Looks like Wonder Woman not feeling to well this week. awwwwww

This touchie-feelie Wacky Wonder Woman gets a thumbs up from her friend and me! BTW any females or males showing up as Wacky Wonder Women for my talk at SPX gets a free autographed book!

Got my fave catalog today from my fave source for comic oriented and illustration oriented books, Bud Plant. The cover of their first all-color catalog fits right into something I’m working on for the third volume of Arf. The Arf cover and opening chapter is going to be a collection of vintage images of people reading comics. So great minds think alike Bud’s cover is actually by a contemporary artist named Glen Orbik and that Cub Scout is reading some kick-ass comics in this technically nicely done painting.

Having said all that I am, however, quite concerned by Plant’s reckless, even outright dangerous, cover in that it seems to encourage kids to read comics THE WRONG WAY! As a responsible retailer Bud really should have accompanied this image with a warning. I can only hope that Plant’s omission was out of ignorance and not malice. The shameful truth is, while researching images for Arf III I found out that I, myself, had been unknowingly, but improperly, reading comics my whole life! So, as a public service to all Arf Lovers, I’m not going to wait till the book comes out but right now on the blog share this all-important revelation about the correct way to read comics. I implore you to please heed this information for the safety of you and your loved ones. From now on when reading comics please use, as the following 1942 ad fittingly calls it, “protection”. You’re welcome!

Too often I don’t take Wacky Wonder Woman seriously enough. So today I present a very business-like, buttoned down Wonder Woman. Well, more like "unbuttoned" Wonder Woman. Whoo-haa!

I just discovered that Brett Warnock, over a Top Shelf Books, has a blog called “Hey Bartender” and talked about the Arf books:

Brett Warnock, Chris Staros

“I’d seen this funky looking magazine/book at numerous stores for a while now, called Modern Arf, edited by Craig Yoe. Not knowing exactly what it was, and broke to boot, I passed. Luckily fate came to my rescue, in the form of Reading Frenzy proprietress Chloe Eudaley, who sold me a copy of volume one for half price, because it had a dinged cover.

“I just bought the second issue (both volumes are published by Fantagraphics) at Reading Frenzy, and I’m now a certified convert. This publication is a veritable treasure trove of cool comics weirdness. Yoe is excavating long-lost and forgotten gems that truly deserve the light of day. (With some perfectly suitable contemporary work sprinkled throughout, for zest.) He’s the freaking Indiana Jones of Comics.

“Arf also treads into the realm of sister media, like editorial cartoons, Fine Art and illustration, a philosophy that I love, and one that gets overlooked, in the larger context of comics history. The focus and bent is not unlike that of another fine publication, Comic Art, but the difference is in the presentation. Where Comic Art might expend a great deal of energy and space talking about a given subject, Arf is more prone to just throw it up on its oversized pages in all it’s inky beauty, with maybe one tiny text caption of explanation

“Kudos to Craig on curating one of my favorite new things in comics in a very very long time.”

Psychiatrist Dr. Frederic Wertham’s crusade against comics in his book Seduction of the Innocent in the 1950s often has been characterized as targeting horror comics. This is because fanboys most morn the loss of their beloved E.C.horror comics brought down by the resulting the Comics Code of America . In fact, Wertham was the most concerned about the incredibly popular crime comics of the time. Wertham contended that these comic books were a major contributing factor to juvenile delinquincy.

The famous book.

What’s up, Doc?

(Click to enlarge the artwork)

I believe one innovative crime comic book publisher-by the name of “Toytown” (!) —tried to deflect some of the criticism of the crime comics by creating “Wanted Comics”. This “interactive” comic of the “Strangest Crime Cases” purported to try and find real criminals. The publisher even offered a $100 reward on information leading to their capture! Each criminal was profiled in comics form by artists like Mort Leav, Bob Hughes and Mort Lawerence who did the striking cover below. The stories in Wanted Comics still seemed to make criminal activity seem pretty exciting, though, and the rewards for crime seemed far greater than the “chump change” of a hundred bucks for being a stooge and turning in a criminal.

Wanted Comics was, of course, the forerunner of the T.V. show America’s Most Wanted, preceeding it by decades!

The top of the comic even became sort of a “line-up” in the later issues!

Below is one of the interior comics profiling a criminal and repeating the offered hundred buck reward.

I can’t pass up commenting on the ad found in one of my Wanted Comics. If you read between the lines it’s so obvious that what is being offered is not a fat reducing device at all but a good old fashioned vibrator. The copy calls the device a “spot reducer” and instructs the user to “just plug it in, grasp handle and apply over most any part of the body-stomach, hips, chest, neck, thighs, arms, buttocks, etc.” (Did we leave anything out?!?). The ad promises “increased awakened blood circulation” and The Spot Reducer “uses one of the most effective reducing methods employed by masseurs and turkish baths-MASSAGE! (caps and exclamation point theirs). “see how soothing its gentle massage can be. Helps you sleep when masage can be of benifit. The Spot Reducer can be used in your spare time, in the privacy of your own room”. Nice pic showing a woman in her bra and panties grasping and using the Spot Reducer!

Speaking of “wanted”, it may be criminal, but I want a Turkish bath right in the privacy of my own room—I want a Spot Reducer!

Reamer Keller is featured in Arf Museum. Here are some outtakes for your viewing pleasure:

“Let’s get back to your insurance policy. If I refuse you and you commit suicide like you say you will, am I still the beneficiary?!”

“I was out with him last night. His parlor tricks are also fantastic!”

“Yes, he knows all the answers, and I ‘no’ all his questions!”

“What do you mean—You’ve got pieces of eight?!”