In my book Weird But True Toon Factoids one of the cover features is how Hitler’s Nazis hated Superman. Now evidence has surfaced that Hitler was a cartoon collector! (I told my wife this revelation and she retorted, “And look how HE turned out!â€). ANYWAY, Hitler enjoyed collecting anti-Hitler cartoons and even requested originals, including one by David Low. And then Hitler was behind a book publication of these cartoons (with commentary about how they were “wrong.” Weird but true!
Are there any cartoon girls as cute as those penned by Reamer Keller? I don’t think so. Well, come to think of it there’s the wonderful babes lovingly delineated by the amazing Dean Yeagle who drew Reamer’s portrait for the next Arf. Wait till you see Yeagle’s killer Keller surrounded by luscious Yeagle Girls. If you want to, ahem…get a taste of Yeagle’s Girls, hurry to his website. Speaking of websites and cartoon cuties there’s also the great Shane Glines, who I lifted these Keller Valentine drawings from, off his Cartoon Retro site.
Keller was maybe the most prolific cartoonist of all times, creating up to 100 cartoons a day 7 days a week. When I spoke to him from his Florida retirement home, shortly before he passed, he told me of an attic full of cartoon roughs he left behind in New Jersey. I was able to cop a couple of those roughs on the subject of artists and models and you’ll see ‘em in Arf Museum.
And to jump-start Arflovers I wanted to share a piece of art I just bought by Milt Gross. To me it embodies everything I love about comics. The joy, the laughter, the iconoclastic spirit of the Old School and the current young tyros. I just wrote an intro for a facsimile printing of Milt Gross’s seminal graphic novel He Done Her Wrong, published by Fantagraphics, the good folks who bring you the Arf books. Here’s Ray Olson’s review in Booklist:
“For the first time since its 1930 debut, humorist-cartoonist Gross’ magnum opus appears complete under its original title (a brief gag once construed as racist is restored here and proves inoffensive by today’s standards). It’s a wordless graphic novel that responds to highly serious immediate forebears by Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward with baggy-pants high jinks out of silent-film comedy. It’s the story of a young man from out of the wilderness, coonskin cap and all, who falls in love with a fair maiden. Of course, he loses her to a treacherous villain, but finds her again in the big city. She misunderstands, though, and . . . well, it all ends happily and hilariously. It’s sunny and funny beforehand, too, thanks to Gross’ protean imagination, enormously energetic line, and lightning shifts from visual simplicity to complexity. This edition’s introduction and appended appreciation by comics artists Craig Yoe and Paul Karasik, respectively, convincingly tout Gross’ talent and influence and pique interest in his verbal achievements as creator of a sublime Yiddish-English comic patois.”
An unpublished sketch from my collection by Gross of the principle characters in He Done Her Wrong.
Click on the logo above and turn up the sound to see and hear the animated Valentine from YOE! Studio by the beautiful and talented Clizia Gussoni. Clizia is a cartoonist, writer, and co-owner and co-creative director of the studio.
Valentine’s is for lovers and today is the first day for a new blog for lovers… of Arf. Arf in my mind is all good things related to comics and cartoons. Walt Disney said, “I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known.” I feel just like that, except I’m not monogamous. Or should I say mouse-ogamous?
One look at Betty Boop makes me want to boop-oop-a-doop. Popeye floats my boat. Krazy Kat drives me… yes, krazy.
The above Valentine (circa 1910) is by R.F. Outcault, whose character, the Yellow Kid, jump-started the newspaper comics. TODAY’S BIG NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: In the next Arf book, Arf Museum, there will be an event of historic proportions. There will be ten, one hundred-year-old, unpublished Yellow Kid
paintings and two unpublished drawings by Outcault in glorious color! There’s a preview of the art and all of the Arf Museum in the upper left hand corner. Tell your friends…and lovers.
