Yo, Craig!

Good Morning.

Last evening newspaper cartoonist Patrick McDonnell spoke in Alameda, California at Books, Inc. McDonnell, the writer and artist of MUTTS spoke on behalf of the East Bay SPCA. A member of the audience asked, “You seem to have really shot to national prominence after your appearance in Arf. Will you be contributing to future volumes?” McDonnell, chuckling humorously, thanked editor Craig Yoe for his big break. “Yes, I will be in the next volume of Arf. Craig had the great idea of having today’s cartoonists complete a Milt Gross multi-panel cartoon gag. I am one of the contributors.” McDonnell revealed.

“Who inspired you?” A lady asked. “Charles Schulz. I wanted to be Charles Schulz.” McDonnell answered without hesitation. Asked about Winsor McCay, he drew special attention to ‘Little Nemo, So Many Splendid Sundays’ edited by Pete Maresca. “It was like seeing Little Nemo for the first time.” McDonnell said in praise of Maresca’s book. McDonnell, from the audience suggestions, drew the MUTTS characters on a 2X3 foot sketch pad. The quick sketches will later be auctioned by and for the benefit of the East Bay SPCA. For further information please contact: [email protected] After his talk McDonnell graciously signed books for the enthused crowd.
-Miron Murcury

Yo, Miron!
OMG, I’d bet my life, that the unnamed audience member that asked Patrick McDonnell about achieving fame by being featured in the Modern Arf and Arf Museum was YOU! Thanks a million for the plug, man!

Actually, I’ve been trying to keep it a secret till things are all together that Patrick is gonna be in the NEXT Arf book as part of the special Milt Gross Arf Happening. He’ll be there along with R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Jules Feiffer, Bil Keane, Mike Mignola, Seymour Chwast, Joost Swarte, Bill Griffith, Ivan Brunetti, Jaime Hernandez, Gary Panter, Kaz, Glenn Head, Mark Newgarden, Johnny Ryan, Richard Sala, Gene Deitch, Mark Beyer, R.O, Blechman, Sam Henderson, Dean Yeagle, Mort Walker, Charles Barsotti, Hunt Emerson, Denis Kitchen, Matt Groening and myself collaborating with Milt Gross. Milt did a strip in the 1930s called Draw Your Own Conclusions. Amateur cartoonists would fill in the last blank panel of this strip. Now this Who’s Who of Contemporary Cartoonists is doing the same with Gross for the forthcoming Arf book, Comic Arf (Spring ’08).

But, now Patrick let the cat and the dog, so to speak, out of the bag-and what a great event to make the announcement at! This is very cool!
Thanks again, Miron!

-Craig

Photo below of Patrick McDonnell at the signing last night (c) 2007 Miron Murcury. Below that is the McDonnell/Gross collaboration that will appear in “Comic Arf”.

(click for a closer look)

This Day in Arf History is the day of the launch of This Day in Arf History! Every day I’ll be highlighting one, sometimes two important events in the history of comic books, comic strips and animated cartoons.

Today is a two-fer. The birthday of two of the all time greatest cartoonists-Bil Keane and Pablo Picasso. Bil was born on this date in 1922, Pablo in 1881. Besides sharing a birthday the boys also share a book series. You guessed it, Arf Lover, the Arf books. Pablo’s comics were examined in the book Arf Museum-and Bil has done a special piece of art just for the next Arf book, Comic Arf! So, considering Arf’s tag line is “The Unholy Marriage of Art and Comics, there couldn’t be a better date to launch this new feature!

BTW, the This Day in Arf History’s nifty logo was designed by YOE! Studio’s talented intern Priya Rajdev. Priya is herself a awesome cartoonist, has strong design chops and, get this, is a Harvard graduate. Harvard! So, Priya’s adding a little much-needed class to the studio in addition to her creative skills.

Of course, as some of you know, I’m a PHD from Oxford-a Post Hole Digger from Oxford, Kansas! Yuk-yuk! See you tomorrow as we find out what happened in Arf History and the usual nonsense.

Irwin Hasen, the terrific artist of the Dondi comic strip and DC Golden Age comic books was at a New York comic book convention last year.

I showed Irwin a mock-up of Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings that I was working on. I asked him if he might have any appropriate material. He flipped through the mock-up of the book and said, “Nope, I never did any sexy stuff”. A pity I thought since I like Hasen’s art so much. But, I did just find this nice sketch Irwin delineated of a stripper when I was going through some stuff in my collection this morning. What’s really neat about this drawing is that it’s from a cartoonists get-together (in Daytona) and in the audience watching the stripper is is Leonard “On Stage” Starr, Frank “Mr. Abernathy” Ridgeway, Dick “Hi and Lois” Brown, Dick “Morty Meekle” Cavalli and Irwin himself. Themselves a bunch of strippers!

(click for a closer look)

So, you won’t find Hasen in the Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings book, but here he is on the Arf Lover’s blog for your viewing pleasure. And if you would like to see the 69 cartoonists who ARE in the book (including Dick Brown) order your copy by clicking on the cover below. And, don’t forget, there’s a preview of the book here.

(click to order your very own copy!)

Go L(.)(.)K below to see an example of cartoonist Nell Brinkley’s work from my collection. When I ran Nell’s photo (hubba-hubba) a few days ago Arf Lover Michael Burton rightfully wrote in the comments section: “How about showing us some of her drawings?” So, Michael this is a cool and beautiful cover Brinkley did for the ultra-rare and wonderful and legendary Circulation magazine. Just as Girl Cartoonists were not common back in the day neither were Newsboys hawking the newspapers with the comics inside ‘em. “Girl Newsboys”?!? You know what I mean. And now days I don’t think there are any streetcorner newsboys at all and there’s plenty of great Girl Cartoonists! But, Nell Brinkley remains one of the all time greats cartoonists of either gender!

(click for a closer look)

While you contemplate those pumpkins you should know that next week Wacky Wonder Woman Wednesday falls on October 31st.

So, you guessed it, Arf Lover, it’s gonna be an all out Hallo-Wacky Wonder Woman Wednesday Halloween Par-TAY! Don’t miss it, especially the apple bobbing part!

Okay, it’s the Tuesday you’ve all been waiting for, the one where I begin to show off my vast collection of Bat-Tunes.

Nineteen sixty-six was a banner year for comics fans, because that’s when Batman made his debut as a twice-weekly TV series complete with BIFF! BANG! and POW! sound effects.

The world went bats for the show, as it worked its way into the culture with bat-toys, bat-products, and even bat-jokes. A typical bat-gag from the period went something like this:

Q: “Why didn’t Batman answer the Bat-Phone?”
A: “He was in the Bat-Room.”
Holy rotten eggs, Batman! What a stinky joke!

The theme song from the TV show was a huge hit as well, possibly because its lyrics made it so easy to sing along with:

Nana-nana-nana-nana-nana-nana-nana-nana
Batman
Batman
Batman

Not only was it easy to sing, but every guy within arm’s reach of a guitar could play it – and most of them did. Here’s just one of a skadillion versions of the Batman Theme you’ll be hearing on Tuesdays to come. This kick-ass treatment is by Davie Allen and the Arrows.

(if no bar appears please click here to listen)

The ever resourceful Doll Man, when he ventures into The Land of Midget Men battles them with office supplies! And if the pen also serves as this Doll Man cover with its’ customary phallic symbol then the ruler is perfect to determine if Doll man “measures up”!

Okay, here’s the last photo from that early 1900s series. We get to see that the great artist Nell Brinkley who drew all those beautiful flappers was herself a babe.

(click for a closer look)

I realized there is still two more of those early 1900s cartoonists’ photos that I haven’t posted yet. So today you get Dorothy Flack who I don’t know a damn thing about. Trina Robbins and Catherine Yronwode have a small illustration by her in their “Women and the Comics” book. From what I can see, even though the blurb below compares her to Nell Brinkley, Dot ain’t no Nell. I’m kinda sorry I sold an amazing piece of original art by Nell Brinkley a year or so ago to-who else-Trina Robbins. Tomorrow I’ll post the last photo in the series which IS of Nell Brinkley and, believe me, she’s a Nell Brinkley. Now don’t give me no Flack.

(click for a closer look)

Geez, I can’t believe the number of emails I’ve got from people deeply distraught that this is Wacky Wonder Woman Wednesday…and yet there is no Wacky Wonder Woman on the blog. The most creative-and heart-wrenching-was from Dave Scroggy of Dark Horse:

What
Wacky
Wednesday
Weekly
Wasn’t
Where
We
Wish ?

Weepily, DS

Okay, Dave, this is for you…