This scary 1954 comic book ad promised to “Kill these hair destroying germs with Ward’s Formula: Pityrosporum Ovale, Morococcus, Staphylococcus Albus, and Microbacillus”, not to mention “Scalp Itch, Falling Hair, Dandruff and Head Odors.” Head Odors?!?

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Got a cool comic book ad? Send it to Arf Lovers!

Lots of phallic and vagina symbols for you to count this week, Arf Lovers! And forgetting symbolism for a second, doesn’t Dollman have quite a REAL package there?!?

A couple of Arf Lovers wrote asking more about what’s in our Krazy Kat living room. Someday I’ll take pics for the blog. It’s all painted in George Herriman colors and has Herriman-esque pillows and rugs. There’s a nice brick on the coffee table. And there’s eight pieces of original Herriman art on the walls. Above the mantle is the biggest original, some would say the best, this Sunday:

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What’s cool about that April 16th, 1922 strip is that it is a very surreal self-referential story about Krazy Kat reading the comics. It’s reproduced in the next Arf book, Arf Forum. That Arf volume has a special cover feature on “reading comics”. There’s photos of celebs from movies (like Boris Karloff), music (like Elvis) and comics (like Ernie Bushmiller, thanks to James Carlsson) reading comics. And they’ll be strips of comic strip characters reading comics-like in this Sunday Krazy Kat!

BTW, I’m getting my advanced copy of Arf Forum today. Kim Thompson informs me that it looks “SWEET!”. I’ve been having schtuff published for 42 years, since I was 12 years old when I did fanzine-type publications. When I actually hold the finished piece in my hands it’s still a giant, giant kick for me!

Anyway, here’s a detail of another original in the Krazy Kollection. It’s the original that served as a basis for the first Krazy Kat statue we did that I talked about yesterday. What do you think?

It’s been the thrill of a lifetime that YOE! Studio has sculpted Krazy Kat not once, not twice but three times for Dark Horse (thanks to David Scroggy and Mike Richardson!). The first sculpt got a letter of criticism from a well-meaning fan who said it was wrong. “Herriman never showed Krazy baring his teeth”. I sent Dark Horse a scan of the original art in my living room that I took the pose from and the matter was laid to rest. The sculpt, the first one in the Classic Comics Series of about 75 “Syrocco Style” (i.e. old cereal box premiums) sculpts we’ve done retailed in 2000 for 35 bucks. But it has now been known to go for 650 dollars on eBay.

The statue below was a “bendy”. I didn’t mind the weird porportions we had to work with at all. I found them charming. But I wasn’t happy at all with the painting the Orient did. I took the bendy Krazy and roughed him/her up with sand-paper and am now satisfied with the results. It sits on the mantle of the fireplace in my Krazy Kat living room.

This is a Christmas ornament. I was kind of arrogant to create my own tableau/statement by coming up with my own “artist/model” scenerio (Herriman forgive me!), but people seemed to like the results.

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This is the famed Knickerbocker doll, it’s from the Diamond website and said to be from the 1930s. But, maybe it was first manufactured a lot earlier than that.

This famous photo that historian Rick Marschall turned up shows a young fan (Herriman’s daughter?) holding the beauty while watching George sketch away.

But, I’m excited to have just discovered this Hollywood publicity photo. It’s got Ben Alexander in a Buster Brown outfit holding a Krazy Kat doll in a 1918 movie “The Better Wife”. The wife/mom is Clara Kimball Young whose specialty was apparently playing wronged wives. The man, I’m assuming husband, is actor Nigel Barrie. I WANT that doll-kool, huh?

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Sue Atkinson of Moline, Illinois-462nd runner-up in the Wonder Woman Costume Contest. Here Sue sets out to prove that though she was drunk when she designed the costume she’s perfectly sober now.

The original art specialty piece below was one of first pieces I got for my collection, way back in 1966. I always loved it, the spirit, the message.

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Hart’s genius was recognised early in his early B.C. and Wizard of Id’s days. There was a ton of B.C. books and clamoring peer praise. I think sometimes strips go on too long, though, and unfortunately get taken for granted. Maybe this was the case with Hart. And Hart’s perfect comic strip humor was probably overshadowed lately by the controversy over the recent times he tried to interject messages about his Christian faith.

Below is the first promotional material on both B.C. and Wizard. Man, the B.C. characters especially changed. It’s been seen time and again how characters smooth out and get boiled down to their essence when cartoonists draw them over and over. Harts charters became perfectly ridiculous.

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Johnny boldy proclaimed his Christianity in B.C. But, in my next book, Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings, you’ll see that, like the Bible itself, Hart wasn’t prudish. Hart was good natured and light-hearted enough to make some funny T&A gags for fellow cartoonists with his characters.

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(click here to order Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings)

Hart’s comics were slapstick, thoughtful, sometimes visually surreal (especially in 1960′s). They were full of variety. Most importantly: I look at many of today’s comics and I often just scratch my head. When I looked at and read Hart’s comics I often laughed out loud. I hate that the comics page is gonna be Hart-less.

I just couldn’t find any weird Doll Man covers today. There’s just this very ordinary comic cover with no kinkiness at all, absolutely no suggestiveness, no phallic symbols in sight (*COFF*, *COFF*). This was sent in by Arf Lover David B. Thanks, Dave!

A friend kindly gave me this vintage Felix LSD blotter. If you look closely it’s perferated. Each Felix head can be torn off and put on your tongue for a mind-expanding acid trip. Felix and Mickey Mouse were popular images for hippie-era drug dealers to print on these. Actually, this particular blotter isn’t laced with LSD. It would have been worth quite a bit on the street if it was. I only took one acid trip Back In The Day. It was a scary “bad trip” and I thought I was gonna go crazy or die. I had “flashbacks” for YEARS! As terrible, horrible as this trip was I’m sorta glad it happened because it showed me there was more “Out There”. Or “In There”. And the experience sure has helped me in drawing my psychedelic comix. You had to be there!

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Some of my LSD-inspired comix…

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Thomas Nast was, of course, America’s first great cartoonist! Nast toppled Tammany Hall, popularized (some say created) the political Republican Elephant and the Democratic Donkey and created our image of Santa Claus. Here’s an unpublished self-portrait of Nast I have in my art collection. I just ran across it and saw that it was dated April 5 so I thought it would be fun to show it to you today, Arf Lover! (A tip of the Hat/Yoe to Rick who sold this art to me).

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Which of the three Wacky Wonder Women is the most beautiful?-Suffering Sappho, it’s SO hard to decide, they’re all so desirable!