Proving that David Scroggy of Dark Horse Comics has a history of hanging around unsavory types I’ve unearthed this photo from my 1969 High School yearbook. David is the third male in the back from the left. I’m the second from the right in the back row of the Art Club.

But forget me and Dave. To David’s right is Chrissie Hynde. She was a darn good artist before going on to form the band The Pretenders. I used to hang out with her in the art room during lunch hour and, man, did I have a crush on Chrissie. I remember turning her on to Zap Comics and then read later in an interview that she was a big Crumb fan. Chrissie gave me a quote a few years back to promote my work: “Craig Yoe is a great artist-he’s no pretender!”

Speaking of great, what a great working relationship David and I have had. He’s commisioned us to do over 70 statues from the Yellow Kid to Hellboy. Working for Dark Horse has turned out to be one of the favorite things of my entire career. I see from the yearbook headline that Artists Develop Their Talent Through Experience. Thanks deeply for the great experience, Dave!

Dear Craig:
I read your piece on encountering a mysterious agent of the even more mysterious Bushmiller Society Something less dramatic but equally unsettling happened to me not so long ago. As you know, since Yoe Studio handled sculpting, we are in the process of creating two 8 vinyl dolls of Nancy and Sluggo. Our license to make these is with United Media, who is also handling approvals.

Therefore, it was eerie when, completely unsolicited, an official seal of approval arrived in my in box from the Bushmiller Society. Who are these people and how did they know what our figures look like? Are their spies everywhere? I mean, I’m glad they liked them and everything, but it’s kind of scary to think that a top-secret project like this is subject to their scrutiny. I’m sure it must be legit, as the art and design are similar to the button you were handed.

Your fellow paranoid,
David Scroggy/Dark Horse Comics

Yo, David!

This is creeping me out! If I were you I wouldn’t have anything to do with this group. Putting their “seal of approval” on the Dark Horse packaging would definitely be seen as complicity by the Authorities and would be frowned upon. I have already told the authorities everything I know about you, how you had long hair as a youth, used to see yourself as a “poet”, your known association with “undergound cartoonists” and “low-brow artists”, etc. I’d keep a low profile if I were you.

My pal, illustrator John Martz, from the great blog Drawn.ca wrote to tell us Arf Lovers about a blog that features plus-size Wonder Woman. Here’s some of my faves from the site. There’s many more goodies there.

Yo Yoe!
Re: Chester Gould: Gotta love that bizarre flapper cartoon from the man who brought us the original rogue’s gallery of bizarre villains. (Take that, Batman!) I especially like his prediction that Chris Columbus would one day be a film director. As you know, Chris directed “Home Alone” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” among others.
Dave Burd
(Not a member of the Bushmiller Society, either)

Yo, David!
Many people, including the authorites, have asked if I had ANY idea who the mysterious figure was that put the Bushmiller Society button on the table. All that I can say is that it was a male and came from the direction of the Kitchen.
-CY

One of the the nicest times I had at the San Diego Comic Con was an early morning breakfast with Amid Amidi, Jerry Beck, Leslie Cabarga and Harry McCracken. We were discussing Amid’s amazing new book Cartoon Modern. But then we were interupted by something very disturbing…

All of a sudden we all felt an eerie chill in the air. And then, mysteriously, a tall, dark figure appeared out of the morning shadows and thrust the button (seen below) onto the table right in front of me and then just as quickly disappeared. One glance and I knew what the object was: it was a button that members of the infamous “Bushmiller Society” wear under their collars to secrectly flash to fellow members at claudestine alley meetings and to enter their cell meetings. Who put this button on the table and why I was targeted I’ll probably never know—and actually don’t want to know.

I am not now or have never been a member of the “Bushmiller Society”. I am in no way sympathetic to the goals of the “Bushmiller Society” nor do I support their actions. I have notified the proper authorities about this matter telling them all I know about it. I have fully disclosed all the information I have Including the fact that Jerry Beck didn’t seem as shocked or as appalled as the rest of the group over what happened. In fact, Jerry Beck, of Hollywood, California who can be found at Cartoon Brew wanted one of the buttons for his “collection”.

The authorities have asked that I solicite any information from any readers of the Arf Lovers blog that they might have about the “Bushmiller Society”. I intended to fully cooperate with these authorities and implore you to do the same.

Speaking of pretty girls, another thing in Arf Museum that’s been getting lots of praise is Dean Yeagle’s portrait of girlie cartoonist Reamer Keller leading off the Keller chapter. Saw Dean at the San Diego con and picked up his latest sketchbook.

Dean did the above sketch for me in the inside cover of the book—woo boy!

I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s some cute little birds on the above page.

Do yourself a favor and cop Dean’s sketch books and statues and posters at his site. And don’t forget to get an Arf Museum, too.

Everyone dug the wild Modern Art-ish Cester Gould strip in the latest Arf, Arf Museum. Besides the weird subject matter many were just surprised to see a non-Dick Tracy strip by Gould. Here’s another unusual Gould item, a Chester GouId pretty flapper, that I just ran across in my collection. It’s a drawing he did for the campus nespaper when he was a student at Northwestern College in 1923. Click for an enlargement.

Bodacious Beth Davis in her column, The Library of Babble, on the Broken Frontier website recently reviewed the new Arf book. Here’s what Beth had to say…

What could be more sacrilegious than a marriage of Art and Comics? Art is a vision made real by the skill of the artist and exhibited in hallowed halls where hushed voices extol the singular genius of the creator. It springs from the deep and mysterious waters of the right brain. Comics, on the other hand, are the pedestrian scribblings of art school dropouts, who lack the discipline and creative vision to…. Hold on, there, Pilgrim! The marriage may be unholy, but its character — Modern Arf — is divine.

Volume 2 of Craig Yoe’s celebration of Modern Arf, Arf Museum, was published recently to rave reviews. The first volume, Modern Arf, is a dazzling anthology of rare comics and cartoons, many of them spoofing the relationship between artists and models, and many more lampooning modern art with friendly, yet wicked humor. Tucked in between are surprising treasures of comics history, including a feature on the origins of Alfred E. Newman, the “What, Me Worry?” kid, and a feature called “Cartoonists Go to Hell!” showcasing some of the gems of Jimmy Hatlo’s Inferno.

Arf Museum is impossibly more dazzling, filled with cartoons spoofing visits to the art gallery or museum, and finding the hilarity of modern art in its arty environs. Tucked into the riotous fun is a set of previously unpublished paintings of The Yellow Kid by R. F. Outcault, and part 2 of “Cartoonists Go to Hell!” showcasing some of the gems from the pen of Art Young. And just as if Yoe wanted to top his achievements in Modern Arf, Arf Museum is loaded with the added attractions of tattoos, Rube Goldberg, and sexy women enjoying the attentions of their gorilla boyfriends.

I haven’t even mentioned many of the other treats included in the two volumes, like rare comics from Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, cartoons by Hugh Hefner and Salvador Dalí, and original art from the likes of Patrick McDonnell and Dean Yeagle. In each volume, Yoe leaves his quadruple role of collector, historian, editor, and designer, to draw original cartoons of his own. In Arf Museum, Yoe’s original art is curated by Arf sub-editor Bill Blackbeard. These anthologies are a comics-lover’s dream come true, like bumping into Santa at the hearth and finding out that the whole bag of toys is meant for you.

Modern Arf and Arf Museum are more than a combined 240+ pages of original art and rare finds, printed on high quality oversized stock in gorgeous full color and black and white. They are an incisive record of comics culture, a culture which in part developed in dialogue with modern art, and which stands in contrast to modern art’s earnest and often troubled struggle with the uncertainties of the modern world. Arf culture refuses to suffer. Arf practitioners refuse to get sucked into the troubles of modern times, because frankly, they can’t seem to take anything seriously. The practitioners of Arf are subversive, radical, even marginal, because they won’t even take themselves seriously. They are the best possible illustration of that old adage that sacred cows make the best hamburgers.

Arf Museum reprints the pages of a story from a 1950s comic book edited by Stan Lee called, “Modern Art.” It tells the tale of “an old geezer” who loves the 19th century. One day he visits the municipal art museum, and strolls the galleries appreciating the representational landscape art of Turner, Constable, Gainsborough, all “as perfect as photographs.” And then, to his horror, he finds modern art hanging in the museum! “Vulgar!” he cries. “It’s…it’s impossible!” “Ugh!” he yells. “Sacrilegious!” He screams at the museum curator, “You’re mad! A painting should be real! It should look like something actual!”

This is a common attack on modern art, which is not representational. Many of the art movements of the first half of the 20th century displayed a sincere earnestness to struggle with the new uncertainties established through Einstein’s relativity and Freud’s psychology, along with the devastation of two world wars and the resulting increase in the acceleration of technological change. Cubism, a favorite target of modern “Arfists”, was an innovation inspired by geometry, an impulse to explore the relationship between the human and the machine, and a need to struggle against the transitory. With great intellectual seriousness, the Cubists, Dadaists, and Surrealists set about revolutionizing the techniques and aims of painting with the purpose of shocking us into new ways of seeing. Modern art was concerned with portraying the difficulty of the human condition, the disruption that human beings were feeling, their struggles in incorporating uncertainty and rapid change.

The reaction was intense and sometimes violent. The cover of Lee’s comic book spoofs it, proclaiming, “Sometimes ‘Modern Art’ can be too modern!!!” While proponents and opponents of modern art battled over artistic standards of form and value, modern “Arfists” observed and cracked jokes. Everyone was the beneficiary of their wit: the artists, the confused public, the conservatives, and even themselves. In a 1932 cartoon by Paul Webb, two well-dressed women stand in a museum in front of a painting by Picasso. One says to the other, “Someone should give Picasso a good kick in the pants, Ella.” Otto Soglow’s Little King leaves the Royal Modern Art Exhibit to take in a sideshow starring Yipsel the Tattooed Man. In a 1939 installment of Gasoline Alley, Walt has a phantasmagoric dream after a visit to a gallery displaying modern art. Russell Patterson’s 1933 museum patron gets a black eye from the subject of a Fauvist painting, a gorgeous nude who resents his ogling.

Arfists and their creations are lustful, graceful, voluptuous, and funny. The Yellow Kid, Alfred E. Neuman, and a host of others cruise undisturbed through a disturbing world, their equanimity unruffled. These first two volumes in Craig Yoe’s series on Modern Arf depict the emergence of the comic artist as the court jester of the modern world. Artists with a keen eye, a deft hand and an impish madness skewered the pretensions of the age and…Hold on, there, Pilgrim!

Yo, Yoe!
Ah yes! The great Chuck McCann. He was a fixture on kiddie television in NewYork. The thing about reading the Sunday comics was very cool, although it probably started as a way to fill time. It was one less segment they had to write.

The best part was when he would dress up as Little Orphan Annie with his "eyebones blunk out" as they say in the Pogo strip. I don’t think I paid any attention to Harold Gray’s way of drawing eyes previous to that. All his characters that those blanks stares. So Chuck would but white discs over his eyes. It was pretty wacky.

"Arf," said Sandy.
-David Burd

BTW, does any Arf Lover out there have this book? I’d love to get a good printable 300 dpi scan for a future Arf book. Actially, would welcome any other "Arf" jpg’s of Sandy or Popeye or other toons arf-ing.

— C. Yoe (in the funny papers)

Yoemeister,

Went out to yer blog, cause you told me to. I was very happy to see Fiorello Laguardia reading the Funny Papers. He did this at the time because of a newspaper strike. But did you know that for many years in NYC Chuck McCann also read the funny papers to kids, but on TV? He actually would dress up as Little Orphan Annie! He did great voices/costumes for Dick Tracy, Dondi and Orphan Annie, as he read the NY Daily News comics, which were the ones syndicated by the Chicago Tribune. He would read the entire Sunday page. If you knew this already, trash this e-mail………….

See ya,
-Warren Bernard

Yo, Warren!

Didn’t know this. But a grown man dressing up as Little Orphan Annie and interacting with young impressionable children such as yourself is definitely Arf worthy.