Which image is more, in the words of Popeye, disgustipating? Send us your vote to yoecomix (“at” symbol) hotmail (dot) com . Is it the Diary of Anne Frank with Astro Boy? (Thanks to esteemed Arf Lover David Burd for the heads up on that one) or is it Homer Simpson like you’ve never seen him before? Or, I guess I should really ask, do you find NEITHER image disturbing, we want a category for the Libertines out there, also.

So send in your votes, with comments if you’d like, and I’ll post the results in one week. To make it a little more fun I’ll also draw one name from the list of voters and that person will get their choice of an autographed Weird But True Toon Factoids book or a Modern Arf or a forthcoming Arf Museum. Winner announced next Monday, too. One vote per Arf Lover. Astro Boy, Anne Frank and Alotta Fagina are ineligible for voting. Void where prohibited by good taste.

The Chapter on the early 20th century origins of Alfred E. Neuman in Modern Arf was one of the most popular sections. The Boston Globe asked me about it and quoted me as saying, “Gee, I hate to say this to the Boston Globe but the World Village Idiot that eventually became Mad’s Mascot was probably based on old cartoonist’s caricatures of Irish boys”.

The cartoonist/artist Ellen Clapsaddle illustrated over 2,000 postcards and many of them were St. Patrick’s Day and Irish themes featuring a character that bore a lot of resemblance to the What Me Worry Kid.

Clapsaddle got her early art training at Cooper Institute in NYC. She became the sole designer of cards for the Wolf Company a major postcard publisher. During a trip to Germany in 1914 to work with engravers there Ellen got entangled in the outbreak of WWI. “Factories were burned, records destroyed, and messages never received. It wasn’t long before she became a displaced person, penniless and alone in a foreign land.”

Her publisher went to Germany to search for Clapsaddle and found her destitute, sick, and wandering the streets. She barely recognized Mr.Wolf. The Wolf man brought her back to the United States. But her health had declined to the point that she was no longer able to earn a living. On January 27, 1932, Clapsaddle was admitted to the Peabody Home in New York City. The once famed artist had lost all mental reasoning and sat on the floor and played with toys until she kicked the bucket two years later. What Me Worry? Happy St. Patrick’s Day! To see a slide show of Ellen Clapsaddle’s Irish Alfred E. Neuman-esque postcards click the image below.

(click for a slideshow of Alfread E. Neuman-esque postcards)

Smarter than Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Father Brown rolled together Ken Quattro is the great detective of comic book history. Ken is doing a guest chapter on bizzaro horror comic book cover artist William Ekgren for Arf III. Ekgren did his wild covers for the St. John company in the 1950s. Now Ken has penned a profusely illustrated history of the St. John company and Archer St. John the man behind it. How many comic book publsihers we’re roughed up by Al Capone? Below is an Ekgren cover aptly titled Weird Horrors. And for a little contrast a Matt Baker cover for the St. John publishing company.

(click for a closer look)

(click for a closer look)

One of the best things about blogs is turning the readers onto OTHER blogs and websites. I gotta remember that. Today I have the supreme pleasure of alerting you to two terrific url’s with two friends of mine behind them. The first is a website by Jon Barli that showcses his wonderful and important work of creating a digital library of early cartooning. John has been busy carefully scanning the rare cartooning of the likes of Tony Sarg, George McManus, Harrison Cady (click on the illo below). Now Jon is making making this material available for fans and other historians. Treat yourslf to a good mind fuck by going to Digital Funnies.

(click for a closer look)

Part of the design motif for the Arf series is to use “Initial Caps” by cartoonists, illustrators and fine artists to begin paragraphs. In Modern Arf we used letters by Basil Wolverton, Russell Patterson, Zim and Otto Soglow. Arf Museum has letters by Picasso to Rube Goldberg. Jules Pascin’s initial letters accompany the chapter “The Erotic Arf of Reamer Keller.” Click on the M for a slideshow of some Pascin’s letters that didn’t make the Arf cut.

(click for a slideshow of erotic letters)

Born in 1885 the eighth of eleven children, Jules liked to take his sketchbook to the local brothels in Bulgaria. This embarrassed his old man who demanded he change his name from Pincas to Pascin. Jules eventually moved to Paris where he continued the on site approach to art at the Parisian houses of ill-repute. While developing his fine art career Pascin contributed cartoons to the humor magazines Jugend and Simpliccimus. In 1930 after attending an opening of his works at the Galerie Georges Petit Pascin returned to his studio and took his own life by hanging. The Paris galleries were all closed the next day in memoriam. Click on the image below for a slideshow of Pascin’s work.

(click for a slideshow of Jules Pascin’s artwork)

Happy Birthday Hank Ketcham, creator of Dennis the Menace, born on this date in 1920! Of course I’m thrilled by the reprinting of the complete Dennis the Menace that Fantagraphics is doing. The first volume of the 1951-1952 panels is a stunner and we’ll see that Ketchum gets better and better as the years progress. We based the look the Dark Horse statue we sculpted for the Classic Comics Character Series on the late 1950’s period, my personal fave time for Dennis (when I, like Patrick McDonnell’s experience related in his intro, was getting the paperbacks in my Christmas stocking).

But today I want to share some illustrations from the much less common book I Wanna Go Home which was a 1965 travelogue by Ketcham when he took his first trip outside of the U.S. The cartoonist took his sketchbook to Prague to Paris and Moscow, Denmark, Vienna and beyond and recorded his impressions in text and pics. Click on the cover below for a slide show.

(click for a slideshow of selected images from this book)

(click for a closer look)

I was sad to hear of Playboy cartoonist Eldon Dedini’s recent passing. That happened right after Fantagraphic’s announcement that they’re doing a coffee table book on him, too. Dedini is ofen identified as a Playboy cartoonist but he also did cartoons for The New Yorker, Esquire, Look and illustrated books like Max Shulman’s Rally Round the Flag, Boys! And, Dedini did some great cartoons related to “The Unholy Marriage of Art and Comics”. To see some of those click on the Charlie Brown below to start the show!

(click for a slideshow of Dedini’s Drawings)

Bud Blake (1918-2005), the cartoonist who drew the warm and wonderful Tiger strip, created in 1965, died the day after Christmas. Tiger was beautifully designed. Blake was one of the great comic stylists. The cartoonist’s first syndicated feature was a panel Ever happen to You? which the above—a self portrait?—came from. But, Blake really wanted to do a strip, however, and conceived Tiger named after the lead boy in his cast of characters. “The characters are composites of various youngsters in my neighborhood and from my own childhood.,” Bud reminded his fans and the gentle “reality” based strip rung true. Click on the Tiger below to get a side-show of Bud’s little masterpiece…

(click for a slidshow of Tiger strips)

DOH! My good friend and Arf Lover David Burd reminded me that I forgot to run a Wonder Woman yesterday. So to make up for lost time I’m gonna do a “Two For Tuesday”. Wait , now I’m really confused…