Back in the 1950′s, when corporate convergence was pretty rare, the Disney company created “Fresh up” Freddie for 7-Up. These ads ran each issue on the back of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories to push carbonated sugar water to kids. I, like literally millions of other kids, had a subscription to this Dell comic book and I loved “Fresh Up” Freddie and, as a result, 7-Up. BTW, I thought, then, that Freddie was some kind of relative of Woody Woodpecker. I love, looking back at it now, how Freddie starts each adventure in the exact same pose but different costume-cool! Think I’ll go drink some carbonated sugar water.

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Yo, Craig! They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Check out Meredith Vieira in a Wonder Woman costume on page 35 of yesterday’s (yes, Wednesday) New York Daily News. Holy Arf, Batman!)

-Brian Walker
(Pictured below with Chance Browne and Greg Walker working on Hi and Lois)

Yo, Brian!

They’ll hear from my lawyers for ripping off Wacky Wonder Woman Wednesday!

Arf Lovers: grab your 15 seconds of fame and write me an e-mail at yoecomix (at) hotmail (dot) com

In the Weird But True Toon Factoids book I briefly talked about the cartoonist behind the perilous aviation adventure strip, Scorchy Smith and reprinted the prophetic panel below. Bert Christman, was fatally shot down on his 3rd WWII combat mission . Good Guy Bhob Stewart wrote to tell me of a lengthy and fascintating profile of Christman here.Thanks Bhob!

One of the most popular things in my book Weird But True Toon Factoids was the Quirky Quotes. I’ve been meaning to revive that for the Arf Lovers Blog. Send in your ideas and here’s a good one I just ran across…

“My brother used to call me Olive Oyl, who was Popeye’s girlfriend, because I was really tall and skinny”. -Tyra Banks.

Reminds me…how does Popeye get off? He rubs Olive Oyl on his member!

COOP sez his childhood dream was to design a Hot Wheels car and has announced on his blog that it’s come true. I’m pissed. I figured that his childhood dream was to be on the pages of Arf which will soon be realized when Arf Museum varoooms off the press.

This Philadelphia Inquirer sports cartoonist (from 1907-1922) makes it onto the “Weird But True” roster on no less than three accounts. First, his name, Jim Nasium (okay, his real name was Edgar F. Wolfe). Secondly he may have had the dubious honor of inventing Clip Art!

An explanation in 1915 explained: “‘Jim Nasium,’ whose comic sporting cartoons are widely known throughout the country, is the clever inventor of a system whereby a cartoon illustrating the features of any given game may be inserted in the issue of the morning following the game. In adition he made a set of cuts illustrating stock expressions in use among baseball fans and these he was able to run at odd times, for the sake of variety. He sold these cuts to all papers subscribing to his syndicate, and sporting editors all over the country used them, with great economy to themselves and to the amazement of the public who greatly marveled at the amount of work done by the artist and writer between the end of the game and the appearance of the illustration. This illustrative outfit was sufficient to last throughout an entire baseball season. The same players head with different arrangements of comic inserts was made to do over and over again.”

The third reason Nasium makes the Weird roster? He was a scout for the Phillies for 2 years!

Below is some of the Jim Nasium clip art (click on the clip for a bigger look). PLUS a FREE Arf Lovers Blog Bonus: a look at the “electrotypes” furnished by Jim Nasium to the papers to print from.

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The preview of the Mutts statutes was received with great enthusiam yesterday. I’ve loved Patrick McDonnell’s art long before Mutts, actually. I even wrote a gushing fan letter that was published in the New York Times Magazine when he used to illustrate Russel Baker’s column there long before his strip debuted. Being a big admirer, when I did The Art of Mickey Mouse and The Art of Barbie books I asked Patrick to be a part of them. He generously obliged. Here’s one of the two Mickeys he did:

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And here’s the Barbie below. I liked it so much I used it as the title page of the book. Compare it to the artist painting Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy in the preview of Modern Arf by clicking on the cover immediately to your left. Also in that preview you’ll see one of a number of unpublished surreal comics by Patrick we have in a chapter about him in Modern Arf. And you’ll also see Gary Baseman’s terrific portrait of Patrick McDonnell in the preview, too. Click away, then, on the Modern Arf cover to have a little mo’ McDonnell!

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P.S. Oh, I almost forgot, Patrick has a cartoon in Arf Museum, in the “Field Trip: Cartoonists Visit the Art Museum” chapter. There I’ve teamed up McDonnell and Bushmiller again! You’ll see it by clicking the Arf Museum cover in the upper left. Enjoy!

(All the characters are © King Features)

Patrick McDonnell’s working sketch for Mooch. YOE! Studio has done over 50 statues of classic comic strip characters for the fine folks at Dark Horse thanks to my long time friend Dave Scroggy and his boss Mike Richardson. Dark Horse and us even won even won a Will Eisner Award for these statues! We loved doing Krazy Kat to Popeye working with Dark Horse and Frank Carusso at King Features. But, we’ve long dreamed of doing the characters from our favorite current strip, Mutts by the brilliant Patrick McDonnell. The dream has finally come true and we thought Arf Lovers would like some behind the scenes pics. We know that Patrick’s chapter of unpublished surreal comics in Modern Arf was one of the most popular sections so you’re gonna love this… Click the photos below for turnarounds of the sculptures.

Earl turnarounds