) for the New York Daily
News. Always nice to me, Bill was the old-fashioned “colyumnist” and sports
cartoonist – taciturn and cigar-chomping – but warm and congenial very close to
the surface. He was a very effective president of the National Cartoonists
Society for a term or two (thanks in large part to his great wife Delores).
Here is a drawing he did of the colorful boxing legend Rocky Graziano, when we
were all at some dinner together.
John Cullen Murphy –
caricature of Jack Dempsey and Jack’s autograph
Speaking of sports strips, and boxing legends, I will call up
again a caricature from another dinner when I asked John Cullen Murphy – who
drew the boxing strip Big Ben Bolt for years prior to Prince Valiant;
Al Capp’s brother Elliott Caplin was its writer – to sketch the legendary Jack
Dempsey.
Before I leave – I will write more about other sports cartoonists
I knew in future columns – no mention of the genre should be allowed with
pausing at the greatest of them all, Willard Mullin. (Yes, deserving of a
separate column.)
Willard Mullin –
“’Tain’t a fit night out for man nor beast...” except in the hands of Willard
Mullin
This example, of hundreds that could be called up, shows Willard
at his best. Concepts? He was Mr Sports. Likenesses? Thanks to the
sports cartoonists’ best friends, Pantographs and “Lucie” projectors –
flawless. But Willard was astonishing at his cartoon line-work: casual but
impeccable anatomy (figures seemingly in poses impossible to photograph, but
invariably spot-on as Willard drew them); arresting compositions; humorous all
the time, but never a detour from the subject matter.
Willard Mullins’ pen lines and anatomy and composition all struck
me – no matter how unlikely the juxtaposition – of what Russell Patterson
sports cartoons would have looked like if he strayed from Broadway and
Hollywood to the gyms, camps, and prize fights. I mean that as high compliment
to both artists.
More to come. This topic can go to extra innings!
40
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