(Sung to the tune of John Lennon’s “Imagine”)

Imagine there’s no Comic Con

Its easy if you try

No Hollywood around us

Only comics by and by.

Imagine all the fans

Talking only toons.

Imagine there’s no costumes

It isn’t hard to do

No toys or T-shirts

And no Playboy Bunnies, too

Imagine all the fans

Talking only toons

You may say I’m Little Nemo

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And they’ll be no Comic Con

Imagine no slabbed comics

I wonder if you can

No need for grading and Price Guides

A brotherhood of fans

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the toons

You may say I’m Little Nemo

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And they’ll be no Comic Con.

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Well, I’m back from the San Diego Comic Con. Did you miss me? It was great meeting a number of passionate Arf fans including Mr. Matt Groening, who is going to do some art for the next volume of Arf! Yes, yes, details soon in an exciting announcement. Clues: it will involve a number of top cartoonists and it will be Gross-can you guess?). Mitch O’Connell is another artist I was thrilled to meet and talk with about his painting of Walt Kelly for the next Arf.

I enjoyed meeting Arf fans and Arf artists, picking up an amazing piece of original 1944 art that’s going to see print in a future Arf, seeing Pete’s breathtaking Gasoline Alley book, treated to meals by Bud Plant, Anne Hutchinson, Dean and Barbara Yeagle, Bill Leach, etc.

But, really, the con is so little about comics -there’s apparently even talk of changing the name of the convention. And the stuff the con is 90% about (film premiers, etc.) mostly disgusts me.  Why doesn’t someone start a COMICS con in a hotel at the same time. Or at a different place and time. NYC con is just a San Diego wanna be, so I don’t have much hope there. What do you think of the idea of an alternative convention? I heard the Sun Dance film festival has become all commercial and there is now a Slam Dance Film Festival that happens at the same time. What are your thoughts?

 Anyway, more on San Diego later, but for now it’s Doll Man Monday.The sexual implications of this Doll Man cover just simply astound me and I just don’t know where to begin. Or is it just me?!?!

(click for a closer look)

Arf Lover David B. sent in this sizzling Doll Man cover. Doll Man down on his knees and humiliated in this bizarre S&M torture! But worse, Doll Man finds death comes in a black box! We shudder to think what THAT’S refering to. I have some great Doll Mans left, but Dave and I may be getting to the end of the line. I’m disappoinited no other bloggers have linked to the Doll Man feature, yet everybody tells me they love our Mighy Mite?!? This post would be a good one to start with in case you’re so inclined. I’m not trying to put the heat on you in this regards, you undertand. I don’t want to put pressure on and press you. But I’d appreciate it if you could give Doll Man a plug (er, sorry Doll Man).

Leaving early tomorrow for San Diego. Will be looking there for more Doll Man covers, wining and dining with Wacky Wonder Women (and getting pics), meeting Arf Lovers (please come say hi at the Fantagraphics booth signings as listed below). So, alas, I probably won’t have time for posting so, sadly, the Arf Lovers Blog will be taklng a vacation for a week. I’ll have a full report on the San Diego Zooo, ie. the Con, when i get back. See you soon.

(click for a closer look)

First: Let me apologise that the Arf Blog was down for the last 24 hours. Technical difficulties have been solved, fingers crossed.

Second: So which Arf Lovers are going to San Diego?!? Who am I going to see? At least come by and say hi during my Fantagraphics signings. But, better yet, buy me a drink! Now…

Cliff Sterrett! He’s the greatest! Super artsy-fartsy drawing style but straight ahead knee-slappin’ funny gag stuff all at the same time! He STILL hasn’t got his due enough. Or back in the days he didn’t get enough praise, either, I suspect, as there aren’t that many publicity photos of him extant. So here’s a rare one from 1928, folks…

(click for a closer look)

Coming soon, San Diego Comic Con where EVERY day is Wacky Wonder Woman Wednesday! Will you see at the Con, Arf Lover, WWWs that look like THIS?:

…or like THIS?:

Honestly? It will be something in between, but it’s ALL good! Take pics of any WWWs you spot while you’re there and send ‘em in to share at yoecomix(AT)hotmail(dot)com for a post con WWWs wrap-up.

You’ll also be seeing yours truly, sans WWW costume, I’m afraid, signing away the new Arf book, Arf Forum at the Fantagraphics booth. Come and meet and greet. Here’s my schedule:

THURSDAY: 1PM - 3PM
FRIDAY: 10AM - NOON
SAT: 6PM - 7PM
SUN: 2PM - 4PM

If by chance you aren’t coming to the con be sure and get your Arf Forum by clicking on the link below.

(click here to order Arf Forum)

The best (?!?!?!) things in life are FREE! 1950s comic book reading kids, get your FREE Hitler stamps!

(click for a closer look)

McGill later assisted on Blondie and on Mickey Finn but I also remember him doing features like Hayfoot Henry in Golden Age DC humor comics books of the 1940s.

(click for a closer look)

Whoops, I was chided in the Classic Comics Yahoo Group for having “stopped” the 1928 series of cartoonist fotos and mini-bios. I better get back on the stick. Here’s Rube Goldberg (who got the Arf Treatment in the 2nd Arf book, Arf Museum, with lots of rare and unpublished art).

(click for a closer look)

Zooooooom! The Dollman with a big, big plane between his legs-big for The Dollman, anyway-heads straight for the head of his gape-mouthed bald villain-The Undertaker!

(click for a closer look)

Heidi MacDonald alerted me to the fact that Publishers Weekly just ran a review of Arf Forum on their “PW Comics” website. I’ve taken the liberty of reprinting the text below.

(order Arf Forum here)

“Readers will find this book doing strange and wonderful things to their minds. Imagine someone going through old magazines and stopping whenever an unusual picture or story catches his attention. Then imagine this reader taking the time to cut out the oddities and stick them in a file folder. And finally imagine someone selecting the most unusual, striking things out of a drawer filled with such folders and printing them in an elegantly designed, lovingly printed anthology. Arf Forum features Max Ernst’s surrealist collages (a man with the head of an Easter Island statue cavorting in various melodramatic scenes) as well as a sleazy photo story from the early 1940s about a visit to a comics studio where girls pose in their underwear.

“Yoe’s warm memoir of a meeting with cartoonist Bill Holman (Smokey Stover) shows the modern audience how dazzling this comic strip was, while a piece about ultra-obscure artist William Ekgren (known only for three covers) offers a tantalizing glimpse of an unfulfilled talent.

(click to read this comic)

“Yoe fills this volume to the gills: Stan Lee on irate readers, Italian cartoonist Kremos’s girly cartoons, a photo of Elvis reading a Betty and Veronica comic. There’s no overall theme here except “Isn’t this cool!” but that’s enough; it is cool”.

MONDAY MORNING
“Where did we leave off yesterday?”
“At home, boss, don’t you remember?”

Above: Elvis reads Betty and Veronica on his first major tour, part of the many images of people reading comics in Arf Forum.

As the girl said in the movie Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure, “Thanks P.W.!” I’m interested in hearing indivduals reactions to the latest Arf book, too. Send them to yoecomix(at)hotmail(dot)com and I’ll run the letters on the blog.