tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77787774359100112842024-03-18T02:48:56.832-07:00Screwball ComicsPaul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.comBlogger143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-23372091023547452882018-07-28T22:57:00.001-07:002018-08-25T22:21:07.572-07:00Deluxe New Screwball Comics Retrospective Coming Soon!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz5F-oDe0K3S3I30QpEiE7khuC2fmQqRDmvj2puuvN0Ml47m0k8EKiLRz8ZFdZumZWVNvRzWqHFA4gmfGaTtoP4ZRbuQRZJ9dCAEi3mEp8zzY8qSjclZH6PKACP_nou4mjqoV4U9UnMk8/s1600/Screwball+Book+Cover+Paul+Tumey+final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1467" height="609" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz5F-oDe0K3S3I30QpEiE7khuC2fmQqRDmvj2puuvN0Ml47m0k8EKiLRz8ZFdZumZWVNvRzWqHFA4gmfGaTtoP4ZRbuQRZJ9dCAEi3mEp8zzY8qSjclZH6PKACP_nou4mjqoV4U9UnMk8/s640/Screwball+Book+Cover+Paul+Tumey+final.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;"><br /></span> <i style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 20px;">Screwball! The Cartoonists Who Made the Funnies Funny</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;"> is in the works! It will be a large, full-color hardcover art book offering around 275 pages resplendent with rare comics, art, photos and original research. I've got the fantods, since this is my first book and I really hope folks like it!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">The story of screwball comics in America is a large topic, more sprawling than one book can reasonably encompass if one wishes to present satisfying chunks of reprints. </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 20px;">Foo</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;"> this reason, I decided, after much deliberation, to narrow the focus of this book on American newspaper comics up to about 1950.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">The publisher will be The Library of American Comics/IDW. Eisner-Award winner Dean Mullany will design and edit the book, with Bruce Canwell and Lorraine Turner providing their expertise, as well. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">We are creating a retrospective that will be broad and deep. There will be 15 chapters, each one focusing on a particular cartoonist or comic strip with an in-depth text essay and an assortment of carefully curated strips, art, and photos. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">As of this writing, and subject to change, here is the list of chapters, in the order they will appear:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Frederick Opper</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Walter R. Bradford</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Clare Victor "Dwig" Dwiggins</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Gus Mager</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">George Herriman's </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 20px;">Stumble Inn</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Rube Goldberg</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Walter Hoban</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">E.C. Segar</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Milt Gross</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Gene Ahern</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">George Swanson</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Ving Fuller</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Bill Holman</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: "lora" , serif; font-size: 20px;">Boody Rogers' </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #292929; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 20px;">Sparky Watts</i>Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-19435445927271518172016-12-24T20:14:00.002-08:002016-12-25T07:38:50.991-08:00Rube Goldberg Wishes You a Merry ChristmasOver the course of his 35 years or so as a daily and Sunday newspaper humor cartoonist, Rube Goldberg celebrated many Christmases in pen and ink. Here is a selection of just a few of his Christmas-themed offerings.<br />
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<b>1909 - December 25 </b></div>
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Goldberg's first hit comic was <i>Foolish Questions</i>, which debuted in 1908. It catapulted him into national fame. The basic idea is that someone is asking a painfully obvious question and usually there is a sarcastic, surreal reply. At least one newspaper ran the following on Christmas day, 1909:</div>
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<b>1911, December 25</b></div>
Santa takes a well-earned rest<br />
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<b>1922, December 21</b></div>
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<b>1922, December 22 - Life's Little Jokes</b></div>
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A semi-regular series Goldberg created in the early 1920s</div>
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<b>1923, December 24 - Steve Himself</b></div>
Yet another short series Goldberg ran<br />
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<b>1924, December 22 - Bozo Butts</b></div>
For a summer job in college, Rube Goldberg collected patients and drove them to the San Francisco insane asylum. He was one of the "men in the white coats." Perhaps he drew on that experience for this short series.<br />
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<b>1924, December 23 - People Who Put You To Sleep</b></div>
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One of my favorite series of Goldberg's -p- always makes me laugh, Lamp that guy asleep on top of the speaker!</div>
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<b>1925, December 24 - Life's Little Jokes</b></div>
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<b>1927, December 24 - Bobo Baxter</b></div>
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In late 1927 and for most of 1928, instead of rotating his short series randomly among his many one-shots, Goldberg briefly settled down with one single comic strip, about a wacky inventor who creates a flying bicycle. This is the visually appealing Christmas episode.</div>
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Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-1939103202056037572014-09-21T10:40:00.000-07:002016-10-16T13:58:36.737-07:00The Comic Writing of Harry J. Tuthill in The Bungle Family<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Let's be honest: Harry J. Tuthill's <i>Bungle Family </i>comics are extremely wordy. This can be daunting. It takes some work to read all those words. If you try to read his comics the way you might read a modern comic strip, you won't enjoy them. However, if you can get on Tuthill's wavelength, he will take you to some great places.<br />
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Harry Tuthill's writing during the peak years of <i>The Bungle Family </i>in the 1920s and 1930s, is, for my money, is some of the best to be found in American comics. His satirical vision of America is subversive and deliciously dark. The dialogue could stand on its own, or easily be translated into a screenplay.<br />
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It was no real surprise to me to discover, while researching my introduction to a <i>Bungle Family </i>Tuthill had a stint writing for radio. I dug up little-known information about how Tuthill was hired by Proctor and Gamble to write a daytime radio serial based on <i>The Bungle Family</i>. Sponsored by a soap company, the show was called <i>The Puddle Family</i>. Before he diluted his own career as a successful radio writer by, according to some, demanding too much money, Tuthill -- it could be said -- wrote one of the very first soap operas.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRykmv-ZanbNGRWX9qadx7H91my9Npr9MnYoAvDT9-LNZuoSf6GGLi4FXdfgaKBu8R8HZ1yA6I74p3Ixmg6AyvQ1ejrB8ZdQk7LXSrckuJHvGybf5ooII22tRNJRNrfquXj2-GXeIpsTw/s1600/19320000+Puddle+Family+Associated+Press.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="499" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRykmv-ZanbNGRWX9qadx7H91my9Npr9MnYoAvDT9-LNZuoSf6GGLi4FXdfgaKBu8R8HZ1yA6I74p3Ixmg6AyvQ1ejrB8ZdQk7LXSrckuJHvGybf5ooII22tRNJRNrfquXj2-GXeIpsTw/s1600/19320000+Puddle+Family+Associated+Press.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The cast of THE PUDDLE FAMILY, a 15-minute, five-day-a-week radio serial that originated from the WLW studio in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1931-1932. (courtesy of Proctor and Gamble)</td></tr>
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Much like characters from a typical soap-opera, the people in Harry J. Tuthill's misanthropic screwball masterpiece, <i>The Bungle Family </i>(1918-1945<i>)</i>, hear only their own voices. Husbands and wives talk at, not to, each other. Friends and neighbors appear to be having a chat, but they are only covering up their own uncharitable thoughts, which they have just barely enough awareness to know are socially unacceptable. People pass by in the background, muttering to themselves. No one sees the other -- everyone is lost in themselves. This is screwball comedy writing on a whole 'nother level, folks. Once you immerse yourself in it, it's quite funny. This darkly comic vision transforms simple events into a comic opera, such as the visit of friends at George and Josie Bungle's home, sweet home.<br />
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Recently, a year of Bungle Family dailies was published in the IDW Library of American Comics Essentials series. The book, <i>The Bungle Family 1930</i>, was edited by Dean Mullaney and features an introduction by me (Paul C. Tumey) that reveals the curious story of Harry J. Tuthill.<br />
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While the dailies of the comic strip presented serial stories that went on for weeks and months, the Sundays were self-contained. At their best, these pages were the comic strip equivalent of a half-hour sitcom, filled with richly funny dialogue. In fact, Tuthill's sardonic writing anticipates the currently popular "comedy of discomfort" we see in acclaimed TV comedies like <i>The Office</i> and <i>Parks and Recreation</i>. Tuthill, who lived his life as a sort of outsider, had no compunctions about skewering the American dream. His depiction of lower middle class life in 1920s and 1930s America is nasty, mean, and hilarious because it's true.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bungle Family from October 3, 1926. From the collection of Paul Tumey.</td></tr>
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In this Sunday page, from 1926, we see a particularly potent example of the comic writing of Harry J. Tuthill. Note how he sets up the scene in the opening "credits" in the top banner, which presents the original name of the series (various papers shifted from 'Home, Sweet Home" to "The Bungle Family" at different times in the mid-1920s). Some friends are visiting George and Josie. The comedy in this page works on different levels. There's the good-hearted naivte of George and Josie as they mistake the behavior of their acid-tongued friends for kindness, This is especially interesting, because at other times, it's George and Josie who are grousing and ill-tempered.<br />
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Then there's the litany of petty complaints issued forth from the mouths of the "friends." They find fault in everything related to the Bungles. Notice the structure Tuthill sets up. Most of the complaining occurs in the second panel of the top three tiers. This creates a rhythm, and also a solid column of comic complaints that sits like the central supporting pillar of the entire page. It's no accident the second panel in the fourth, and final, tier features the oblivious George and Josie -- as a comic coda.<br />
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The artwork is, as usual, a thing of wonder. Tuthill's grubby, scratchy style perfectly conveys the coarseness of his characters, who desperately adorn themselves in tacky patterns.<br />
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The strip of characters at the bottom of the page is not Tuthill's work -- it is by someone with little ability or talent.<br />
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Note also the strip begins with two people in the background, rushing into each other's arms, exclaiming, "Mom!" and "Pop!" One of the many delights of <i>The Bungle Family</i> is that interesting things happen in the background. Check out also the man in the background of panel one, tier three -- petulantly pouting to himself.<br />
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In 1998, <i>American Heritage</i> magazine put out a special issue where they asked various people to list over- and underrated works in certain categories. Art Spiegelman was tasked with handling the comic strip category. For "overrated," he chose <i>Dilbert</i>. His choice for most underrated comic strip of the twentieth century? <i>The Bungle Family</i>.<br />
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- Paul TumeyPaul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-17131906190879406032014-07-08T15:31:00.003-07:002016-10-16T13:59:34.814-07:00A Toothful Espisode of W.R. Bradford's John Dubbalong (1911)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yesterday, I had a tooth pulled. I confess, I was quite brave. I went in with nary a protest, and uttered only two groans at the procedure's most intense moments. Yes, friends, my bravery was eclipsed only by the year of avoidance I invested before so courageously arranging myself into the dentist's chair. To celebrate both my hour of bravery and my year of cowardice, I share in this post with you an episode of the daily comic strip <i>John Dubbalong</i>, by screwball master W.R. Bradford.<br />
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Walter Bradford worked in newspaper comics for roughly the first quarter of the twentieth century, passing away in June of 1925 at age 53. His thousands of forgotten comics display a remarkable flair for screwball comedy, embracing anarchy, obsession, and insanity. In many ways, his stuff is as "out there" as Milt Gross, and in some ways a great deal screwier. His drawing style is, at first look, rather crude, but it is actually part of a now-forgotten school of comics that George Beckenbaugh (who worked under the name "Percy Winterbottom") in which the crudeness of the drawing is part of the joke.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">W.R. Bradford in a 1918 "selfie" - a staged scene called "The Fire,"<br />
which he posed in and took with an automatic timer.</td></tr>
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Even though Allan Holtz's excellent resource, <i>American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide</i> lists 33 comic strips by W.R. Bradford, <i>John Dubbalong</i> is not one of them. As near as I can tell, the strip ran 1-2 times a week from 1911 to 1914. The episodes were very dense, with lots happening in them. At another post, I'll share more of this rich comic strip.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">JINGLING JOHNSON by W.R. Bradford (August 29, 1909)</td></tr>
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For now, here's a small bite of <i>John Dubbalong</i>. Note the unusually dense story composition, with five scenes in 10 panels (eleven if you count the panel-within-a-panel). The last scene shows dental instruments madly dancing and singing an original song. Bradford was fond of writing silly verse, and built one of his most popular strips, <i><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-roots-of-screwball-comics-jingling.html" target="_blank">Jingling Johnson</a></i> around it (Johnson was a self-caricature of Bradford). Mysteriously, we are told the song is sung by a "quartette" of dental tools, but only three are shown -- either a sign of the haste with which the strip was composed, or another joke.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPzid2ZLhQirsWoFBphfXsJMg7_uk29ZrZHRlwuwVovRbJmxaE9N0YGwT5E9PW5JNi6MkIXT6Hbw4M9DhnNWBMPzEKW8CmD68Ab7ARjAVI7yRiXXba1j3xzDaF1WIrv5w7wy1dPbMjVeo/s1600/19111130+W.R.+Bradford+John+Dubbalong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPzid2ZLhQirsWoFBphfXsJMg7_uk29ZrZHRlwuwVovRbJmxaE9N0YGwT5E9PW5JNi6MkIXT6Hbw4M9DhnNWBMPzEKW8CmD68Ab7ARjAVI7yRiXXba1j3xzDaF1WIrv5w7wy1dPbMjVeo/s1600/19111130+W.R.+Bradford+John+Dubbalong.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">JOHN DUBBALONG by W.R. Bradford (November 11, 1911)</td></tr>
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How about that 8th panel, with the Winsor McCay style distortion?<br />
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Given Bradford's status as an early master of screwball comics, and the subject matter of this particular example, it would not be inaccurate to say that this posting may qualify as a true "roots" of screwball comics entry -- although it might coax further groans to do so.<br />
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- Paul Tumey</div>
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P.S.: If you haven't already, be sure to find the accompanying <b>Facebook group</b> to the blog, <b>The Masters of Screwball Comics</b>, and send me a request to join. Lots of cool screwball comics and other neat stuff posted there every day that never makes it to this blog!</div>
Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-63062461336928932192014-05-31T09:48:00.004-07:002014-06-29T10:56:43.310-07:00Blowing Rainbows: Paul Bunyan in Gene Ahern's The Squirrel Cage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Gene Ahern's masterpiece, <i><b>The Squirrel Cage</b></i>, had several interesting phases throughout its approximate 15-year run from 1937-1952.<br />
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From 1942 to 1944, Ahern shifted from his wacky inventors (Ches and Wal Nut, who lost their names when the emigrated from the NEA-owned topper, <i>The Nut Brothers </i>to the Hearst-owned <i>Squirrel Cage</i>) and the little hitch-hiker ("nov shmoz ka pop") to detailing the daily life of Paul Bunyan, who was alive and well in a contemporary comic strip version of small town America. Or, perhap<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">s the character is merely a giant who thinks he is -- or is pretending to be -- Paul Bunyan. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A late example of the inventors/hitch-hiker phase of THE SQUIRREL CAGE, from March 16, 1941 </td></tr>
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<i>The Squirrel Cage</i> is devoid of its signature character, the little hitch-hiker during the Paul Bunyan years, which are filled with Ahern's witty explorations of his imaginary world. In this lyrical episode, from January 3, 1943, we see Bunyan's mysterious super-human powers extend past great strength and massive consumption and labors, as the tall tales depict, when he blows a rainbow.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">January 3, 1943 -- from the collection of Carl Linich</td></tr>
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From his earliest years, Ahern's work embraced goofy imaginary worlds. With his Paul Bunyan strips, Ahern created a more subtle vision of a screwball world, which relegated wacky <i>Smokey Stover</i> style visual puns for poetic imagery that straddled states of consciousness. At times, <i>The Squirrel Cage</i> seeks to subvert the laws of reality and values of mainstream society in a veiled, symbolic way, as if in a dream. In these strips, we see Ahern developing elements of his Foozland phase, which comes next. The shadow, anxiously disconnected from it's owner, is a prime example of a device that later turns up in Foozland.<br />
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Ahern also refined his visual storytelling technique, as we can see in the episode originally published April 11, 1943 (or in the case of this example, in the Saturday edition and therefore on April 10). </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 11, 1943</td></tr>
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Four of the seven panels in the strip are wordless, and funnier because of this.The paucity of words in general in <i>The Squirrel Cage</i> stands in stark contrast to the strip it topped, <i>Room and Board</i>, which features several extremely verbose characters and draws its humor as much from the comic dialogue as from the visual doings. Compare, for example the windy April 11, 1943 <i>Room and Board</i> that ran below the near-wordless "windmill" episode of the same date.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 11, 1943</td></tr>
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It is worth noting that Ahern greatly streamlined the torrents of dialogue in Room and Board by 1943, particularly in the Sunday episodes. Compared to earlier strips, and to the cloud banks of dialogue found in his Our Boarding House Sundays , the 1943 epistles of Judge Puffle seem taciturn.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">January 26, 1930</td></tr>
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The singular Paul Bunyan series (and, as we see above, even certain episodes of <i>Our Boarding House</i>) offers a sly re-imagining and sarcastic commentary on many things, including superhero comics. Paul Bunyan is super-strong and can even fly, covering great distances in a short period of time.The character even has, like a certain dislocated citizen of the planet Krypton, super-vision, as seen in the March 14, 1943 episode, when Bunyan drills a hole through a board simply by "looking sharply at it." This is a far more sophisticated and absrud lampoon of comic book superheroes, which were at a peak of popularity in 1943, than the typical treatment one sees -- and as such, it connects the superhero archetype to the American tall tale in a way that is unique in comics.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">March 14, 1943</td></tr>
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<b><i><span style="color: red;">News!</span></i></b><span style="color: #141823;"> Thanks to </span><b style="color: #141823;">Art Spiegelman</b><span style="color: #141823;">, The Squirrel Cage will see mainstream circulation for the first time in approximately 65 years. An upcoming issue of </span><i style="color: #141823;"><b>Art Forum</b></i><span style="color: #141823;"> will include a marvelous 8-page annotated gallery of comics that Art Spiegelman has been reading and pondering. Among these comics are works by Basil Wolverton, Matt Fox, Chester Gould, and our very own Gene Ahern. I was able to able to supply the scan of the </span><i style="color: #141823;">Squirrel Cage</i><span style="color: #141823;"> strip used in the article, and Art Spiegelman kindly included the URL of this blogsite in the caption. </span></div>
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That is All,<br />
Screwball Paul</div>
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<i><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-small;">All text copyright 2014 Paul Tumey. This article may be re-posted and excerpted if acknowledgement is provided and a rainbow is blown in my direction.</span></i></div>
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Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-18269726374307865412014-04-01T10:51:00.004-07:002014-04-02T09:49:45.948-07:00Rube Goldberg's April Fool's Day Comics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Of all the great American newspaper comic strip cartoonists, Rube Goldberg perhaps most embraced the spirit of the repressed mischievous prankster. It's no surprise that, while Goldberg regularly commemorated national holidays such as Christmas and July 4 (also his birthday) in his daily newspaper comic strip, he seemed to invest extra effort into his strips that ran on April 1, or April Fool's Day -- the day of the prankster.<br />
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Goldberg's April 1 strips offered a variety of tongue-in-cheek set ups, including fake cartoons, spurious announcements, and puzzles that, when assembled, formed the words "April Fool." One gets the sense that, while other artists drew strips such as <i>The Katzenjammer Kids</i> about merry jokesters, Rube Goldberg himself <i>was </i>one of those kids!<br />
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Being a sensitive person who seemed to like people, Goldberg rarely -- if ever -- stooped to playing practical jokes on others. He might lacerate you with slashes of his comic wit, but he probably wouldn't put salt in the sugar bowl. Instead, he sublimated his impulse to prank into his work, and his April Fool's Day comics often ripped away the facade and laid bare the desire to trick. This can be seen in his April 1st strip of 1914 that makes fun of the common tricks of the day:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5Wr0c2ihTCzl95vFg4tjHyR4cBeGsprade0aTLG60cQ7AkNsxl5wVq_w2mOdEW5L2QalH9FskuCBsBIn1jtMOLOUHYz7ThBIeS-jpUFGWkPaBqhWZtxKnvs91b-KoeomXIWHOYYpjeM/s1600/19140401+Rube+Goldberg+April+Fools+Day+1914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5Wr0c2ihTCzl95vFg4tjHyR4cBeGsprade0aTLG60cQ7AkNsxl5wVq_w2mOdEW5L2QalH9FskuCBsBIn1jtMOLOUHYz7ThBIeS-jpUFGWkPaBqhWZtxKnvs91b-KoeomXIWHOYYpjeM/s1600/19140401+Rube+Goldberg+April+Fools+Day+1914.jpg" height="440" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 1, 1914</td></tr>
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Early in his career, Goldberg had been the victim of a cruel practical joke. In 1905, as a newcomer to the staff at the <i>San Francisco Bulletin</i>, the 22-year old cartoonist had been ostracized and hazed by the jaded newspapermen whose ranks he was attempting to join. Rube was assigned the job of attending an evening football game and drawing a cartoon about it for the next day's edition. He carefully prepared his desk top, laid out with his drawing tools and paper so that when he returned to his office in the early hours of the morning after a long day he could get right to work and do his best. When he returned however, he found his materials inside his desk, which was nailed shut. Something snapped in Rube Goldberg that night. With his jaw set and eyes burning in anger, he nailed shut the desks of everybody in the office. When his co-workers discovered what he had done the next morning, they laughed and suddenly, the young man was one of them.<br />
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In his 1920 April Fool's joke, Goldberg made a satirical play on one of his favorite themes, technological progress. He drew a large black spot and told his readers, represented in the strip by a motley crew of slack-jawed boobs, to glue it into the center of a record and stare at it until they could see the "actual face of the person whose voice you hear." His characters, Mike and Ike, in the adjacent panel break through the panel border and comment on the main strip while pointing to the date inscribed below their feet. The strip is a masterful tour de force.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 1, 1920 - courtesy of Jennifer George, Rube Goldberg Inc. and The Bancroft Library</td></tr>
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In 1918, Goldberg devoted most of his daily strips to small continuities with his characters Mike and Ike, so its no surprise that they are featured in his April 1 episode. In a set-up worthy of Samuel Beckett, the identical twins are running frantically towards a meeting with the man that draws them. They hope, in a rather deep way, to learn the secrets of their existence, including how to tell themselves apart -- who is Mike and who is Ike? Of course, as it seems to be in real life, the whole thing turns out to be a cosmic gag, but not before we've had a chance to be entertained by a surprisingly clever and artful comic strip.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrRotX-vl1Bc8JzeUxUodJOev9nHjrWEcmzlapF75nQdtU4sK8JSP2dya91OvTQrkebEmiuUNxIgB1iIpnGCklRDrNE4BjQgCcBWpP9UvPJt46c3mpsvj9UXL00LBEpU-Rq3OLg86gkE4/s1600/19180401+Rube+Goldberg+April+1+1918+MIKE+AND+IKE+April+Fools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrRotX-vl1Bc8JzeUxUodJOev9nHjrWEcmzlapF75nQdtU4sK8JSP2dya91OvTQrkebEmiuUNxIgB1iIpnGCklRDrNE4BjQgCcBWpP9UvPJt46c3mpsvj9UXL00LBEpU-Rq3OLg86gkE4/s1600/19180401+Rube+Goldberg+April+1+1918+MIKE+AND+IKE+April+Fools.jpg" height="266" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 1, 1918 - (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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Perhaps the most literally odd example of an admittedly odd series of comics, Goldberg's April 1, 1919 strip subverted the form by using photographs instead of cartoons. While this parody of beauty may seem a little harsh and uncaring by today's standards, this type of humor was very common in America at this time.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKhx2MXqm9KUUjv5iXcI6iCJpQp_jPXc5_VzRXkuYqoRxEHtk7-dAu006Nc19JgRGLA6P6ebZqHF4rPAcmSrqJqxkQ97v3XW0y020Zj0AEav4vWPoG5_Yueld6U7M1BMCVKYjU3i0E29Q/s1600/rg19190401+April+Fools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKhx2MXqm9KUUjv5iXcI6iCJpQp_jPXc5_VzRXkuYqoRxEHtk7-dAu006Nc19JgRGLA6P6ebZqHF4rPAcmSrqJqxkQ97v3XW0y020Zj0AEav4vWPoG5_Yueld6U7M1BMCVKYjU3i0E29Q/s1600/rg19190401+April+Fools.jpg" height="352" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 1, 1919 - courtesy of Jonathan Barli and Rosebud Archives</td></tr>
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Goldberg's 1921 April Fool's comic was a gentler joke. He repeated this gag again, ten years later, in 1931. Both strips are reproduced in the recent deluxe book THE ART OF RUBE GOLDBERG selected by Jennifer George (Abrams ComicArts, 2013).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyhxG-Fx-7rqPxWKhyphenhyphenFna6RowFoM5Ml0kRvYx8jb8ft01rQl6gCLii0klmiJwma-NlZhC6Hx16IQMKyBK8PdLxVeRX6rToPH-7PrgTWlpizvoGJhwl9OH0iOI2qyyg6Q6HugtFXldnKX0/s1600/19210401+April+Fools+1921+Rube+Goldberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyhxG-Fx-7rqPxWKhyphenhyphenFna6RowFoM5Ml0kRvYx8jb8ft01rQl6gCLii0klmiJwma-NlZhC6Hx16IQMKyBK8PdLxVeRX6rToPH-7PrgTWlpizvoGJhwl9OH0iOI2qyyg6Q6HugtFXldnKX0/s1600/19210401+April+Fools+1921+Rube+Goldberg.jpg" height="284" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 1, 1921 - courtesy Jonathan Barli and Rosebud Archives</td></tr>
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While Rube Goldberg often created special comic strips for April 1st (has any other cartoonist so regularly made this day his own?), "An Accident," his April 1, 1915 comic strip, might stand as the best of the lot. The strip, which was printed large at 16 inches across (as was typical for his dailies of the 1910s), is a Cubist deconstruction of the comic strip, with a dozen or so mis-matched parts from a week's worth of strips jumbled together in a bewildering arrangement With his delightful and typical dry-as-dust wit, Rube writes a fake explanation that the strips were dropped and "broken." Despite the bizarre visual chaos of his conceit, the tropes and memes of everyday humor comics can be gleaned from the bits and pieces, making the cartoon an imaginative1915 meta commentary on comics themselves.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiekdECQZWnmK91zXj-lzLrDRLip2HCvD7T0w2NoXO6bcK-rvtiR0os7lrYqmEraKt9j9ehYgsU4-g3qGAcvQMw_Jw91j2zSOHngp3OVLo7k_J_jUtIBrbFi0C0rz2uzWC6w_YsAkO8vfI/s1600/rg19150401+April+Fools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiekdECQZWnmK91zXj-lzLrDRLip2HCvD7T0w2NoXO6bcK-rvtiR0os7lrYqmEraKt9j9ehYgsU4-g3qGAcvQMw_Jw91j2zSOHngp3OVLo7k_J_jUtIBrbFi0C0rz2uzWC6w_YsAkO8vfI/s1600/rg19150401+April+Fools.jpg" height="274" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April 1, 1915 - from the collection of Paul Tumey</td></tr>
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All in all, the Rube Goldberg April Fool's Day comic strips represent a delightful and clever assortment of comics by a screwballistic master.<br />
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That is All,<br />
Screwpaul BallPaul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-78358605854396249982014-01-18T18:27:00.001-08:002014-01-26T13:21:53.355-08:00Tracks of My Tiers: A Jimmy Swinnerton 1909 Video and Runaway Pie Wagon Comix<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>READING THE FUNNIES with Paul C. Tumey</b><br />
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Here's a little video I made from a scan of a great <b>James ("Jimmy") Swinnerton</b> half page Sunday comic, originally published May 19, 1909.<br />
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I made this video using PowerPoint, which <a href="http://www.presentationtree.com/" target="_blank">I do for a living</a>. I was able to use the slide transitions in PowerPoint to emulate the experience of reading the strip's three tiers, left to right. As an experiment, I chose a Dock Boggs song for musical accompaniment. Since the characters in this strip engorge themselves on pilfered sweets, the obvious choice was the Boggs tune, "Sugar Baby" (although the true subject of that song has little to do with the innocent fun in Swinnerton's world). I thought the rural quality of the music might fit with the country scene in the strip.<br />
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I am excited to discover how well the structure of the song fits with the strip's architecture. It's as if there was some sort of invisible relationship between songs and half-page to page-long comic strips as they were shaped in the first half of the twentieth century.<br />
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And, here's the strip:</center>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Little Jimmy by James Swinnerton - May 19, 1909<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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The runaway pie wagon was an idea Swinnerton returned to, at least once (probably more) a couple of years later:</center>
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Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-17360612948631762842013-12-20T17:10:00.000-08:002013-12-30T10:22:45.027-08:00Hear Rube Goldberg Sing! (1917)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Presenting the earliest known recording, by far, of Rube Goldberg's voice. In 1917, Rube Goldberg sang on a record. The song, which he also wrote, was "Father Was Right." I'm pleased to present this rare recording to you, with some background information.<br />
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At the time he made this novelty record, Rube Goldberg was 35 and one of the the most respected and beloved cartoonists in America. His fame and widespread popular acceptance allowed him to expand his talent and humor beyond the printed page. In 1910, he started a five-year career as a stage performer on the east coast Vaudeville circuit. He appeared as himself, and drew cartoons to amuse audiences. In 1914, he produced, wrote, and starred (again, as himself) in a Vitagraph film, "He Danced Himself to Death."<br />
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Rube also had a musical side. In 1912, he published "I'm the Guy," a popular song that was based on his hit comic strip of the same name. In the years that followed, Rube would write and publish many songs. Some of these were recorded by name artists, such as Rosemary Clooney (who recorded <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmQwKy_F1eE" target="_blank">"Willie the Whistling Giraffe"</a> in 1951, a song co-written by Rube Goldberg and C.F. Patterson -- the wife of Rube's friend and fellow cartoonist Russell Patterson ).<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">January 4, 1918 -- This advertisement featured Rube's record</td></tr>
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The only known instance of Rube himself creating a commercial recording of one of his songs is the 1917 Pathé record, "Father Was Right." The actual sheet music was published in 1916, and featured original Rube Goldberg cartoons:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front cover of sheet music by Rube Goldberg (courtesy Robert Beerbohm)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Back cover of sheet music by Rube Goldberg (courtesy Robert Beerbohm)</td></tr>
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The song was based on Rube's cartoon series, "Father Was Right," which he rotated through his daily cartoon space in newspapers with several other series and one-shot comic strips. Rube had a special relationship with his father, Max. His mother died when Rube was very young, and his father, a banker and later the sheriff of San Francisco, raised Rube and his siblings on his own. Rube stayed close to his Dad all his life, visiting often and calling upon him to negotiate his business deals and syndicate contracts.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">FATHER WAS RIGHT and I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT by Rube Goldberg<br />
(April 3, 1918, from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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The strip followed the same basic formula each time. In panel one, a father provides his son with sound practical advice. The son ignores it, gets into comical trouble, and in the last panel he comes to realize that "father was right!"</div>
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The irony of the strip is that Rube's father wanted his cartoon-crazy son to become a mining engineer, and put him through the University of California for that purpose. Max felt that an engineer was a secure and good living. Upon Rube's graduation, Max pulled some strings and git him a job working the City of San Francisco, designing their sewer system (imagine that!). After six months, Rube could no longer contain himself and squirted out of his well-paying job into a career as a newspaper cartoonist at a substantially reduced salary -- in effect ignoring his father's career advice. Of course, you know the rest of the story -- Rube became a huge success. In fact, when he recorded "Father Was Right" in 1918, he had a millionaire's salary, in today's money.</div>
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The "Father Was Right" comic strip saw heavy rotation in 1917 and 1918. Rube also created a companion strip, "Mother Was Right." This one ran much less often. "Mother Was Right" was always drawn in silhouettes -- the only strip in which Rube Goldberg used this visual approach. Perhaps it was Rube's way of acknowledging his mother, Hannah, who had tragically passed away at age forty-four when he only nine years old. </div>
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The 1917 Pathé recording of Rube singing is priceless. We are indebted to "MusicBoxBoy," the collector who made this available at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8thTk_zy_A" target="_blank">YouTube</a>. Unfortunately, Rube was recorded poorly, and the production standards for making the Pathé discs were considerably less than perfect. However, with some concentration, it's not too hard to make out the words Rube is singing-talking. </div>
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It's worth the effort to listen closely through the hiss and pops, because Rube delivers a richly comic performance. He's not a trained singer, and the song lacks aesthetic beauty -- but as comedy, it's golden. Rube adds a layer of humor beyond the funniness of the lyrics by starting out with a great, big, rude, mock throat clearing. Between verses, he repeats the throat clearing, at one point muttering an aside: "I'm suffering as much as you." Then, the act of saying this has thrown his timing off and he stops in mid-word, and says dryly, "wrong again" and waits until the music comes around the right place before he starts in on the last verse.</div>
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We can also spot Rube recycling some of his material as he uses a verse from this song in his October 11, 1926 daily strip, shown below. Luke, of "Luke and His Uke" usurps a piano performance of a Beethoven composition, as he sings: "His wife's relations came to eat/In droves of tens and eights/And so he said, "I guess I married/The whole United States." A person in the audience exclaims, 'Wot a talent!" Rube may have been poking fun at himself with this in-joke, since his one commercial performance as a singer, while quite funny, probably never made Caruso break out in a sweat.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cartoon Follies of 1926 by Rube Goldberg (October 11, 1926)</td></tr>
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All in all, this is a wonderful find, and I'm pleased to bring it to you. Herewith, without "father" ado, is Rube Goldberg's 1917 recording of his song, "Father Was Right," with the lyrics transcribed below. </div>
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<a href="http://www.presentationtree.com/RubeGoldbergFatherWasRight1918.mp3" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAZ6seaog4anoPeGj0a1S1fdGhAgaUWE-i5tPzPZfqY-4lm_bNoSxAMiLzt2OspX_V-gQ7U2OcQL5KvFibkEiVDOhcRlkAaTQt71ZJNs1tdVyjkdhlJ5sRkBSqnnFWZUlQVTeq3BJPfI/s320/Rube+Goldberg+Father+Was+Right+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.presentationtree.com/RubeGoldbergFatherWasRight1918.mp3" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE 1917 RECORDING</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.presentationtree.com/RubeGoldbergFatherWasRight1918.mp3" target="_blank">Father Was Right</a></b></div>
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Written and Sung by Rube Goldberg (Pathé Records, 1917)</div>
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[Clears throat]</div>
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When I told my Dad </div>
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That I made up my mind to wed</div>
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"Pick out a girl," he said</div>
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"Whose relatives are dead."</div>
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Little did I know the wisdom of my dear old Dad</div>
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I didn't wed an orphan,</div>
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But I wish to the Lord I had!</div>
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Father was right</div>
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Father was right</div>
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My wife has cousins by the dozen</div>
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(line garbled)</div>
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They all get here at supper time </div>
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And bring their appetites</div>
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They wear out all our spoons and plates</div>
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They come in droves of tens and eights</div>
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I married the whole United States --</div>
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Father was right!</div>
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(Throat clearing - aside: "It's getting worse")</div>
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One day I told my Dad I'd like to own a motorcar</div>
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He puffed on his cigar</div>
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And said, "You won't go far"</div>
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I bought a car to show him that I knew a thing or two</div>
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I said goodbye and turned the crank </div>
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And that's the last I knew...</div>
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Father was right</div>
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Father was right</div>
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Now my flivver* has my liver</div>
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Twisted out of sight</div>
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And when I hear an auto horn</div>
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I want to start a fight</div>
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My back is stiffer than a board</div>
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The springs have cut me like a sword</div>
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Does anyone want to buy a Ford?</div>
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Father was right!</div>
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(Throat clearing. Aside: "I'm suffering as much as you")</div>
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One day I -- (realizes he is out of synch with music - Aside: "Wrong again")</div>
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Father said move to the country where the zephyr blows</div>
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For quiet and repose</div>
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Where they have no picture shows</div>
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Now I know that father wasn't talking through his hat</div>
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There's a moving picture theater right beneath our little flat!</div>
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Father was right</div>
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Father was right</div>
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Now my family's at the movies morning noon and night</div>
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My wife's so used to darkness, I'm afraid to make a light</div>
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Her only friends are on the screen</div>
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Instead of good old Pork and Beans</div>
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She seized me movie magazine (?)</div>
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(clears throat) Ahem! Father was right</div>
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<i>*Early 20th century slang for a car that delivers a rough ride</i></div>
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(Throat clearing) In -- ahem -- other news, the new book THE ART OF RUBE GOLDBERG (which has my editing and writing in it) has been getting gangbusters press and flying off the shelves. It's appeared on numerous top 10 lists. This little-known little rag called <i>The New York Times</i> did <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/science/exploring-an-inventors-cartoons-in-the-art-of-rube-goldberg.html?_r=0" target="_blank">a wonderful piece on the boo</a>k, which includes a very clever and fun video they made especially for the online article. It's great to see Rube in the public eye again!</div>
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That is All,</div>
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Screwball Paul</div>
Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-79432165638925365712013-12-10T08:21:00.000-08:002013-12-13T06:32:24.702-08:00Ving Fuller's Screwball Radio Ads (1944-46)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dkU4vB49uEJZd1RfKpNFN56rzmR6_bzBpehPo3WIjO1CpbhaX6AQOa646rgvlkd9eash2BB2WYNjsUs54L4uqYRv8guZIIqtRPLSCvSOjrJgy6bnzA-4xtrAUy2EBwraFjrwFrAhDhM/s1600/Ving+Fuller+Paul+Tumey+Screwball+Comics+Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9dkU4vB49uEJZd1RfKpNFN56rzmR6_bzBpehPo3WIjO1CpbhaX6AQOa646rgvlkd9eash2BB2WYNjsUs54L4uqYRv8guZIIqtRPLSCvSOjrJgy6bnzA-4xtrAUy2EBwraFjrwFrAhDhM/s320/Ving+Fuller+Paul+Tumey+Screwball+Comics+Blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Ving Fuller is what you get when you turn a hustling American entrepreneur into a screwball cartoonist.<br />
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I never cease to be amazed at the number and variety of schemes the man created to sell his cartoons. While he successfully placed cartoons in the nation's leading magazines and newspapers, Fuller didn't settle for this, and hustled his way into many other markets, including animated films for Glen Bray, movies, and advertising. He even made (and patented) a toy and sold it through his comic strips.<br />
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Fuller never broke big with a comic strip property. He came close in 1934 when he created <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ5kxaiMHm3wclOu2ibickukGrDCAoZYun-p0oAKnNAoIk_qqfKugEiQXZN4XtzW-48PeqqCoMjyxaUu0jYM8TepZ9bNHQ5DOEWYr3xNeAI6ipGwggVkNW19gtatRlDr6x-b-WC0Uc0VI/s1600/Betty+Boop+Comics+Strip+1934+Ving+Fuller.jpg" target="_blank">the first Betty Boop related comic</a>, but appears to have been stymied by a legal snafu. He tried again a few years later in 1939 when he drew <i><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2012/04/go-fry-ice-ving-fullers-elza-poppin.html" target="_blank">Elza Poppin</a></i>, a comic strip loosely named after a smash Broadway and film screwball hit, <i>Hellzapoppin</i>. Ving lost the job after six months (according to one story, he attempted to sue the owners of the play for royalties on the strip, and was thrown out of court and a job) and he was replaced after six months by fellow screwballist <b>George "Swan" Swanson </b>(<i>Salesman Sam</i>)<b>. </b><br />
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Ving finally had success with his 15-year old comic strip, <a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/search/label/Ving%20Fuller%3A%20Doc%20Syke" target="_blank"><i>Doc Syk</i>e</a> (1945-1960) but it remained on the fringes of newspaper comics, hopping from syndicate to syndicate. Ving constantly tinkered with the strip to make it sell better, even going so far as to re-tool the strip in the early 1950s to become <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSX5VxxE-wg9XpsLDZPKt3wv8KCKEW9moEQfweHaH0eJF92ll0neV5tx_61QWXjBdlbI5ksLjfQH5OPX4apTb9iaYafzEVOGt52JoK7aI_tZ78aOAHZGh_AK6P7ym0a9vYKcEphMyijKc/s1600/Little+Doc.Ving+Fuller.+1952.jpg" target="_blank">a doppelganger of the then new <i>Peanuts</i> comic strip</a> by Charles Shulz. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrBKUB2DNPWVw5ZhZkn9hNAdHFRdepU_QS8N1LApxgzTCcax4t6J6BWOTHtHji4bDCng3-xiTUP_TTIy1bBW8KsspTPUEkOdzN7oPv3CvM9VykNTq36e5mHIFhzhmSQ7ubaf6TJZVyQvE/s1600/Ving+and+Sam+Fuller+Cartoonists+Dinner+Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrBKUB2DNPWVw5ZhZkn9hNAdHFRdepU_QS8N1LApxgzTCcax4t6J6BWOTHtHji4bDCng3-xiTUP_TTIy1bBW8KsspTPUEkOdzN7oPv3CvM9VykNTq36e5mHIFhzhmSQ7ubaf6TJZVyQvE/s640/Ving+and+Sam+Fuller+Cartoonists+Dinner+Photo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cartoonist Ving Fuller and brother Sam Fuller (yes, the famous filmmaker) at a cartoonist's dinner, c. 1940s</td></tr>
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As a persistent media archaeologist, my never-ending search for Ving Fuller material is rewarded more often than I'd expect. His eccentric cartoon art turns up in the oddest places. Such as in a 1940s radio trade magazine. I recently discovered a series of about two dozen delightfully screwy comic strips by Ving Fuller promoting advertising time to media buyers ("timebuyers") for the New York radio station WOV.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN6sClGeQkF_HZBUYdAztuTXmHp0_9Bx3qeBv5D6ZKb0Q7lyODojyxu1H7inFRf7hKC-bMJ6P-jzwf4phknqjUi1ud-f9ZEZjMOtL7hhcDmdc1sjtjIeVBii22aS5-lSqJo3pf-t_ieAI/s1600/broadcasting+Oct+22+1945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN6sClGeQkF_HZBUYdAztuTXmHp0_9Bx3qeBv5D6ZKb0Q7lyODojyxu1H7inFRf7hKC-bMJ6P-jzwf4phknqjUi1ud-f9ZEZjMOtL7hhcDmdc1sjtjIeVBii22aS5-lSqJo3pf-t_ieAI/s1600/broadcasting+Oct+22+1945.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BROADCASTING featured several full-page trade ads with Ving Fuller's comics in the mid-1940s</td></tr>
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A lot of the ads in this magazine used cartoon art, but none of it was one-tenth as screwball (or interesting) and Fuller's work. The earliest example I found is from August, 1944:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii3y4SFMmN42mEHqMckG07hVgofXB5jV-9sEpsPNSA-Bwc_cA1faUluiHcDYi3NXFnG2_6PEOnGMCfNB5NiqAvmajYOdIKVYkwU16R_cBuZv04bWXPt58wukKVn16VQqTGKOFnLCxTxSs/s1600/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+AUg+23+1944+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii3y4SFMmN42mEHqMckG07hVgofXB5jV-9sEpsPNSA-Bwc_cA1faUluiHcDYi3NXFnG2_6PEOnGMCfNB5NiqAvmajYOdIKVYkwU16R_cBuZv04bWXPt58wukKVn16VQqTGKOFnLCxTxSs/s640/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+AUg+23+1944+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="484" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ving Fuller comic from BROADCASTING (August 23, 1944)</td></tr>
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The image at the top reminds me a little of Basil Wolverton, in that Fuller is making comedy out of an ugly character. The juxtaposition of a photo with the line art is also attention-getting, in a goofy way. Fuller's WOV ads were aimed at people who worked for advertising agencies. Many of these agencies provided clever creative print and radio ads to their clients, and so it was necessary to use the same sort of offbeat, hip advertising to gain their attention and win their confidence. In this work, Fuller sits firmly (if obscurely) in the tradition of Rube Goldberg, Dr. Seuss and Virgil Partch, iconoclastic cartoon stylists who provided their services to the world of print advertising.<br />
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Unlike Goldberg, Seuss, or Partch, Fuller was not necessarily a "name" cartoonist. He wasn't associated with a popular newspaper character (although he does work in his character Doc Syke into one of the ads). This meant that he had work even harder to make the ads funny and entertaining -- while at the same time promoting "timebuying" opportunities. This was no easy feat, and sometimes his ads were a little soft, although the cartooning was -- as always -- authentic and pleasingly nutty:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZLrInIwgLvlmW4gxjERPH4XBp_FqI3Uv_bYUyAnNOcOao3PF82B5rI7X0WazFyqlX79mcl6IEjd7UM-adVPxUa6uZZMqqKDjFzqRBPgm7Sk6nrWRfLhcM0iOGa25Mb18SI4uLNuMuxcs/s1600/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+Oct+23+1944+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZLrInIwgLvlmW4gxjERPH4XBp_FqI3Uv_bYUyAnNOcOao3PF82B5rI7X0WazFyqlX79mcl6IEjd7UM-adVPxUa6uZZMqqKDjFzqRBPgm7Sk6nrWRfLhcM0iOGa25Mb18SI4uLNuMuxcs/s640/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+Oct+23+1944+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="486" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ving Fuller comic from BROADCASTING (October 23, 1944)</td></tr>
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Apparently, someone at WOV liked Fuller's work. They hired him for about two years and made him the star of their trade campaign, as this squib from the December 10th, 1945 issue of <i>Broadcasting</i> shows:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTE-GJImdNb3s-uqCxLiOoAZRNgPGFbxkeuVMAJqubX-R0nQWXEAnsf1D926i0zFpStzBLf4DWvG0W8MYjR5KGs0k2BLAxddTfQ53C-Rl7JjorcLV3GX75Sj9CVU3k_E5bcbf4HAqeM9c/s1600/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+article+Dec+10+1945+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTE-GJImdNb3s-uqCxLiOoAZRNgPGFbxkeuVMAJqubX-R0nQWXEAnsf1D926i0zFpStzBLf4DWvG0W8MYjR5KGs0k2BLAxddTfQ53C-Rl7JjorcLV3GX75Sj9CVU3k_E5bcbf4HAqeM9c/s400/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+article+Dec+10+1945+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="383" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BROADCASTING (December 10, 1945)</td></tr>
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Ving Fuller was as iconoclastic in his own profession as his more famous brother, Sam, was in his profession as a film director. What is really interesting to me about Fuller is that his sense of humor is as offbeat as his schemes for selling his cartoon art. Here's a wonderfully weird example:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfkO9JYshE1GKX7KfAuxQQEIP5MJTLIAqi3v373QGdS9iij5V-yrrFSCfldaeWpEfO0LjSEdo5ex2SwK7g83ZhdjlhDU5JIGSyDNI5UVV5feecPOvpL9UZhLqyRyKmt8YclJ7JVSw1u1Y/s1600/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+Oct+22+1945+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfkO9JYshE1GKX7KfAuxQQEIP5MJTLIAqi3v373QGdS9iij5V-yrrFSCfldaeWpEfO0LjSEdo5ex2SwK7g83ZhdjlhDU5JIGSyDNI5UVV5feecPOvpL9UZhLqyRyKmt8YclJ7JVSw1u1Y/s640/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+Oct+22+1945+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="486" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ving Fuller comic from BROADCASTING (October 22, 1945)</td></tr>
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Here's another delightfully wacky example. Note the golf course gopher humor -- decades before <i>Caddyshack</i>.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxn9hf_zMGjd_rclGYtBlS6B86DgXwSAyRktH5ED_r2ibOJnjsis_oFaIb85fV1U3Id2EB75cH3X6w8PnQvBYh_52JyKpMB-OCysdiICf0gJO4OoOcuye1mjxrj0cyYiPJtigLexw0H08/s1600/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+Nov+25+1946+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxn9hf_zMGjd_rclGYtBlS6B86DgXwSAyRktH5ED_r2ibOJnjsis_oFaIb85fV1U3Id2EB75cH3X6w8PnQvBYh_52JyKpMB-OCysdiICf0gJO4OoOcuye1mjxrj0cyYiPJtigLexw0H08/s640/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+Nov+25+1946+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="482" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ving Fuller comic from BROADCASTING (November 25, 1946)</td></tr>
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And here's a smokin' idea for a four-pipe, er, four-PANEL strip. Check out the array of crazy pipes in the background, and the "P.S." gag in panel one.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFD7OmkAtO840G_I0txrDho5NoWTANHwJ_3AXRGSrVtfBc4X4G_cCuWXl83mbb9IFtmBSqpx28aHYcBuwrxzs1Vv19L3siVrhsZ2HhrdepfHNOokZT6TPh3OPILnTBFAvVoGv3PG0KRFo/s1600/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+article+Oct+28+1946+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFD7OmkAtO840G_I0txrDho5NoWTANHwJ_3AXRGSrVtfBc4X4G_cCuWXl83mbb9IFtmBSqpx28aHYcBuwrxzs1Vv19L3siVrhsZ2HhrdepfHNOokZT6TPh3OPILnTBFAvVoGv3PG0KRFo/s640/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+article+Oct+28+1946+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="486" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ving Fuller comic from BRAODCASTING (October 28, 1946)</td></tr>
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The last example in the series that I can find is, in some ways, the wackiest of them all, with the artist putting himself into the trade ad. Perhaps Fuller knew his contract wouldn't be renewed, and so he decided to wring a little self-promotion out of the piece.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinsk_Wcre2fR_KzpP0JWqVk-Y4FZa1WqyIzfdtXuQV8zbSQQlEluBfB2fmVHCgQT7PsIs3n5CVtwU5kf7Y8BFBe9X3M-e5qQt0vj1JyITNwrPXEykAOw5D-UUODkzQtVrFwzCzhHihukM/s1600/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+article+Dec+23+1946+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinsk_Wcre2fR_KzpP0JWqVk-Y4FZa1WqyIzfdtXuQV8zbSQQlEluBfB2fmVHCgQT7PsIs3n5CVtwU5kf7Y8BFBe9X3M-e5qQt0vj1JyITNwrPXEykAOw5D-UUODkzQtVrFwzCzhHihukM/s640/Ving+Fuller+WOR+Radio+Cartoon+Ad+article+Dec+23+1946+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="486" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ving Fuller comic from BROADCASTING (December 23, 1946)</td></tr>
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It could be that mentioning his name in his comics turned into an in-joke. I haven't seen enough of Fuller's daily and Sunday comics to know for sure. However, I have run across a sequence in <b>Al Capp's</b> <i>Li'l Abner</i> from 1959 that features Ving Fuller's name. Abner is excited that to become "a highly paid cartoonist like "Ving Fuller or Walt Kelly!"<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Al Capp's LI'L ABNER plugs Ving Fuller (September 12, 1959)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Al Capp's LI'L ABNER plugs Ving Fuller (December 14, 1958)</td></tr>
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This is your friendly neighborhood media archeaologist, Paul "A Real Screwball" Tumey, signing off!</div>
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All text copyright 2013 Paul Tumey. My work may not be reproduced or used without written permission. Sorry, but that's the way it is. Feel free to link to this article and promote me, however. If enough of you readers promote me, I may someday become a highly paid writer, like Ving Fuller!<br />
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Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-42239741590262572232013-11-30T09:38:00.002-08:002013-12-02T07:09:16.476-08:00The Rube Abides: Thanksgiving 1915<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In 1915, Rube Goldberg was on fire as a creator. The satirical subjects and the grotesque imagery that he poured into his ever-shifting kaleidoscopic array of daily comics from about 1915-1917 are among his best work.<br />
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Astonishingly, nay... shockingly, most of these great comics have not appeared in print or screen since their original appearances, nearly 100 years ago. How can this be?<br />
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A dream project would be to reprint the complete 1915-1917 daily comics of Rube Goldberg, in sequence. It is only then that this seminal screwball master will assume his rightful place in culture as something more than the guy who made goofy, over-complicated inventions to accomplish something trivial. Aside from that, it would be pure fun to read such a collection. I have managed to gather most of the daily comics from 1915 to 1917 in their original published form, and I can assure you that almost every day offers something delightful.<br />
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As I write this, it is the weekend of the Thanksgiving of 2013. In between cooking and attending to guests, I have found a few minutes to dig into the archives and sift out Rube's comic for Thanksgiving, 1915. It's a delicious main course, presenting a turkey-carving training school that Rube calls "The Ambidextrous Society."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ow3_mhxZqN5WhdvrRtuKKys3qKbHcdwLf_S3UOKDeoPoGKsAuGfz0h99QCmWzNjj1xslkY94KnYrc3C-W1GubK-YVlXNxz-BxXsS7DXBY0qmQi40E2VG8LFIRc2fP2TXeO_vScKKA28/s1600/rg19151125+Rube+Goldberg+Thanksgiving.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ow3_mhxZqN5WhdvrRtuKKys3qKbHcdwLf_S3UOKDeoPoGKsAuGfz0h99QCmWzNjj1xslkY94KnYrc3C-W1GubK-YVlXNxz-BxXsS7DXBY0qmQi40E2VG8LFIRc2fP2TXeO_vScKKA28/s640/rg19151125+Rube+Goldberg+Thanksgiving.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">November 25, 1915 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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Note that the students are training to carve the turkey left-handed. Rube himself was ambidextrous. He drew with his right hand, but golfed as a lefty. In fact, he published a humorous essay in 1924 called. "Left Handed Golf Courses: Our Greatest Need."<br />
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What makes the cartoon above succeed, as far as I am concerned, is the strong composition. The carvers almost look a like machine assembly line. Look at the face and body language of each of the seven men in the strip -- each is different, unique, and funny. When you read the text in the speech balloon and the signs on the wall, it presents a dryly understated comedy that contrasts with the extreme visual-physical comedy of the drawing. This contrast provides a richer reading experience, with two styles of humor offered.<br />
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Rube had a 16 x 13 inch space to fill Monday through Saturday. This is a lot of room, practically the space allotted in newspaper fifty years later for ALL of their daily comics. While he had some series, such as "Foolish Questions," and "Father Was Right," that he would repeat sporadically, Rube also drew numerous one-shot comics. Sometimes they were a large single panel, and other times times they were broken up into a complex matrix of panels, or smaller comic strips. To add to our main course, here are two tasty Goldberg side dishes from the month of November, 1915 -- picked almost at random:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg8EQsvT7VWsb0pNJkbl7Vx1ecgA-nuak2dD3Qp6f5tNn8ijr6TtItkz0CN3izwP-tED7pKURUPPDsSJoKjfnjAbPA0PXtwI0K01yKYYp8DHhyphenhyphenCv_dHXm6zPa8-W6prpqhosQ9AxT-fQQ/s1600/rg19151106+Rube+Goldberg+Poker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg8EQsvT7VWsb0pNJkbl7Vx1ecgA-nuak2dD3Qp6f5tNn8ijr6TtItkz0CN3izwP-tED7pKURUPPDsSJoKjfnjAbPA0PXtwI0K01yKYYp8DHhyphenhyphenCv_dHXm6zPa8-W6prpqhosQ9AxT-fQQ/s640/rg19151106+Rube+Goldberg+Poker.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">November 6, 1915 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikTdfoLYsL9Y8M0UBtpn7gPI2rx4GMXTWz4hVFHyy8M6TxlmObmJrdY0fIqPB2xH3XxTz7dLo0ZJs0kh6qStZuv458MyPmuTJaHJAO6uu5C0vpw0CWkYXXJj2jNq-RaVDcTgj2o3kZlIk/s1600/rg19151126+Rube+Goldberg+Traffic+Cop+Cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikTdfoLYsL9Y8M0UBtpn7gPI2rx4GMXTWz4hVFHyy8M6TxlmObmJrdY0fIqPB2xH3XxTz7dLo0ZJs0kh6qStZuv458MyPmuTJaHJAO6uu5C0vpw0CWkYXXJj2jNq-RaVDcTgj2o3kZlIk/s640/rg19151126+Rube+Goldberg+Traffic+Cop+Cartoon.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">November 26, 1915 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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Pretty swell stuff, if you ask me. And -- certainly worth a second life, especially in this golden age of comics publishing.<br />
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Speaking of comic publishing, the new book THE ART OF RUBE GOLDBERG, selected by Jennifer George that has just been published is doing well. I feel so honored to have been a part of that project. It's charting as a #1 bestseller on Amazon in the Comics and Manga category. Legendary mail order guru and tastemaker Bud Plant (visit his site, <a href="http://www.budplant.com/" target="_blank">here</a>) featured it in his latest email catalog and gave it a "highly recommended" note (thanks, Bud!). I've been buying books and comics from Bud Plant since the 1970s, so it's truly a thrill to be in his catalog!<br />
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Here's some other cool links related to the book:<br />
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-rube-goldberg-20131201,0,572612.story#axzz2m9NeLXZf" target="_blank">'Art of Rube Goldberg' More Than Crazy Contraptions -- LA Times</a> (I'm gratified to see they got the book's goal to show ALL of Rube's work, including the celebrated invention cartoons)<br />
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<a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304073204579171853720512562" target="_blank">Design Books by Chipp Kidd -- The Wall Street Journal </a>(I'm excited to see that two of the six books Mr. Kidd recommends have my work in them -- The Art of Rube Goldberg and Society Is Nix.)<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.630965060282981.1073741827.190672417645583&type=1" target="_blank">Photos from the book party for The Art of Rube Goldberg </a>(with Jennifer George, Al Jaffee, Brian Walker, and Andrew Baron in attendance)<br />
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<a href="http://www.pinterest.com/paultumey5/the-art-of-rube-goldberg/" target="_blank">Pinterest Board for The Art of Rube Goldberg</a> (with lots of gems plucked from my archives)<br />
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<a href="http://www.cuny.tv/show/eldridgeandco" target="_blank">A TV interview with Jennifer George</a> (Rube Goldberg's granddaughter and the author of The Art of Rube Goldberg)<br />
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The book also received favorable short reviews in <a href="http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/11/rubegoldberg/" target="_blank">Wired</a> and <a href="http://boingboing.net/2013/11/12/rube-goldbergs-marvelous-mac.html" target="_blank">Boing Boing</a>.</div>
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That is All (for now),</div>
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Paul Tumey</div>
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<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-43630441128919904182013-11-15T10:48:00.000-08:002013-11-19T09:50:32.947-08:00Rube Goldberg's Drawing Board, My Feet, and The New Book<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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It's official! The deluxe, super-sized book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Rube-Goldberg-Inventive/dp/141970852X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384541258&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+rube+goldberg" target="_blank">THE ART OF RUBE GOLDBERG</a> is available for purchase wherever fine books are sold!<br />
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After two days on the market, the book has skyrocketed to the #1 bestseller in Amazon's "Comics and Manga" section!<br />
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I personally am very proud of this volume, having put a lot of work into it. I am greatly honored to be a part of this project. The book contains three essays by me, and about 25% of the contents come from material I supplied. I helped select much of the contents and wrote at least half the captions, some of which are little mini essays in themselves. I also created all of the back matter: a Rube comicography, bibliography, and timeline -- all of which are by far the most complete and accurate versions available.<br />
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But that's just a part of this huge project. There's also original essays about Rube and work by the legendary Al Jaffee, comics historian (and writer of the <i>Hi and Lois</i> comic strip ) Brian Walker, Sunday Press curator Peter Maresca, comics scholar and collector Carl Linich and more. The best stuff are the essays by Rube's granddaughter (and the books author) Jennifer George -- you get a sense of Rube as a person more than anything else that has ever been written on him. And the whole package is thoughtfully assembled and beautifully produced by the great folks at Abrams, led by Charles Kochman.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb7kF8sN9ki9iok7GYYxMMF-YvKpjlpySfJbIo1qv9kdLb9u99DVC_4UhpmCZYnA3YEmkgCMPeXwc7Qf1oMloHpRzpiKtOAGZJgMliVuvqn5XR0SqWBztWWp4gCKjGlMRnVnb3J97UjuQ/s1600/rube+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb7kF8sN9ki9iok7GYYxMMF-YvKpjlpySfJbIo1qv9kdLb9u99DVC_4UhpmCZYnA3YEmkgCMPeXwc7Qf1oMloHpRzpiKtOAGZJgMliVuvqn5XR0SqWBztWWp4gCKjGlMRnVnb3J97UjuQ/s400/rube+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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There's a ton of comics, art, and photos in this book. In fact, there's some spectacular photography by Geoff Spear, who you may know from other fabulous books like Chipp Kidd's <i>Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Shulz</i>. In one page, we see Spear's photo of Rube's drawing table. The lighting and angle of view reveal the many indentations and scars created from over 65 years of use.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My own photo of Rube's drawing table, taken in New York. You can see the arm of the futon frame in the photo.</td></tr>
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I actually got to see this drawing table when I spent a week in New York City in August of 2012 working on this book. Jennifer George graciously put me up at her place for a few nights and this drawing board is in her living room. I asked Jennifer how long Rube used this table for, thinking that perhaps it just one of many he had. She said, "As I understand, this was the one." And indeed, you can see the very same drawing table in early photos of Rube. This historical cultural treasure was located at the foot of the futon on which I slept. On occasion, during the nights I slept there, I would stretch my legs in my sleep and my bare toes came into contact with the surface of Rube's drawing board. I remember waking up a few times with an electric jolt when I realized I was barefooting Rube Goldberg's drawing table. Sorry, Rube!<br />
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I personally am very proud of this volume, having put a lot of work into it. When I was 14 years old, I read Peter Marzio's book, Rube Goldberg: His Life and Work (Harper and Row, 1973). Unlike most folks who associate Rube Goldberg with nutty inventions, I imprinted upon his inexhaustible fountain of creativity and lyrical smart-assness. To me, the spirit in which Rube created his comics is in direct lineage with the same spirit that inspired the Underground Comix of the 1960s and 1970s, and the self-published Newave comics of the 1980s and 1990s. Many people can trace the cultural lineage of these modern comics movements back to Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman and the <i>Mad</i> gang, but rarely further back. Rube Goldberg, who started his cartooning career in 1904, is just too far back in the mists of time for most folks to see his connection to comics today - but it's there, make no mistake. After all, Harvey Kurtzman drew Rube's characters Mike and Ike on city sidewalks when he was growing up -- his first cartoons.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Smile, boys! Paul Tumey (r) with Carl Linich (l) to sift through the Jennifer George archives and extract gems for THE ART OF RUBE GOLDBERG. Oh, if I could only share with you all of the great stuff I saw!</td></tr>
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It doesn't help that there has never been a decent book on Rube Goldberg that presented his work in all its varied richness and brilliance. When Rube was alive there were only a scant handful of books that reprinted just a tiny fraction of his comics, such as the 1909 Foolish Questions book. After his death, the emphasis has been on his invention cartoons. These cartoons are indeed brilliant and sell books -- but to just present this part of Rube's work to the public is like only showing the world Picasso's Cubist works. There's so much more to explore, appreciate, and embrace. There's never been a book that attempted to cover all aspects of Rube's career -- until now. The Art of Rube Goldberg has a healthy sampling of the inventions, but there's tons of other cartoons, photos, articles, and items that reveal the fullness of this astonishing body of highly influential work.<br />
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A few months ago, to help promote the book, I created a three-minute video using some of the great art to be found in the pages of this extraordinary compendium. For the music, I used an old Public Domain 78 recording of a song that Rube Goldberg actually wrote, "I'm The Guy." The publisher, Abrams, liked the video, but didn't want to give away so much yet about the contents, so the project was shelved. Now that the volume is officially released, and on the market, I'd like to share this video with the loyal readers of this blog. Enjoy!<br />
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That is all,<br />
Screwball Paul<br />
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<i>All text and proprietary photos copyright 2013 Paul Tumey.</i>Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-54183778474300428882013-11-09T12:48:00.000-08:002013-11-09T14:37:39.577-08:00A Week of Rube Goldberg's 1918 Comics Featuring Mike and Ike<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In just a few days from the time this post is being written, the brand new, deluxe art book entitled <b>The Art of Rube Goldberg </b>(selected by Jennifer George, Abrams ComicArts, 2013<b>) </b> will be available for purchase. As my friend and colleague in the book's creation, <b>Carl Linich</b> recently put it, "There has never been such a rich and thoroughly representative collection of Rube's work."<br />
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The book contains hundreds of rare cartoons and art by Rube Goldberg -- the majority of which have not seen the light of day since their original appearances as much as 100 years ago. There's also lots of cool photos, original art, and items selected from the Goldberg family archives.<br />
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This large, thick compendium is stuffed with work from many gifted folks, including some wonderful essays from Jennifer George, Rube's grand-daughter (and the CEO of Rube Goldberg, Inc.). There's an in-depth intro (not just a puff piece) by world-famous arty guy <b>Adam Gopnick</b>, and original essays created just for this book by comics legend <b>Al Jaffee</b>, <b>Brian Walker</b>, <b>Pete Maresca</b> (of Sunday Press), <b>Carl Linich</b>, and <b>Andrew Baron</b> (who created the book's paper engineered movable art cover).<br />
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I am quite proud of my own contributions to the book. In addition to doing some editing work on it (with <b>Charles Kochman</b>), and wrangling about a quarter of the book's content, I was able to buckle down and do some serious writing and comics scholarship on this bad boy. The book contains my essay exploring his <i>Foolish Questions</i> cartoon panel and my essay on his 1916 animated cartoon series. It also contains my 12-page survey of Rube Goldberg's comic strips of the 1920s and 1930s, "Restless Storyteller."<br />
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The book also contains my Rube Goldberg Timeline, list of his comic strips (this took 3 months of intense daily work to research, and I probably still missed some comics), and a list of his published writings. I've been studying and writing about comics for years, and this marks my first "big time" publication. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to be a part of it!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Tumey beams, holding a copy of The Art of Rube Goldberg</td></tr>
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I plan to write a column about the making of the book and some things I've learned about Rube Goldberg and comics in the next installment of <i>Framed!</i>, my monthly column at <b>The Comics Journal</b>. You can see a nice preview of several interior pages from the book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Rube-Goldberg-Inventive/dp/141970852X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384023544&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+rube+goldberg" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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As jam-packed with screwball comic goodness as <b>The Art of Rube Goldberg</b> is, there's a lot of great material and ideas for sections that we weren't able to get in, due to space restrictions. One idea we wanted to do was to reprint a entire week of Rube Goldberg dailies. The idea was to recreate for our readers the Monday-through-Saturday context of Rube's work -- which has been largely lost. From 1909 to 1927, Rube's daily comic strip featured something new and different every day. He had a number of series, such as <i><b>Mike and Ike</b></i>, <b><i>Foolish Questions</i></b>, and <i><b>The Weekly Meeting of the Tuesday Ladies' Club</b></i>, that he rotated, more or less randomly (although the <i><b>The Weekly Meeting of the Tuesday Ladies' Club</b></i> did actually run on Tuesdays). Today, when we think of a comic strip, we automatically think of a continuing series with continuing characters, like <i><b>Nancy</b></i>, <i><b>Pogo</b></i>, <i><b>L'il Abner</b></i>, <i><b>Popeye</b></i>, <i><b>Blondie</b></i>, <i><b>Dilbert</b></i>, <i><b>Garfield</b></i>, and so on. Rube Goldberg was different. From Monday through Saturday for years, he filled his rectangular space on the newspaper page with a dazzling variety and comic richness that remains unmatched. For the most part, Rube didn't create his comics around characters, but instead around ideas -- such as our confounding propensity to ask questions when the answer is right in front of us.</div>
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Because most books on Rube, <b>The Art of Rube Goldberg</b> included, present a selection of his comics and not the whole she-bang, the impact of Rube's kaleidoscopic komedy is lost. It's only a matter of time before a savvy publisher reprints a full year of Rube's work, and people will realize just how inventive this cartoon genius was. In the meantime, here is an "outtake" from <b>The Art of Rube Goldberg</b>, a full week's run from the first week in April, 1918, created from paper scans of items in my own collection. </div>
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For much of 1918, Rube featured in his daily strips, his dubious doppelgangers, Mike and Ike. These are perhaps Rube's longest-lived characters, having been created for Rube's very first Sunday comic in 1907, <i>The Look-a-Like Boys</i>. Later in 1918 -- after our sample week -- Rube dabbled with the idea of continuity in 1918 (something I wasn't aware of when I wrote my essay about his continuity comics for the book -- it was only when I purchased a set of strips from 1918, after the essay was already completed and sent to the printers, that I realized this), sending the boys to Europe to fight in the last days of World War One. Here, we have perhaps the quintessential example of the strip, with the boys running to meet their elusive maker so they can finally learn their true identities-- an early comic strip version of <i>Waiting For Godot</i>. Note the date: April 1, 1918.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monday: April 1, 1918 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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On the next day, Rube offered an installment of <i><b>The Weekly Meeting of the Tuesday Ladies' Club</b></i>. This large, single panel cartoon ran on Tuesdays from May 1, 1917 to September 27, 1921 (I'm proud to be able to offer this date range -- it took me days of research to figger dis out!). There's a large section of this lost gem from Rube's oeuvre in <i><b>The Art of Rube Goldberg</b></i>, introduced by his grand-daughter, Jennifer George. The strip is one of Jennifer's favorites, and mine too. </div>
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Rube developed his new strip from his observations of his new bride's social gatherings. By today's standards, some of the gags might be considered insulting to women, but in actuality, they are simply insulting to silly, stupid people. Nearly everything Rube created falls into that category. </div>
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The example below is typical: a meeting in which the Ladies have invited a guest to enlighten them upon a subject. In this case, it's constitutional law. To fully appreciate this strip, it's important to realize that the United State's Women's Suffrage Movement was going full-strength in 1918. President Wilson had proposed that American women should be allowed to vote (the measure didn't pass until 1920). So, part of the joke here is that the Ladies are preparing themselves to soon cast their first votes. </div>
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On another note, pay attention to the various silly names of people and things: Professor Stall, Bink vs. Bink, and so on. This is one of the pleasure of reading Rube Goldberg, who had an ear for nonsense sounds like few other cartoonists.</div>
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Lastly, note that this Tuesday strip offers an entirely different layout than the Monday strip. In fact, the Tuesday offering is actually comprised of two different comics. <i><b>Slackers</b></i> was a panel series that Rube created regularly during this period. Often, there's a thematic connection between the comics in Rube's sub-divided properties. In this case, both strips offer perspectives on the battle for power between the sexes. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tuesday: April 2, 1918 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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On the following day, Rube created an episode of <i><b>Father Was Right</b></i>, yet another of his randomly presented series. This series ran sporadically from 1915 to 1921. Rube had a close and admiring relationship with his father, Max Goldberg. Thus, once again, we see that Rube drew from his own life to develop his comic properties. Note also that, once again, we have an entirely different layout concept from the previous two days. Monday offers a straight-no-chaser 5-panel strip. Tuesday gives us two panel strips, with one being quite large and detailed. Today, we receive two multi-panel comic strips -- one large, one small. The small strip,<i> <b>I Never Thought of That</b>,</i> was also a stock player in Rube's inventory of semi-regular features. Even though neither of these examples in the Wednesday slot are exceptional, they do offer Rube's genuinely funny takes, in panel 5 of <i><b>Father Was Right</b></i>, and panel 4 of <i><b>I Never Thought of That</b></i>.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wednesday: April 3, 1918 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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The following day, Thursday, Rube treats us to another Mike and Ike. This time, one tried to get the better of the other, and fails -- as usual. The gag about Mike wearing out his brain trying to figure out the situation in Russia is both a topical reference, and a nicely absurd excuse.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thursday: April 4, 1918 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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Rarely did a week go by in the first half of the twentieth century without a Rube Goldberg invention of some kind appearing in America's newspapers. In addition to the A-B-C chain reaction diagrams, Rube also worked inventions into his work in numerous ways. In his Friday offering, he provides a three panel sequence, demonstrating the use of his "Newsdealer's Cure."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Friday: April 5, 1918 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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Rube rounds the week's output off with another Mike and Ike and a classic Goldbergian drawing of an absurd car crash that reminds me of the slow-motion automobile pile-up from Jacques Tati's <i>Traffic</i>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saturday: April 6, 1918 (from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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Whew! In just one random week, Rube gives us nine different comics in a dizzying variety of layouts that comment on human nature, technology, war, women's rights, and identity itself. You can take similar petri dish samples of Rube Goldberg weeks from other years and get entirely different mixes of different strips and themes, but the creative brilliance is always present!<br />
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<b><i><span style="color: red;">BONUS!</span></i></b> You can read a great interview with Abrams ComicArts' Editorial Director, <b>Charles Kochman </b>(and the co-editor of The Art of Rube Goldberg) <a href="http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/26694.html" target="_blank">here</a>. The existence of this book is due in large part to Charles Kochman's vision and drive to make it happen.<br />
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<i><b><span style="color: red;">BONUS TOO!</span></b></i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Rube clip from Edward R. Murrow's "Person to Person" from March 1959. He is seated with his wife Irma.</span><br />
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Screwballingly and Enthrallingly Yours,<br />
Paul Tumey<br />
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<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-90378871320952922072013-08-25T10:03:00.001-07:002013-08-25T14:54:24.838-07:00What Is Art? - A Milt Gross Count Screwloose From 1931 Frames The Question<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX85fWXOv_PppDiZ5DRdRvBJ27rSY94zjbxSamAuHc4UU3zm0OfrNZhOzNPviXSrymnYoG89CXliIIw8rLcXDHo0MVJ3EubzAmDiIFPLXGVgEIy1QNlSTeukMo4feW1Ha4R2w4uA1lMN8/s1600/Milt+Gross+Paul+Tumey+February+22+1931+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX85fWXOv_PppDiZ5DRdRvBJ27rSY94zjbxSamAuHc4UU3zm0OfrNZhOzNPviXSrymnYoG89CXliIIw8rLcXDHo0MVJ3EubzAmDiIFPLXGVgEIy1QNlSTeukMo4feW1Ha4R2w4uA1lMN8/s320/Milt+Gross+Paul+Tumey+February+22+1931+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
When you ask yourself questions like "what is art," you are probably setting out on the path that leads to the fruitcake factory. Enuff books and articles have been published on this subject to fill several buildings -- and it would appear that we humans are no closer to an answer we can all agree on than we are to finding a use for screen doors on submarines.<br />
<br />
Are comics art? I think so -- some comics, at least. The funny thing is that many comics creators (and I'm talking sequential narratives, here) appear to have been aware that their fellow humans regarded their hard work as innately inferior to the stuff that wound up on the walls in galleries. For many -- even today -- reading comics isn't actually reading -- and comics are associated with illiteracy and simple-mindedness. When someone wants to say something is shallow, they say it's "a comic book treatment." These commentators are only betraying their own ignorance -- for comics are an art form that combines words and image into a highly effective language that may be easy to grasp, but is anything but simple to create.<br />
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Many comics creators over the decades have used society's disapproval as grist for their mill. Here's a <b>Rube Goldberg</b> cartoon, circa 1915, in which he suggests the best way to view the new abstract and surreal art appearing in galleries and museums.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrg_gMlHw854nBH-J9opEoMJSIvRwYfqWWT56ezaJBIyX9Pc8mCFnhFpEkz5Pc0KfcTHzQPQEbGR6GrvdWWNHdMFZOOWaKeBM06nfIOajj4S1gdV7FAi-mteV8a2UMe5F_7CFnh7vcWeg/s1600/rube+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrg_gMlHw854nBH-J9opEoMJSIvRwYfqWWT56ezaJBIyX9Pc8mCFnhFpEkz5Pc0KfcTHzQPQEbGR6GrvdWWNHdMFZOOWaKeBM06nfIOajj4S1gdV7FAi-mteV8a2UMe5F_7CFnh7vcWeg/s400/rube+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rube Goldberg on modern art - circa 1915 <br />
(Photograph of original art)</td></tr>
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Milt Gross -- who in many ways is the direct artistic and screwball descendant of Goldberg -- also made sport of the idea of art many times. In a 1931 Count Screwloose Sunday page, Milt Gross dissects for us the mechanics behind the social value of art. In this case, a bum who attempts to get a drink in a bar by reciting a poem receives the comic blow of a pool table on the head. When the same bearded bohemian beggar appears at a society ball clad in his hospital sheet, the wealthy party-goers celebrate his "art." The entire absurd -- but all too true -- situation is witnessed by Count Screwloose:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeZMP-LSiyLB9ODCKr7tbqt1EDdaCUlgbCuWjyTe_PFC3FQvoYl8TGHW0x3sEmo7TzZr9mP5tmf6EgNr_ku-_WlN2VF0AKcTn2Lj3Bdj5SPVnCxe1hDiO4gnHUJj1WCevBcaDhuTAz6o/s1600/Milt+Gross+Count+Screwloose+February+22+1931+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="625" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeZMP-LSiyLB9ODCKr7tbqt1EDdaCUlgbCuWjyTe_PFC3FQvoYl8TGHW0x3sEmo7TzZr9mP5tmf6EgNr_ku-_WlN2VF0AKcTn2Lj3Bdj5SPVnCxe1hDiO4gnHUJj1WCevBcaDhuTAz6o/s640/Milt+Gross+Count+Screwloose+February+22+1931+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Count Screwloose</i> by Milt Gross - February 22, 1931</td></tr>
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The poem the beggar-poet recites is a very popular poem written in the 1830s entitled <i style="font-weight: bold;">Abou Ben Adhem</i>. The author, (James Henry) Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was an English poet, essayist, and critic -- and a contemporary of Shelly's. His poem -- a depiction of a Muslim written by a Christian that expresses, in the opinions of some, basic Jewish values was a popular hit. Here's the entire text:<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And saw, within the moonlight in his room,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">An angel writing in a book of gold:—</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And to the presence in the room he said,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And with a look made of all sweet accord,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Write me as one that loves his fellow men."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /></span>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It came again with a great wakening light,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And showed the names whom love of God had blest,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gross' inclusion of Hunt's poem, a chestnut by the 1930s, carries an ironic comment on the actions of his characters in the strip -- neither the pool hall ruffians not the society folks actually show any love at all for the beggar himself. Of course, as Sigmund Freud observed, nothing is less funny than analyses of jokes -- so I'll stop here and encourage my readers to simply dig those great, loose drawings in the strip above.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As to the issue of cartoons, art, and such -- I offer this from the great cartoonist <b>Art Young</b> (1866-1943):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Some day painting will be glorified cartooning... The painter-cartoonist of the future will be an apostle of big ideas... That he will be an artist of pigment and form is, of course, important; but to be a thinking man of vision, helpfulness and courage, will be more important." (from <i>On My Way</i> by Art Young, 1928)</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Artfully Yours,</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Screwball Paul</div>
<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-55520046605871842562013-08-15T10:52:00.001-07:002013-08-17T17:17:59.514-07:00"I Seen Yo' Ad In Dep Paper" - SAM and His Laugh (1905-06): Joyously Subversive<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7u149aapXQvkE2Y5MBHxQXDfWt-v4c8LJgOIaQaoVgchQTmyGkdTXRBUXdtPQpVvl7ktWsSqcbMK7KbRldR8OnOx3AUVzmk-8tyPYPafpwAedLRLY1c8wJTXIpJSxi0UUs7UPTHnb0Yc/s1600/swinnerton+blog+title.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7u149aapXQvkE2Y5MBHxQXDfWt-v4c8LJgOIaQaoVgchQTmyGkdTXRBUXdtPQpVvl7ktWsSqcbMK7KbRldR8OnOx3AUVzmk-8tyPYPafpwAedLRLY1c8wJTXIpJSxi0UUs7UPTHnb0Yc/s320/swinnerton+blog+title.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">One of my favorite screwball artists is <b>James "Jimmy"
Swinnerton</b> (1875-1974). </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Born
in Eureka, California. In 1892, Swinnerton began his career as a <span style="background: white;">staff cartoonist for Hearst’s</span> <i><span style="background: white;">San Francisco Examiner</span></i><span style="background: white;">, where he produced a popular weekly cartoon,</span> <i><span style="background: white;">The Little Bears</span></i> <span style="background: white;">(1893-1897). He moved to New York in 1896 to work for
Hearst’s</span> <i><span style="background: white;">Journal-American</span></i><span style="background: white;">, where he created</span> <i><span style="background: white;">Mount Ararat</span></i> <span style="background: white;">(1901-1904),</span> <i><span style="background: white;">Mister Jack</span></i> <span style="background: white;">(1903-1906), and his longest-running strip,</span> <i><span style="background: white;">Little Jimmy</span></i> <span style="background: white;">(1904-1958). In 1906, <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy74nFpJOS4TMYeUMDgzNt7Ok8Iry9VuRi2WF803KhyphenhyphenzsiAph6bDWk4UvGN_w-Qe44GLvSKKzAJ93u8IIradIJJTXiFbj9dISfwY_PWmNs_mzRpEhv-iuy4xkgDcFEHehZctcGBd2fOEU/s1600/Jimmy+Swinnerton+1930.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy74nFpJOS4TMYeUMDgzNt7Ok8Iry9VuRi2WF803KhyphenhyphenzsiAph6bDWk4UvGN_w-Qe44GLvSKKzAJ93u8IIradIJJTXiFbj9dISfwY_PWmNs_mzRpEhv-iuy4xkgDcFEHehZctcGBd2fOEU/s320/Jimmy+Swinnerton+1930.jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">James Swinnerton contemplates<br />his self-portrait in 1930</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Swinnerton was diagnosed with a fatal case of
tuberculosis. His friend and publisher, William Randolph Hearst, sent him to
Colton, California, where he recovered and fell in love with the American
desert. He became a noted landscape painter and died in Palm Springs, at the
age of 98.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The
nuttiest of Swinnerton’s early comics is </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Sam and His Laugh </i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">(1905-1906)
an infectious series featuring a job-seeking black man who gleefully laughs at
the hypocrisy and pomp of society. While Sam is drawn in the typical
black man stereotype common in early 20</span><sup style="line-height: 200%;">th</sup><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> century pop culture,
it’s clear that Swinnerton sides with him as an instinctive hero of disruption
who tears down the walls of social order with a bellylaugh – exactly what humor
comics are all about.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">What follows are a few examples of this remarkable strip which <b>art spiegelman</b> has observed works like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO3-Mpu3ZXQ" target="_blank">a laughing record</a>-- 78s </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 32px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 32px;">popular in the early 20th century</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 32px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 32px;">that contained nothing but the sound of someone laughing. It was impossible not to listen to these records without succumbing to laughter. Similarly, it is well nigh impossible to read Swinnerton's SAM comics without smiling.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 32px;">In this strip, Sam starts out with his customary statement: "I seen yo' ad in dep paper." He finds much joy and amusement in the unintentional truism embedded in a stuffy church hymn.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm1jCIN3ke4IIrTBaVVrgzDiwhi7SMJrQyAqo11JT5P0Ze3HivdT3zm2cfsEgDIWp5_cOviVbNYq7yQ0mbRRCxWj95-0yV7f1Zd8Gs9_WOaVwkwkfakcpRFRTUj8qZu1r2oj_SDagCT_k/s1600/James+Swinnerton+Sam+1+1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm1jCIN3ke4IIrTBaVVrgzDiwhi7SMJrQyAqo11JT5P0Ze3HivdT3zm2cfsEgDIWp5_cOviVbNYq7yQ0mbRRCxWj95-0yV7f1Zd8Gs9_WOaVwkwkfakcpRFRTUj8qZu1r2oj_SDagCT_k/s640/James+Swinnerton+Sam+1+1905.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SAM by Jimmy Swinnerton - 1905<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">Sam tries his hand as a waiter. Maybe if he was in a diner, he could keep a straight face, but the pretension of the fancy French menu does him in...</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16csGPg0rYMm05QrEAl1KP7lhCgO2YDVk6ZdhX20l9_wPh8jJcqSGh6P1ljDtypaPihRNyoO_w5hTegZt1JX56p8bL9KgymIhaL4_rqzSqzzO-cbn0hJ2UWPFW3cg_FYl9qyd_pXZlcA/s1600/003_big.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16csGPg0rYMm05QrEAl1KP7lhCgO2YDVk6ZdhX20l9_wPh8jJcqSGh6P1ljDtypaPihRNyoO_w5hTegZt1JX56p8bL9KgymIhaL4_rqzSqzzO-cbn0hJ2UWPFW3cg_FYl9qyd_pXZlcA/s640/003_big.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">The above comic came from the one and only book collection of Sam strips, a hardcover, 48-page color book published in 1906 by the Hearst outfit (one of several collections they published of their popular comics):</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTX28NzA6d6QJmOtofcJ-32Hj0fU-Df3Zf7UFaGWvLhnXTu1BCr_oi3dvuMYk9dMs0OOwYPgw5vSQh45t6I6gc9sPwuakqca1705lU5Jb-BtSzf4xv3dxTheQ19pcwhK8UND2nttR1Ls/s1600/001_big.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTX28NzA6d6QJmOtofcJ-32Hj0fU-Df3Zf7UFaGWvLhnXTu1BCr_oi3dvuMYk9dMs0OOwYPgw5vSQh45t6I6gc9sPwuakqca1705lU5Jb-BtSzf4xv3dxTheQ19pcwhK8UND2nttR1Ls/s640/001_big.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">Here is the waiter SAM strip from above, as it was published in the newspaper on March 12, 1905:</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUh0S_-YsVJ1xWrwGIpITRCo95JkhEm85OXaafolDvjn0aukqo_jQQ-Xumr4bN5j7lZAQNW8vTyemUumQ6jeIDdOXhdQ6iL1Knmy3B_I4DvOCYs1e0fu2EmrsGOZFN4nw6srfRS55S4D4/s1600/James+Swinnerton+Sam+March+12+1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUh0S_-YsVJ1xWrwGIpITRCo95JkhEm85OXaafolDvjn0aukqo_jQQ-Xumr4bN5j7lZAQNW8vTyemUumQ6jeIDdOXhdQ6iL1Knmy3B_I4DvOCYs1e0fu2EmrsGOZFN4nw6srfRS55S4D4/s640/James+Swinnerton+Sam+March+12+1905.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sam by James Swinnerton - March 12, 1905</td></tr>
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In this next strip, Sam loses it over a mis-matched couple's adoration, overheard on a subway train. The man in this strip looks a lot like a Milt Gross character:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTxdYidf6vwydja00_rP-GLJb3kQDn9jUJO5xq6obAhyphenhyphenTSjSie2mOH2OG4JkK0q9u72nWdCHRsRyr4IrzHO7KKu0eKqPtDeHjon1x_GaVNogIpKx73t2I0itFrwgiuQh28Np5q2WAsRA/s1600/SAM-5-21-05-047.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTxdYidf6vwydja00_rP-GLJb3kQDn9jUJO5xq6obAhyphenhyphenTSjSie2mOH2OG4JkK0q9u72nWdCHRsRyr4IrzHO7KKu0eKqPtDeHjon1x_GaVNogIpKx73t2I0itFrwgiuQh28Np5q2WAsRA/s640/SAM-5-21-05-047.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SAM by Swinnerton - May 21, 1905</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">In another train strip, Swinnerton pulls out all the stops and shows us Sam's wife and children -- all of whom share his keen sense of absurdity:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdXaMl2eDfY5B1PCJ8Ll8qGyOq1iEqQbe7cNEEfWf3yOSFqjaMieIHjb5uw-BUDu15s78iOCR5v5LmNgCNPXmtGTGDI6uH3Wz2nFSsC226qqH5BjAj7hYigK7Vghyphenhyphen3K5uLC4w3Puke6E/s1600/James+Swinnerton+Sam+11+19+1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdXaMl2eDfY5B1PCJ8Ll8qGyOq1iEqQbe7cNEEfWf3yOSFqjaMieIHjb5uw-BUDu15s78iOCR5v5LmNgCNPXmtGTGDI6uH3Wz2nFSsC226qqH5BjAj7hYigK7Vghyphenhyphen3K5uLC4w3Puke6E/s640/James+Swinnerton+Sam+11+19+1905.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SAM by Swinnerton - November 19, 1905<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">Though forgotten today, Sam was popular in his time. He gloriously adorned the cover of a 1905 sheet music folio:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZPa_rUmJdplFjYxzeBe3_2tc5Xtw9uLgaz_U4tVjUs9yJTArwW3FVHrwaheCEK5jvgz4LOE2g-Jk7RdODEuZgH0hssqfia56ogAEjKl3GON2qXeB8h_ZrRhY_1XbevKba1e1euc5eXw/s1600/Sheet+Music.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZPa_rUmJdplFjYxzeBe3_2tc5Xtw9uLgaz_U4tVjUs9yJTArwW3FVHrwaheCEK5jvgz4LOE2g-Jk7RdODEuZgH0hssqfia56ogAEjKl3GON2qXeB8h_ZrRhY_1XbevKba1e1euc5eXw/s320/Sheet+Music.JPG" width="253" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">You can listen to a 1905 recording of this remarkable song, "There's A Dark man Coming With A Bundle" here:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/n1feqw1sLGg" width="420"></iframe><br />
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I'll leave you with one last SAM, which features a portrait of Swinnerton's colleague, cartoonist Rudolph Dirks, who created the hit comic "The Katzenjammer Kids." Note in the last panel that Dirks signed the strip with Swinnerton -- indicating this strip was a "jam."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgonpC9uoTEmBGHgEN3ftZNl4dl1wso6K4AZu8-D4A-w0lxnJ03yGZ5rmj6BYokzdx7j3X7ikkEtOUI1Xr1hVBy4jw1GiaJmyXt8MelZdeQdXHtTX7fq9VlMM4Q3bxW2hiBIeoqBdnZdE8/s1600/002_big.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgonpC9uoTEmBGHgEN3ftZNl4dl1wso6K4AZu8-D4A-w0lxnJ03yGZ5rmj6BYokzdx7j3X7ikkEtOUI1Xr1hVBy4jw1GiaJmyXt8MelZdeQdXHtTX7fq9VlMM4Q3bxW2hiBIeoqBdnZdE8/s640/002_big.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I am pleased to note that the astounding new book, <b>Society Is Nix: Gleeful Anarchy at the Dawn of the American Comic Strip 1895-1915</b> includes a SAM strip (the very first one!), as well as several other incredible color comics pages by Swinnerton (including more jam pages!). These are all printed in their HUGE original size. You can learn more about this book, which includes over 150 stunning comics, great essays (I wrote one), and lots more <a href="http://sundaypressbooks.com/nxbook.php" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://sundaypressbooks.com/nxbook.php" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJDI8lC-LNLTc0jHQUpCNEO48iLWxETNd9uJuV0cuJN18clOH6we0TVe_KkKwF5ZQT0Vw50x1WT53daKPvY2LDyupxqxVH62wNO_NSPtoGgAZ8NLD-vkCsrCuNkQjOJ0iuBVom4QrUY_E/s320/Society+Is+Nix+Sunday+Press+Peter+Maresca.jpg" width="252" /></a></div>
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Wow!,<br />
Paul TumeyPaul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-23843377480962984782013-07-18T13:23:00.000-07:002013-08-01T08:12:39.319-07:00New Sunday Press Extravaganza Unveiled at Comic-Con 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrNOsiL04ZmYiJ-vtVIWfXDWLbrRFlIOHSqestoLkU_KZ2eA3iNtpIitBviDJvwM90KtW2xN_pbfU2aJ76E7MTCUQQPVtfmXcnLU4eanOgVQ8ZK0GF9bygLiL0yal7Ai4dpkCvqfH4RKo/s1600/Society+Is+Nix+Sunday+Press+Peter+Maresca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrNOsiL04ZmYiJ-vtVIWfXDWLbrRFlIOHSqestoLkU_KZ2eA3iNtpIitBviDJvwM90KtW2xN_pbfU2aJ76E7MTCUQQPVtfmXcnLU4eanOgVQ8ZK0GF9bygLiL0yal7Ai4dpkCvqfH4RKo/s320/Society+Is+Nix+Sunday+Press+Peter+Maresca.jpg" width="252" /></a></div>
Sunday Press publisher, editor, and comics historian <b>Peter Maresca</b> has unveiled his wondrous new creation, SOCIETY IS NIX - GLEEFUL ANARCHY AT THE DAWN OF THE AMERICAN COMIC STRIP 1895-1915, at the 2013 San Diego Comics Convention.<br />
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<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Now available to buy from Sunday Press! <a href="http://www.sundaypressbooks.com/" target="_blank">Click here to learn more!</a></b></span><br />
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Visitors to the convention can peruse this massive new collection of forgotten masterpieces. Maresca's book collects over 150 color Sunday comics in their original large and impressive dimensions. The comics are from over 50 artists, many of whom you have likely never heard of, but whose work and artistry is as good as the names you are likely to know from this era. This volume is nothing less than a bolt of polychromatic lightning from the past -- a revelation.<br />
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In the first 20 years of American newspaper comics, something quite remarkable happened -- cartoonists had extraordinary freedom to create. They could have a new idea in the morning, and see it in print within 24 hours. The anarchy Maresca refers to in his title is apparent in both the rapidly changing forms of comics, and in the thinly veiled attacks on social order that many cartoonists led during this time. The thing to realize is that comics weren't expected to have long runs. Today, it's the norm for a comic strip to run for years, sometimes decades. In the 1900s, cartoonists did something different every day.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3YkD9Up1lhNJBAlNaTWpiHkRADjb3k25tHGHB__-val0kbCVr0dNjR1JiVkKP6k3xvinWWlsdHFp6zCjN1sQH83tZw1Ur_annEtj-w5Cgzo8iJix7UhwL1jSgctEtafX_D7uNHOubX-o/s1600/Peter+Maresca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3YkD9Up1lhNJBAlNaTWpiHkRADjb3k25tHGHB__-val0kbCVr0dNjR1JiVkKP6k3xvinWWlsdHFp6zCjN1sQH83tZw1Ur_annEtj-w5Cgzo8iJix7UhwL1jSgctEtafX_D7uNHOubX-o/s400/Peter+Maresca.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunday Press publisher extraordinaire <b>Peter Maresca</b><br />
at an earlier San Diego Comic-Con. His other books include<br />
impressive collections of <i>Little Nemo in Slumberland</i> by Winsor McCay,<br />
and<i> Krazy Kat</i> by George Herriman.</td></tr>
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The roots of screwball humor stretch to this work. There's an intoxicating immediacy and power to comics from this time. As modern readers, we miss it, mostly. Our eyes are not trained, our minds not in synch with this earlier, weirder time. The pacing of the comics is too dense, too slow, and moves to visual melodies that are awkwardly new to us. Consider this <b>Raymond Crawford Ewer</b> page from 1912 -- not in the book (I don't want to spoil any surprises for you), but chosen from my own collection:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMuBlPv4W7k41SCa8kzBiSeGslXW17NKShd6yNftYJzAn5Oc4mkTaBlaXf-lVabMa7Elu1T73ezewOHeB8jE5adWriNxaV-5dOK8nJitOZYqYccASng_FnWc0YKQB1f7x9GuXQgjcdOz8/s1600/19120127+Raymond+Ewer+Slim+Jim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMuBlPv4W7k41SCa8kzBiSeGslXW17NKShd6yNftYJzAn5Oc4mkTaBlaXf-lVabMa7Elu1T73ezewOHeB8jE5adWriNxaV-5dOK8nJitOZYqYccASng_FnWc0YKQB1f7x9GuXQgjcdOz8/s640/19120127+Raymond+Ewer+Slim+Jim.jpg" width="466" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sort of comics you'll find in <i>Society Is Nix:</i><br />
Slim Jim by Raymond Crawford Ewer - January 27, 1912<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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As with any art of depth, time is required, and you must strive to meet the work. When you can accomplish this, the results are extremely rewarding. <i>Society Is Nix</i> reveals to us what comics once were, and could be -- something that modern students of this work such as <b>art spiegelman</b>, <b>Chris Ware</b>, <b>Robert Crumb</b>, <b>David Lasky</b>, <b>Frank Young</b>, and <b>Seth</b> know. And yet, there is so much more to discover and learn -- as Maresca's book shows us.<br />
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As with<i> Nix's</i> sister Sunday Press book, <i>Forgotten Fantasy</i>, this book also presents a wealth of fascinating original essays about early American comic strips by such noted historians as <b>Peter Maresca</b>, <b>Thierry Smolderen</b>, <b>Richard Samuel West</b>, <b>R.C. Harvey</b>, <b>Brian Walker</b>, <b>Bill Kartalopoulos</b>, <b>David Gerstein</b>, <b>Alfredo Castelli</b>, and <b>Paul Tumey</b> (blush). I was also honored to be invited to be a contributing editor, researching and writing mini-biographies of the 50 or so artists represented in the book.<br />
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You can see some of the art in the book, and read samples from the various essays at the Sunday Press site <a href="http://sundaypressbooks.com/snixbookpage.php" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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And here's the opening paragraph from my essay, "Mule Kicks: American Screwball Comics Commenced in the Earliest Sunday Funnies" -</div>
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<b>A nutty mule named Maud kicks the bejeezus out of everything with democratic chaos, offering both slapstick laughs and a sly attack on conventional society. Frederick Burr Opper’s 1904-1907 Sunday comic<em> And Her Name Was Maud</em> is just one of the dozens of notable early anarchic comic strips that kick-started a type of comedy called screwball—a form of condensed, surreal, escalating verbal-visual exaggeration that picked up steam in the 1920s and peaked mid-century with the Marx Brothers, Rube Goldberg, W. C. Fields, Milt Gross, Bill Holman, Tex Avery, Jack Cole, Spike Jones, Harvey Kurtzman’s <em>Mad</em> and Ernie Kovacs.</b></blockquote>
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The book, a national treasure, will be on sale in late August or early November. Until then, I hope you enjoy this sneak peek .<br />
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This is the sort of book that the preservers and celebrators of our culture should be doing, but aren't. Thank God, then, for Peter Maresca. Please give Sunday Press your attention and support.<br />
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<img src="http://blog.kexp.org/files/2012/11/carterfamily_lasky.jpg" /><br />
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On another note, I'd like to send out a celebratory CONGRATULATIONS!!! to my friends <b>Frank M. Young</b> and <b>David Lasky</b> for winning a 2013 Eisner Award for their graphic novel, <b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Carter-Family-Dont-Forget/dp/B00C2I3CW6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374329802&sr=8-1&keywords=carter+family+comics" target="_blank">The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song</a></i></b>. The book won an award for "Best Reality-Based Work." The winners of the 2013 Eisner Awards were announced July 19, 2013. Frank was also up for an Eisner for Best Writer. That award went to Brian K. Vaughn. Be sure to check out Frank's blogs:<br />
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<a href="http://stanleystories.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Stanley Stories</a> (An exploration of the work of John Stanley)<br />
<a href="http://texaveryatwb.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Supervised By Fred Avery: Tex Avery's Warner Brothers Cartoons</a><br />
<a href="http://comicbookattic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Comic Book Attic</a> (co-authored with me)<br />
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And check out David Lasky's blog:<br />
<a href="http://dlasky.livejournal.com/">http://dlasky.livejournal.com/</a><br />
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And you can read many fascinating behind the scenes postings about the making of this Eisner Award winner at <a href="http://carterfamilycomix.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Carter Family Comics: Don't Forget This Blog!</a><br />
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I'm very happy for Frank and David. I was around when they started the project. In fact, they worked on the book for several months in my office. It was fascinating to see them sifting through piles of books, papers, recordings and other source material (the book is meticulously researched). I was honored to see the first pages penciled and to read early versions of the book. What was supposed to be a project that would a year of work for the two men wound up taking four years from each. Many sacrifices and hardships were endured to get through the process of creating the book.<br />
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Currently, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Carter-Family-Dont-Forget/dp/B00C2I3CW6" target="_blank">Amazon has this book available for $10</a> -- a huge bargain.<br />
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Here's a photo of the title page of my copy, with inscriptions from the authors:<br />
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May you stay Forever Young,<br />
Paul Tumey<br />
<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-61272924078025385922013-07-07T21:01:00.003-07:002013-07-16T08:24:13.782-07:00Before Bob Clampett and Will Elder, There Was The Comic Anarchy of H.C. Greening<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I love this guy. H.C. (Harry Cornell) Greening -- forgotten today -- was a screwball master of the first order. He wrote and drew numerous short-lived comic strips and Sunday features from about 1900-1920. He also did a slew of magazine cartoons and illustrations.<br />
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Greening could draw funny. He seemed to be able to get inside his character's heads and depict their screwball actions with total sincerity. They have no idea they are comic drawings -- they think they are real, and that their endeavors are serious. And yet, when Greening draws, for example, a burglar fleeing a cop, the look of sheer focus and all-out pedal-to-the-metal hustle in the crook's face and body language is pure screwball.<br />
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Another interesting aspect to Greening's work is that his sensibility is subversive and his metier is anarchy. One of the things I admire most about his work is that it's edgy -- often pushing the boundaries of propriety and good taste. His drawing style is disarming -- he could do cute, cherub children as well as any children's book illustrator of the day. You glance at his work and you expect treacle -- you read it and you get comics that are made with the same sensibility of Plastic Man in the 1940s, <i>Mad</i> in the 1950s, and American Underground comics of the 1960's.<br />
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I first discovered Greening while sifting through a pile of hundreds of crumbling old comics. I had never heard of him before (and -- as yet -- know little about him or work, yet) -- but when I first encountered an example of his 1909-1910 comic, <i>The Woo Woo Bird</i>, I was hooked.<br />
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The premise of the Woo Woo Bird is simple: a cute talking bird (who usually announces himself: "I'm the Woo Woo Bird")suggests actions to people (usually children) that seem like a good idea, but when they do them, disaster incurs. The strips usually end with the enraged victim on their way to find and kill the Woo Woo Bird. One can only admire the truly awesome skill of the prankster bird. In this example, he teaches a young girl how to spell:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKECf-ZfYVah34gUTW9rcjRIYqSVeTYcg-2_b3JMurS4aXJZIMLNLThyimgVZxO2BjpkwwnTAqKjGtO37iPf45erCUOavpfOucE2_P37NaFlGGZ_bN99UeIaXV2mWjNAqAY_3aY6yCpg/s1600/HC+Greening+Woo+Woo+Bird+April+11+1909.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="401" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKECf-ZfYVah34gUTW9rcjRIYqSVeTYcg-2_b3JMurS4aXJZIMLNLThyimgVZxO2BjpkwwnTAqKjGtO37iPf45erCUOavpfOucE2_P37NaFlGGZ_bN99UeIaXV2mWjNAqAY_3aY6yCpg/s640/HC+Greening+Woo+Woo+Bird+April+11+1909.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Woo Woo Bird by H.C. Greening - April 11, 1909<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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It seems to me that there is some sort of cultural, if not direct, lineage from the Woo Woo Bird to Bob Clampett's Daffy Duck to Woody Woodpecker (who resembles the Woo Woo Bird). In any case, there's a guilty pleasure in the way <i>The Woo Woo Bird</i> laughs at the gullibility of not-so-smart children. Adults are also the prey of the "mischevious" Woo Woo Bird -- to the point where the man in the following strip is literally driven mad.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX46CB-ej6tfaWsr-NP5n3gIrnPguUI2_s7GuCP_860oV1YYipKm1uiw0OFGAlhKuGeKMUoyxi9-ip5TvxbxQvfeAo4S82Shc2hiwBNymXpVmYB3Kf_uDYMReDXjkW5XfCSZQO9wz6vFU/s1600/HC+Greening+Woo+Woo+Bird+April+25+1909+last+strip.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX46CB-ej6tfaWsr-NP5n3gIrnPguUI2_s7GuCP_860oV1YYipKm1uiw0OFGAlhKuGeKMUoyxi9-ip5TvxbxQvfeAo4S82Shc2hiwBNymXpVmYB3Kf_uDYMReDXjkW5XfCSZQO9wz6vFU/s640/HC+Greening+Woo+Woo+Bird+April+25+1909+last+strip.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Woo Woo Bird by H.C. Greening - April 25, 1909<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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According to Allan Holtz's <i>American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide</i> (University of Michigan, 2012), The Woo Woo Bird ran for just 3 months in early 1909. However, the <a href="http://www.barnaclepress.com/comics/Woo%20Woo%20Bird/" target="_blank">Barnacle Press </a>folks, those devoted rescuers of great old comics, have on their website some <i>Woo Woo Birds</i> they date from 1910. You can find 13 of these gems<a href="http://www.barnaclepress.com/comics/Woo%20Woo%20Bird/" target="_blank"> here</a> -- all wonderful, wacky reading.<br />
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Allan Holtz has more on H.C Greening at his Stripper's Guide site <a href="http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2011/09/ink-slinger-profiles-hc-greening.html" target="_blank">here</a>. In <a href="http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2006/02/obscurity-of-day-joco-and-jack.html" target="_blank">this page</a>, Allan Hotlz shares a rare scan of a 1904 Greening comic called <i>Jocko and Jack</i> that is a precursor to <i>The Woo Woo Bird</i>, with a malicious, non-talking monkey creating the havoc.<br />
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Greening's biggest success was a full-page Sunday comic called <i>Percy - Brains He Has Nix </i>that ran from October 1, 1911 to January 12, 1913. This comic revolved around the chaos created by a life-size "mechanism man" named Percy. Time Magazine, in a 1930 article, described the premise of the strip:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>"<span style="background-color: white;">Cartoonist Harry Cornel Greening equipped his creature with a row of buttons down the back which, when pushed, set Percy to his tasks. Only trouble—and chief source of comedy—was that, being brainless as well as tireless, Percy would keep on doing whatever he started until someone pushed another of his buttons.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> "</span></b></span></blockquote>
You can find 36 of Greening's Percy pages, extracted from black and white microfilm, at Barnacle Press' site <a href="http://www.barnaclepress.com/comics/Percy/?lg_pagei=1" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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The Glen Bray studio made at least one Percy cartoon in 1916. Greening himself, in a 1937 letter to author Ida Tarbell, briefly recapped his career and singled out Percy as a highlight.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6pttObO0GW-deNKhba5uM6E8pVuY_tV-Hf3F-pP18OJbQ0qirlJZS0WvZMTn0ckRVPV6FHNkFWV5g53b60IIQ-0ovEc_nJd_CnUwfIOfuWwx7Yi5AIXdkYCflqTgDd-TboJ7YGpeVVE/s1600/1937+HC+greening+letter+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6pttObO0GW-deNKhba5uM6E8pVuY_tV-Hf3F-pP18OJbQ0qirlJZS0WvZMTn0ckRVPV6FHNkFWV5g53b60IIQ-0ovEc_nJd_CnUwfIOfuWwx7Yi5AIXdkYCflqTgDd-TboJ7YGpeVVE/s640/1937+HC+greening+letter+.jpg" width="486" /></a></div>
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Harry's cartoons push the boundaries of good taste -- as in his cartoon, "From the Pupville Press," in which a sausage maker laconically, and somewhat horrifically comments on the contents of his product:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDGgk5-YDi-4_IQwHZmbIjPGAmxnU7pAUVnH5TbnRlO-f1Dxue1dVLr4RxnRkdEQzxodBpjzCG5dOIBJ_ftKvs8b9_gE9pW_f6rbQTo8S1dq_-m4hiJkF2JO8npS34uhpJ02ZV86des50/s1600/H.C.+Greening+Pupville+Press+1911+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDGgk5-YDi-4_IQwHZmbIjPGAmxnU7pAUVnH5TbnRlO-f1Dxue1dVLr4RxnRkdEQzxodBpjzCG5dOIBJ_ftKvs8b9_gE9pW_f6rbQTo8S1dq_-m4hiJkF2JO8npS34uhpJ02ZV86des50/s400/H.C.+Greening+Pupville+Press+1911+2.jpg" width="358" /></a></div>
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In another cartoon, a young pup sees a hot-dog shaped balloon and thinks it's a dog-angel -- the joke being that hot dogs are where stray canines wind up:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjig7QQs_QyNx1r9cfi8dfWM3zNpWvxzgLjdGQqIGxkCelkQXxQfsgvh3FBGrsJ0lfL_U-sxowinkoAkvRQzxunxCBUYMTJy84_O9bilaPCLZO_c9uqRfBl3y_4W8rHdzyZVOfR1NTm8rA/s1600/H.C.+Greening+Dog+Angel+1911+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjig7QQs_QyNx1r9cfi8dfWM3zNpWvxzgLjdGQqIGxkCelkQXxQfsgvh3FBGrsJ0lfL_U-sxowinkoAkvRQzxunxCBUYMTJy84_O9bilaPCLZO_c9uqRfBl3y_4W8rHdzyZVOfR1NTm8rA/s400/H.C.+Greening+Dog+Angel+1911+2.jpg" width="356" /></a></div>
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In a Thanksgiving-themed cartoon called "Hard Luck," Greening wickedly delivers a gag panel that is, in effect, a hit-and-run assault on good taste (although the turkey might taste good):</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGbotLKJkrwIEByYMSO2ViZeSbojHpfyZumrHEF6K3HHYgh3HefXXgzPoH_D5EfNbYsz4mA9IY7FdjwSkEe-5M_wQltnfe9uuBKGtpr0UFaIctoPAWqKieVIUOsq7Kq3__HvBtHdYpcg/s1600/H.C.+Greening+1911+Turkey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="523" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGbotLKJkrwIEByYMSO2ViZeSbojHpfyZumrHEF6K3HHYgh3HefXXgzPoH_D5EfNbYsz4mA9IY7FdjwSkEe-5M_wQltnfe9uuBKGtpr0UFaIctoPAWqKieVIUOsq7Kq3__HvBtHdYpcg/s640/H.C.+Greening+1911+Turkey.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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To be fair, the decade of the 1900s recycled out-of-control automobile cartoons, getting years of mileage from the general citizen's wariness of those horseless carriages. Surely this example, with its final stage direction of "(Expires.)" is one of the most off-color.</div>
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Another thing I admire about Greening's work is that he is just such a dad-blamed good artist, manipulating light and shadow, pen-stroked textures, and perfect facial and body expressions. On top of all that, his ability to render virtually anything in any scene allowed his to work with a broad visual canvas. In his cartoon "Submarine Sadness" Greening dives for a virtuoso presentation of an undersea diver. The fish have the same manic cuteness as The Woo Woo Bird.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDur5ljSQhSOln_Eo83ll6G_4i_5O3mvt2dSmwyjz1FAW3PQgUJDaid9ueMlFUdml1ZCiQhueRcEpVo7aID_6bHyiG6pdPwvo7D9tdkl0GNquBfBt0XAX6KV77vZ8fYMovoKQwIuCiWes/s1600/H.C.+Greening+Diver+cartoon+1911+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDur5ljSQhSOln_Eo83ll6G_4i_5O3mvt2dSmwyjz1FAW3PQgUJDaid9ueMlFUdml1ZCiQhueRcEpVo7aID_6bHyiG6pdPwvo7D9tdkl0GNquBfBt0XAX6KV77vZ8fYMovoKQwIuCiWes/s640/H.C.+Greening+Diver+cartoon+1911+2.jpg" width="484" /></a></div>
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In "Those Mountain Resort Girls," Greening builds a gag from a cliff-hanger situation.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqTPlb7NCg6CrAccDSor-swpx3c01sN9NzIrpJAIxche7yeNrPfUQxAxsCD0aFBZdq6k-UfZKhtIdz_wY5bQGPNQroB8w_m_43NQbcG1_KI2rdIGa8_mMldohMKzl8lvwDrTd-pRcOl1U/s1600/H.C.+Greening+Mountain+Resort+Girls+1911.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqTPlb7NCg6CrAccDSor-swpx3c01sN9NzIrpJAIxche7yeNrPfUQxAxsCD0aFBZdq6k-UfZKhtIdz_wY5bQGPNQroB8w_m_43NQbcG1_KI2rdIGa8_mMldohMKzl8lvwDrTd-pRcOl1U/s640/H.C.+Greening+Mountain+Resort+Girls+1911.jpg" width="350" /></a></div>
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In "Illustrated Expression," he creates a man out of straw (that is, a "straw man").</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLlc6DQumZEj1UyyezB7twoV1d_nAdvqDiQvO5mInw7pbT7fr-oqoNJlDZaV7Kx4sC3RbOnqTBccawlIAPxZRNFVEQTbeVF_ocwNvLhuDA2hrrkWDLCqsqsNyF4zPQctbgJTVy7oefCg/s1600/H.C.+Greening+1911+Illustrated+Expression.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCLlc6DQumZEj1UyyezB7twoV1d_nAdvqDiQvO5mInw7pbT7fr-oqoNJlDZaV7Kx4sC3RbOnqTBccawlIAPxZRNFVEQTbeVF_ocwNvLhuDA2hrrkWDLCqsqsNyF4zPQctbgJTVy7oefCg/s400/H.C.+Greening+1911+Illustrated+Expression.jpg" width="310" /></a></div>
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In his cartoon, "After the Thanksgiving Meal," Greening expertly renders the interior of wealthy home. Check out that snobby butler -- and the snappy writing!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiynR3j-5GGZWyHZf73i2qNKOzFX32oXOPXNs94DmuY49xH0NFYtnlaM9I4VAMavrOUE_dbsPu0x4BPFoowAsrQvnI4YIkAI7VSfBvdCqPSIRpqe9nC8gRaVtPmLbFdUcLO_N4M6VIOZjk/s1600/H.C.+Greening+1911+meat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiynR3j-5GGZWyHZf73i2qNKOzFX32oXOPXNs94DmuY49xH0NFYtnlaM9I4VAMavrOUE_dbsPu0x4BPFoowAsrQvnI4YIkAI7VSfBvdCqPSIRpqe9nC8gRaVtPmLbFdUcLO_N4M6VIOZjk/s640/H.C.+Greening+1911+meat.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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In "The Elopement Cinched," Greening takes a cue from fellow cartoonist Zim, who often set his scenes in pre-<i>Alley Oop</i> prehistoric times. Flora, fauna, primitives, socialites... Greening's work displays an astonishing range.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUCMTZc6YXc8Ag7pmHu5-7LE1TW1K_sa4SiWBHm4FPQIpLbsQLJEsCV-G-YQEaNn-LFH9_GjmH3v3fymG1ihxg7dVSD7XI7MGNys8oQI6tyYSRBU-H2hE0F4bRA4_VYvplQ1fA15yz3w/s1600/H.C.+Greening+Elopement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUCMTZc6YXc8Ag7pmHu5-7LE1TW1K_sa4SiWBHm4FPQIpLbsQLJEsCV-G-YQEaNn-LFH9_GjmH3v3fymG1ihxg7dVSD7XI7MGNys8oQI6tyYSRBU-H2hE0F4bRA4_VYvplQ1fA15yz3w/s640/H.C.+Greening+Elopement.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Or this intriguing editorial cartoon:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKIZjr5DRJ9fjF07TfFVNtAQSA75LVGu2_1kh0Tszff5wh-TISjTJquBvkf4_KOgR8HAGH71mVC0iWEjCDhAdP8ZZbbNwIiJcCMIwmaDrQBUSCUVKd9AIYvbp7dxZ4-LGzQpSmVcqdMWk/s1600/H.C.+Greening+The+Labor+Question.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKIZjr5DRJ9fjF07TfFVNtAQSA75LVGu2_1kh0Tszff5wh-TISjTJquBvkf4_KOgR8HAGH71mVC0iWEjCDhAdP8ZZbbNwIiJcCMIwmaDrQBUSCUVKd9AIYvbp7dxZ4-LGzQpSmVcqdMWk/s640/H.C.+Greening+The+Labor+Question.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
More than his variety and expertise, and more than his screwball-anarchic sensibility, Greening also had a flair for innovation.<i> Percy</i>, his comic strip about a crazy robot was novel and innovative for 1911. Perhaps the most interesting of Greening's work that I've seen, however, is his wordless cartoons -- what he called "moving pictures on paper." Years before this was common, Greening broke a single page into a grid of 18 small panels and played with the time signatures of the strips. In some cases a strip of panels showed incremental action, comically portraying "freeze-frame" moments of panic and chaos. The effect is similar to slow motion in a movie. In other strips, Greening jump cuts the scene with startling humorous effect. This is D.W. Griffith on paper!<br />
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The caption for "The Pie-ous Tramp's Triumph" provides the reader with directions on how to read this odd cartoon: "Rube the eyes rapidly along each row from left to right. If you do not find the pictures moving it must be because you are not easily moved." Of course, this was purely a joke, since there is much more happening here than just a novelty representation of movement.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTQh8E83TNrGUlwhgT7zdpo0NHwD_vUkKerkV1YT_iCef1WqEW8GQmkDKXBYw4oOpyIJmo7V0ympER4ZPxf2Hh94zgrmxGeYDEK17TZHRPN6NNUMu5A_pn2x4LQGCLStksarJRhLuyyo/s1600/H.C.+Greening+1911+Pieous+Tramp+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTQh8E83TNrGUlwhgT7zdpo0NHwD_vUkKerkV1YT_iCef1WqEW8GQmkDKXBYw4oOpyIJmo7V0ympER4ZPxf2Hh94zgrmxGeYDEK17TZHRPN6NNUMu5A_pn2x4LQGCLStksarJRhLuyyo/s640/H.C.+Greening+1911+Pieous+Tramp+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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Each "frame" of "The Bold, Bad Burglar" is a funny picture in itself, but the overall effect is breathless -- and breath-taking:</div>
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As with H.M. Bateman's wordless, multi-panel cartoons, Greening's pages are filled with funny drawings. The work is similar in spirit to Milt Gross, who accomplished the same thing, but with a drunken, hyper scrawl. Incredibly, Greening's "Balloon Ascension" offers even greater chaos:<br />
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The jump cuts in the above comic, between panels three and four, five and six, and thirteen and fourteen are masterful.<br />
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John Adcock has shared more H.C. Greening on his website <a href="http://john-adcock.blogspot.com/search?q=Greening" target="_blank">here</a>, which I recommend to you.<br />
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Greening is in the top ten of early American cartoonists that I would love to research more thoroughly. I hope this little article has helped to reveal his place as an early master of screwball comics.<br />
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Woo Woo,<br />
Paul Tumey<br />
<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-74609749728290317272013-07-04T09:22:00.000-07:002013-07-07T07:00:28.002-07:00Rube Goldberg's 1918 Fourth of July Cartoon - War and Pieces<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh83OePgb3lEI-xfQp49WyKeqPUg6SA-wwInRQTgUY10TXcA8uhEj5_nGgXZ0B70jMTg_TY4PPlGyDLN2y99rjLhkX6XE9UWPbZT3tbO6AXRvF2fyywh5exAzgnAZM67zKl2q7Bei0L5aU/s268/Rube+4th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh83OePgb3lEI-xfQp49WyKeqPUg6SA-wwInRQTgUY10TXcA8uhEj5_nGgXZ0B70jMTg_TY4PPlGyDLN2y99rjLhkX6XE9UWPbZT3tbO6AXRvF2fyywh5exAzgnAZM67zKl2q7Bei0L5aU/s268/Rube+4th.jpg" /></a></div>
Happy Fourth of July, 2013!<br />
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As you probably know, Rube Goldberg was born on July 4, 1883. To my knowledge, Rube never trumpeted his own birthday in his daily cartoons, but he always seemed to make a special effort in his work for the Fourth.<br />
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To celebrate the 4th and Rube's birthday, I've scanned from my own collection his strip from July 4, 1918, which features a surprisingly nice pen-and-ink sketch of Uncle Sam, and a really funny gag panel drawing of two kids wary about lighting a giant firecracker. The original strip measures 15 inches across -- which was Rube's regular space allotment in newspapers from 1909 to about 1920, or so.<br />
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The cartoon I have for you today needs a little context. In July, 1918 the United States was deeply involved in World One One, also known as "The Great War." The war had been going on for nearly four years. It would end just four months after Rube penned this cartoon. Nine million soldiers died during the conflict, and many more were maimed and psychologically damaged. This war saw technological "advancements" in weaponry that led to horrific carnage.<br />
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Ernest Hemingway was an ambulance driver in the conflict, in Italy when this cartoon came out. He was seriously wounded and sent home. Hemingway's first published novel <i>The Sun Also Rises</i> (1926), is centered on a character who is impotent and emotionally destroyed after serving in the war. His 1929 novel, <i>A Farewell to Arms</i> is drawn from his experiences in WWI.<br />
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Rube's stock-in-trade was screwball humor and funny drawings. It must have been a challenge for him to figure out how to fit his work into a bloody, deadly serious conflict. In the case of his July 4, 1918 cartoon, he eschewed humor (mostly) and delivered a sprightly editorial cartoon, abutted by a holiday-themed episode of one of his panel series, <i>Slackers</i>:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">July 4, 1918 - Rube's cartoon from the final months of WWI</td></tr>
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That's the German Kaiser portrayed on the left. Rube had been cartooning about the Great War since the conflict's first days, in 1914.. In fact, he began as an unplanned observer on the front lines. In 1913, Rube had made his first successful tour of Europe (paid for by his newspaper employer, <i>The Evening Mail</i>) and dispatched a series of popular cartoons, "Boobs Abroad," humorously recounting his experiences. Rube was probably feeling on top of the world in the summer of 1914, the following year, when his paper again sent him on an all-expenses-paid tour of Europe. Everything was going as planned until, a few weeks after his arrival, World War One broke out.<br />
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Rube changed the subject matter of his cartoons and columns sent back home from the light-hearted experiences of a tourist to that of a humorist observing the chaos and confusion of a war's early escalation. The result was a remarkable series of cartoons, such as this one, entitled "If You Are On The Ground, Naturally You Can Understand The War Situation More Thoroughly."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rube Goldberg reports from France during World War One, 1914</td></tr>
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These cartoons were collected into a book, with some of Rube's Twain-like prose writing. The book, more of a pamphlet at 32 pages, was called <i>Seeing History At Close Range: The Experiences of An American Cartoonist Marooned In France During the Outbreak of the Present Wa</i>r. Rube was into really long titles around time.<br />
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In the book's introduction, Rube makes it clear that he had no intention of minimizing the horrors of the war."In preparing these stories and cartoons I have never for one instant lost sight of the tragic side of this terrible conflict which has brought sorrow to the hearts of thousands of good people in the warring countries."<br />
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He goes on to write, "If I succeed in drying a tear or two without sacrificing the ideals of human feeling I shall be able to look the Statue of Liberty in the face and write her telephone number down in my little red book."<br />
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Rube was stuck, for a time, in the midst of the conflict in France. He needed to produce official documents to the military authorities in order to return to the United States, and he had none. Finally, in desperation, he brandished a dentist's bill he found in a suitcase, and managed to pass it off as an official government document, which resulted in his safe passage home.<br />
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In the next few years, Rube worked tirelessly to raise money for the war effort, often performing the sketch act that he perfected in his Vaudeville tours. He returned to Europe just three months after the war ended and, on February 29, 1919 published a column (few realize that for much his career, Rube penned a newspaper column as well as daily cartoons) in which the great humorist allowed himself a moment of sober reflection:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>"I can add little to the numerous camera and word pictures you have seen so often. But there is one thing that the camera cannot give you. It is the choking sensation you get when you see a small wooden cross alongside the road out there in the wilderness marking the spot where one of our boys gave all he had to give to keep the rest of us clean and free."</b></blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">February 28, 1919 - Rube Goldberg write in his column<br />
a heartfelt and sober reflection on war</td></tr>
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Years later, in 1938, Rube moved from his daily humor strips to become a Pulitzer-Prize-winning political cartoonist. As we see here, he was unafraid to step away from humor once in a while earlier in his career and pen a patriotic war-themed cartoon for the Fourth.<br />
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For more of Rube's Fourth cartoons, see last year's article on the subject: <a href="http://www.screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2012/07/rube-goldberg-on-fourth-of-july.html" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg On The Fourth of July</a>.<br />
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<b>Shameless Plug Department:</b> I have begun a new column, <i>Framed</i>!, for the online magazine, <i><a href="http://www.tcj.com/" target="_blank">The Comics Journal</a></i>. My first column is called <a href="http://www.tcj.com/the-lost-comics-of-jack-cole-part-1-1931-38/" target="_blank">The Lost Comics of Jack Cole - Part One (1931-38)</a>. I invite you to check it out.<br />
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Happy Independence Day,<br />
Paul TumeyPaul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-36701952438170011812013-06-11T14:53:00.003-07:002013-06-13T06:29:25.732-07:00Rube Goldberg's Cartoon Machine Inventions of 1913<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">About 10 months passed</span> between the production of Rube Goldberg's first and second invention cartoons, from July 17, 1912 (view that cartoon <a href="http://www.screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-first-rube-goldberg-invention.html" target="_blank">here</a>) to May 7, 1913. As with the first cartoon, Rube's invention solves a minor insect-related problem.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">May 7, 1913 - by Rube Goldberg</td></tr>
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From this point on, the inventions occur more frequently. Rube's second invention, The Asparagusometer, doesn't actually solve a problem -- it's merely a comic way of eating asparagus.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">June 11, 1913 - by Rube Goldberg</td></tr>
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Rube's fourth invention cartoon carries a series title: <i>Great Discovery</i>. The typeface matches other series of that year, such as <i>Breaking Even</i>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukI0396N-ASRQnq6ESGTAACLlQszv-nLmLK30zpvnIAERjfMs-PNSfdISwqxE6VIATfeaKJ4zjkuSwavmqM3r1dhAbwEwmJAbOKx3zUntL8s2Lh51WZh9iND1jxFfULMGzKPuUPmebTM/s1600/1913+September+22+Rube+Goldberg+Breaking+Even.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukI0396N-ASRQnq6ESGTAACLlQszv-nLmLK30zpvnIAERjfMs-PNSfdISwqxE6VIATfeaKJ4zjkuSwavmqM3r1dhAbwEwmJAbOKx3zUntL8s2Lh51WZh9iND1jxFfULMGzKPuUPmebTM/s640/1913+September+22+Rube+Goldberg+Breaking+Even.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Breaking Even</i> and<i> I'm The Guy </i>by Rube Goldberg - September 22, 1913</td></tr>
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With the fourth invention, the approach has become more refined, looking more like a precisely drawn patent application drawing. Note that this nonsense invention is not purely mechanical -- it relies on the politeness of a beer bottle...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqFgVSTEq4-09Y0aA_CeMFMXCfr0lSBXaIW3wIgAldoABXXXxR4uPp93dTtk2ssyJLlQYtVD4vSNwViU5Yexi6inJwLlrJDetwVfuLSOPVWmU0BNx5AYlVA84FV6Ld0adliqTyWXOEJ_Y/s1600/1913+December+18+Rube+Goldberg+machine+cartoon+beer+bottle+opener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqFgVSTEq4-09Y0aA_CeMFMXCfr0lSBXaIW3wIgAldoABXXXxR4uPp93dTtk2ssyJLlQYtVD4vSNwViU5Yexi6inJwLlrJDetwVfuLSOPVWmU0BNx5AYlVA84FV6Ld0adliqTyWXOEJ_Y/s640/1913+December+18+Rube+Goldberg+machine+cartoon+beer+bottle+opener.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">December 18, 1913 - by Rube Goldberg</td></tr>
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The experimental series title suggests that, with the second invention cartoon, Rube had decided he'd like to create these as an ongoing series. One wonders if he realized he would be creating these ingenious cartoons for the next 50 years. This was the only time Rube used this series name. It's a mystery as to why Rube didn't continue the series title (other than that it's a little lame).<br />
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In an alternate universe, Rube Goldberg Machines are called "Great Discoveries." I think Rube came out better in our universe.<br />
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Coming in November, 2013:<br />
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I co-edited this book and contributed three essays on the great cartoonist. Available <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Rube-Goldberg-Inventive/dp/141970852X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371088899&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+rube+goldberg" target="_blank">here</a> from Amazon - a great pre-order deal!<br />
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That is all,<br />
Screwball Paul Tumey<br />
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Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-65783403221536791502013-06-03T13:53:00.002-07:002013-06-04T10:49:44.608-07:00The First Rube Goldberg Invention Cartoon (1912) -- Two Years Earlier Than We Thought!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnkuCS7vnzBhOI19zN4FQUSLfPq8F1gckw9Xg3WO-rgwSb9TpzV5QimcrIqjyRKYToWKnV93sZjli98YZRoiqdFGGLr3GlpITzp7dU9K3rCyVBN_V1NBsnc52SxJYdXc3tGCQSpowVBHg/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+The+First+Invention+Cartoons+1912+to+1914+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnkuCS7vnzBhOI19zN4FQUSLfPq8F1gckw9Xg3WO-rgwSb9TpzV5QimcrIqjyRKYToWKnV93sZjli98YZRoiqdFGGLr3GlpITzp7dU9K3rCyVBN_V1NBsnc52SxJYdXc3tGCQSpowVBHg/s320/Rube+Goldberg+The+First+Invention+Cartoons+1912+to+1914+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
In his excellent Rube Goldberg biography, <i><b>Rube Goldberg: His Life and Work</b></i> (Harper and Row, 1973), Peter Marzio -- the man who also curated the 1970 Smithsonian Institution's 1970 retrospective of Goldberg's work (which opened just two weeks before Rube's death) -- writes:<br />
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"Rube experimented with the 'invention' genre in numerous cartoons after arriving in New York [in 1907], by the first full-fledged model did not appear in the<i> Evening Mail</i> until November 10, 1914." (page 179)<br />
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Here's a look at that cartoon, <i>The Best Part of Reducing Is That It Is So Simple </i> in the context of a full newspaper page (from <i>The Auburn Citizen</i>):<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSK8wNtWn426XhGzOOR1pv6rEx2trTehlyCliWCzgADMXhDwxxq5KPMfoy8hI5TCkr8QIBxOpUMKIE8_hsx9bRFnblpNpMpZ6v_XJlpv8WkYeZ_72jJyxD6lSsdPpwdhhv1YD_HpJs2zE/s1600/1914+Rube+Goldberg+Invention+Weight+Reduce+Novemeber+17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSK8wNtWn426XhGzOOR1pv6rEx2trTehlyCliWCzgADMXhDwxxq5KPMfoy8hI5TCkr8QIBxOpUMKIE8_hsx9bRFnblpNpMpZ6v_XJlpv8WkYeZ_72jJyxD6lSsdPpwdhhv1YD_HpJs2zE/s640/1914+Rube+Goldberg+Invention+Weight+Reduce+Novemeber+17.jpg" width="504" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Invention cartoon by Rube Goldberg, November 17, 1914<br />
Widely cited in error as the first Rube Goldberg invention cartoon</td></tr>
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Note the date is November 17 -- not November 10, as Marzio cites. It's likely that the cartoon did run in the paper that employed Rube first, and then appeared in various American newspapers after that.<br />
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When you look at the ads that ran on the same pages as Rube's "simple" household inventions, you realize that his invention cartoons were originally meant to be gentle lampoons of the advertising of the day. Yet another instance where it seems clear that Rube's work anticipates Harvey Kurtzman and <i>Mad</i> by two generations.<br />
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Did you glean that the way for the fat boob to lose weight is to allow a giant bell to be lowered over him, so he can't get to any eats? Pretty screwball idea!<br />
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For the last 40 years, everything written about Goldberg that I know of has referenced Marzio's citation of the first invention cartoon -- including me. Imagine my surprise when I trolled through the Library of Congress' archive of newspapers and discovered that Rube drew several "full-fledged" invention cartoons before the one Marzio (and the rest of the world) cites as the official first instance. In fact, as far as I currently know, the first Rube Goldberg invention cartoon appeared well over two years earlier!<br />
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As Brian Walker reminded me recently, all history is revisionist in nature. So -- to revise the record, here's the official first Rube Goldberg invention cartoon, <i>The Simple Mosquito Exterminator - No Home Should Be Without It</i>:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNILhGLF5hvyLOdtfgwWF_ETTVtLBCUNHGJVlbc4IBLZbrQl16ffOC_M8IL-TvM8lXCtA2880GfccEAj8FIiORIbN7oCKjkQOwK69vMJLe4jzmHL7pz9iglUtyjylAkODY4rH9FGTno4w/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+invention+cartoon+first+1912+July+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNILhGLF5hvyLOdtfgwWF_ETTVtLBCUNHGJVlbc4IBLZbrQl16ffOC_M8IL-TvM8lXCtA2880GfccEAj8FIiORIbN7oCKjkQOwK69vMJLe4jzmHL7pz9iglUtyjylAkODY4rH9FGTno4w/s640/Rube+Goldberg+invention+cartoon+first+1912+July+7.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The actual first Rube Goldberg invention cartoon - July 17, 1912</td></tr>
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With its George Herriman blanket, Winsor McCay dream giant mosquito, nutty scheme, and classic pot-bellied boob, Rube's first invention cartoon is a richly comic achievement, in all senses of the word. By the 1930s, Rube was most famous for his wacky inventions, and by the time of his death in 1970, he had created thousands of these.<br />
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No knocks on Peter Marzio, who later in life became the distinguished director of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts until his death in 2010. His book on Rube Goldberg changed my life and is filled with amazing information and insights. To research his book, Peter had to dig through musty paper archives in dark backrooms. Forty years later. I can sit at my computer in my home and search through millions of newspaper pages. It's a task that still requires a fair amount of energy (and luck) but I certainly have more resources available to me than researchers did in the pre-Internet era.<br />
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You can find a print version of the above cartoon, plus many hundreds of others in the upcoming book from Abrams, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Rube-Goldberg-Inventive/dp/141970852X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370291659&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+rube" target="_blank">The Art of Rube Goldberg</a> </i>(selected by Jennifer George), which I have had the honor to work on as co-editor with Charles Kochman. Look for it in November, 2013!<br />
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Till next time,<br />
Paul Tumey<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsVJJGC95Iw66fU6NieV0rOS4SWCvstG4JtBy1OQVhEnQUwlKvBXB4fdGRp9HNG0Z8VaB1w83JmRtIzuZVAzsoTN5NSO4X0Kenu1kDWUglGJK4aF-Mqd0lHVtgeX9MJWUagswl0wYeGKg/s1600/1912+July+17+first+invention+cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsVJJGC95Iw66fU6NieV0rOS4SWCvstG4JtBy1OQVhEnQUwlKvBXB4fdGRp9HNG0Z8VaB1w83JmRtIzuZVAzsoTN5NSO4X0Kenu1kDWUglGJK4aF-Mqd0lHVtgeX9MJWUagswl0wYeGKg/s640/1912+July+17+first+invention+cartoon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-75015564715616820972013-05-19T17:20:00.001-07:002013-05-20T16:32:43.563-07:00The Art of Rube Goldberg (Abrams ComicArts, 2013) New Book!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic5MLC7e5ClYG26LrqDNwkmd_AQ8GftrmRFONQfethIO87gBRPCdP2kUk0eXsLeizxl6d7K_6QuIQizrQ-00bslD4rLaGIwmJZxHWNjpynXEGhH8xaslVIsLhdP_1KMSjbe5jxuAt_Lns/s1600/Rube+Goldberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic5MLC7e5ClYG26LrqDNwkmd_AQ8GftrmRFONQfethIO87gBRPCdP2kUk0eXsLeizxl6d7K_6QuIQizrQ-00bslD4rLaGIwmJZxHWNjpynXEGhH8xaslVIsLhdP_1KMSjbe5jxuAt_Lns/s320/Rube+Goldberg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Web Exclusive! Here's a preview of the cover art for THE ART OF RUBE GOLDBERG comic from Abrams ComicArts in November, 2013.<br />
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I believe this blog is the first place on the Web to unveil this art! We've even beaten <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Rube-Goldberg-Inventive/dp/141970852X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369007743&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+rube+goldberg" target="_blank">Amazon</a>!<br />
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For the last few months, I've been helping out on this massive book, which is one reason my blog output (and my sleep) has decreased. Rube's granddaughter <b>Jennifer George</b>, editor <b>Charles Kochman </b>(famous as the editor of the <i>Wimpy Kid </i>books), and I have put together what we hope will be both an hugely entertaining and revelatory book. Rube is famous for his inventions (and the book is crammed full of these), but there's much more to his brilliant work, as this book showcases. Previous books on Rube Goldberg have tended to focus almost exclusively on his invention cartoons. Kudos to <b>Abrams ComicArts</b> for having the vision to publish a classy collection that encompasses the full range of Rube's life and work.<br />
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The cover of the book will be a movable, paper-engineered piece of art, created by the famed Andrew Baron. A Rube Goldberg cartoon invention will come to life! Here's the art for the front cover (the "smile" at the bottom is where you put your finger to make the cartoon animate).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtPf1MDDD2UoWO5vpeE8hbN4R0BW6bUCUrU28h-XEQNkH6bQmBwVEmCaSuTYL7pG6Y2ukRWTMJ_3k0pOQcoGZWfpncsFepcm-A67Xq-E7rK2_gzbwU41mS6x41PHm6BMozfbqMqYJK8ig/s1600/The+Art+of+Rube+Goldberg+Front+Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtPf1MDDD2UoWO5vpeE8hbN4R0BW6bUCUrU28h-XEQNkH6bQmBwVEmCaSuTYL7pG6Y2ukRWTMJ_3k0pOQcoGZWfpncsFepcm-A67Xq-E7rK2_gzbwU41mS6x41PHm6BMozfbqMqYJK8ig/s640/The+Art+of+Rube+Goldberg+Front+Cover.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The front cover art for The Art of Rube Goldberg -- due out from Abrams ComicArts in November, 2013</td></tr>
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I'm deeply honored to be credited as co-editor of this book. I'll have an 11-page illustrated essay in the book (along with a few other short pieces). I've also compiled a bibliography, sources, and timeline. It's been a great deal of fun to immerse myself in Rube's world. Here's the back cover of the book that tells you a bit more, and features original art for a classic cartoon, "Try Our Patent Back-Scratcher" from 1921.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvMlP9fwz8LPw91YfmOMztPR00wo9AmN_pZVubEz4IWkExFkEGhnx4j85jMLJIbPFarg_ogXEDGeB6MJDcyZC2YmAacm4aZpJ7k1k_Ew1mFf3w1xWc8bUnthvY32msFMhqfn1HLQV6knE/s1600/The+Art+of+Rube+Goldberg+Back+Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvMlP9fwz8LPw91YfmOMztPR00wo9AmN_pZVubEz4IWkExFkEGhnx4j85jMLJIbPFarg_ogXEDGeB6MJDcyZC2YmAacm4aZpJ7k1k_Ew1mFf3w1xWc8bUnthvY32msFMhqfn1HLQV6knE/s640/The+Art+of+Rube+Goldberg+Back+Cover.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The back cover art for The Art of Rube Goldberg -- due out from Abrams ComicArts in November, 2013</td></tr>
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The book is scheduled to be released in November, 2013. It will be a very large-sized hardcover book with 192 pages stuffed with art, comics, and all sorts of rare material from the family archives. </div>
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The book will also feature an introduction by <b>Adam Gopnick</b> and essays by <b>Andrew Baron</b>, <b>Al Jaffee</b>, <b>Carl Linich </b>(my fellow <a href="http://the-squirrel-cage.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">screwball blogger</a> and pal!), <b>Peter Maresca</b>, and <b>Brian Walker</b>. Best of all, <b>Jennifer George</b> -- Rube's granddaughter and compiler of this volume -- provides essays and personal commentaries that give great insight into the world of Rube Goldberg! </div>
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I'll share more about the book (and some special "outtakes") in the coming months. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about Rube visit <a href="http://www.screwballcomics.blogspot.com/p/rube-goldberg.html" target="_blank">my special page</a> on him, with comics, photos, and links.</div>
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That is All,</div>
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Screwball Paul</div>
<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-30155133252039796372013-05-08T11:06:00.001-07:002013-05-10T11:48:34.165-07:00The Roots of Screwball Comics: Dink Shannon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Jv-kmBUMOVziTnm29OyDVb7q9LoR_8UqAug0fhwGCVlQ-mUeAInBVhlNwSHFr1M_lMzl7T2FWJjiSscAvoWEYlfVivEz5rn3OQUuEa3D3PIKTKVuajTD_EaECiv-2yadH6VmKKx-Iuc/s1600/DINK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Jv-kmBUMOVziTnm29OyDVb7q9LoR_8UqAug0fhwGCVlQ-mUeAInBVhlNwSHFr1M_lMzl7T2FWJjiSscAvoWEYlfVivEz5rn3OQUuEa3D3PIKTKVuajTD_EaECiv-2yadH6VmKKx-Iuc/s320/DINK.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Little is (yet) known about </span><b style="font-family: inherit;">Dink Shannon</b><span style="font-family: inherit;">, a notable, if unknown, graphic stylist of the early comics page. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 32px;">Shannon's work offers one of the more distinctive visual styles of the early comics with artful distortion that resonates with the work of <b>Lyonel Feininger </b>and the early Expressionists.</span></div>
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Shannon, who signed his strips “Dink” (and sometimes with a four-leaf clover), appears to have
cartooned exclusively for the World Color Printing syndicate – a pre-printed
Sunday section operating out of St. Louis, Missouri. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu1gvan225HvyxJHXo0dYfEoG_eWkfEdkX_lYYEv9ajArOPonqIc33iptL95Or06fiyjct0fG4_PHbNfzNpCBZ-RHtAEQYzz6n7XgJwdpKjgJty2PI6nKUsltUjlrlD7qMk6oRaZ3G0hM/s1600/Dink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu1gvan225HvyxJHXo0dYfEoG_eWkfEdkX_lYYEv9ajArOPonqIc33iptL95Or06fiyjct0fG4_PHbNfzNpCBZ-RHtAEQYzz6n7XgJwdpKjgJty2PI6nKUsltUjlrlD7qMk6oRaZ3G0hM/s1600/Dink.jpg" /></a>His confident, expressionistic style
suggests both formal art training and perhaps a career as an artist outside of
comics, but little is yet known about him. </div>
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The comics of Dink Shannon will be just one of the many discoveries to be found in <i><b>Society Is Nix: Gleeful Anarchy at the Dawn of the American Comic Strip 1896-1915</b></i> (edited by Peter Maresca), the new release from Sunday Press due out sometime in July or August of this year. I was honored to be a contributing editor and essayist for this book, which will contain my article on the roots of screwball comics. Here's the cover of this volume, which features an image of <i>Sammy Small </i>by Dink:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coming July 2013 - the NEW Sunday Press book!</td></tr>
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From 1902 to 1909 Dink created and
worked on a dozen or so series including Sammy Small (1904-1906), <i>Mister
Pest, Book Agent</i> (1905-1906), <i>Mooney
Miggles And The Magic Cap</i> (1906-1909), and <i>Sallie Snooks, Stenographer</i> (1907-1909). The trail goes cold on Dink after 1909, but surely such a gifted artist must have continued to create, in some as yet undiscovered outlet, whether it was newspaper comics, magazine illustration, or some other form of commercial art.</div>
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<i>Sammy Small</i> seems to be a version of the naughty little boy concept that first surfaced in American newspaper comics with <i>The Katzenjammer Kids </i>and James Swinnerton's <i>Little Jimmy</i>. Sammy seems particularly nasty -- which is our first taste of the edginess of Dink Shannon's comics, which explored the peripheries of good taste and morals of the outsider.<br />
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As a formalist in a newly emerging medium, Dink also shows a flair for organizing his panels to better reflect the passage of events. In the comic below, check out how three fourths of the lower tier functions as a self-contained unit that depicts the boxing match. Dink accomplishes this by breaking this section of the second tier into two smaller tiers -- an unusual, and intelligent use of sequential art in 1905!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAXO9vpudSmb9NbStPCVjHq77g0rqJxgUcag0KtZIIG4VF2xHJfLiLE1GVx2d3V4wm0hZl_eudZDQviinpYaBdKq9qbTcCT1HglcRTt572MPqYg2qjqzBSol_VSeIJaV0QhrT-mRQjTyI/s1600/Shannon+Dink+Sammy+Small+May+14+1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAXO9vpudSmb9NbStPCVjHq77g0rqJxgUcag0KtZIIG4VF2xHJfLiLE1GVx2d3V4wm0hZl_eudZDQviinpYaBdKq9qbTcCT1HglcRTt572MPqYg2qjqzBSol_VSeIJaV0QhrT-mRQjTyI/s640/Shannon+Dink+Sammy+Small+May+14+1905.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sammy Small </i>by Dink Shannon - May 14, 1905<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">A singular idea for a comic strip is </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Mr.
Pest, Book Agent</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> (1905-1906) </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">covers the tireless efforts of a man bound to sell his fine
books, charmingly uttering “bound in cloth, calf, or morocco, beautifully
illustrated with deckle edges and color plates” through fires, flirtations, and
natural disasters. </span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIZeAEXMptsa18MxwdjqDGa3j7DA0_3sjZi-d8fKWPxmwcIboAE8K5auqp9GhOuD00xl1Vl9onJOp-ud_LuZrM7pgOOEvzuPHifbqVk8fWuoNV6NYHITsi4HDNRecr4iKvw4ndxZeP9nA/s1600/Shannon+Dink+Mr+Pest+Book+Agent+May+14+1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIZeAEXMptsa18MxwdjqDGa3j7DA0_3sjZi-d8fKWPxmwcIboAE8K5auqp9GhOuD00xl1Vl9onJOp-ud_LuZrM7pgOOEvzuPHifbqVk8fWuoNV6NYHITsi4HDNRecr4iKvw4ndxZeP9nA/s640/Shannon+Dink+Mr+Pest+Book+Agent+May+14+1905.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mr. Pest Pest, Book Agent</i> by Dink Shannon - May 14, 1905<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aside from the delightful, Charles Portis-like concept of an obsessed book salesman, Dink's strip is filled with artful, funny drawings.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps Dink's most visually experimental strip is </span></span><i>Mooney Miggles And The Magic Cap</i> (1906-1909), a parody of the hit comic <i>Happy Hooligan </i>(which premiered in 1900<i>)</i> by Frederick Opper. Where Happy wore a soup can on his head, Mooney has a problematic magic cap. In the first strip of the series, Goo Goo the magic dwarf (shades of the magic people in Gene Ahern's <i>The Squirrel Cage</i> thirty years later) gives Mooney his wish-granting cap:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMnq7HqKzM6t-WUnu7U1mzrkDgFD6eoOp5l-owDAjSZkF4x8mFZjlhjqG00rnAuci69m_VST_jOetpj41ptBblxD5KoPDLj-UO7rg3lJx5r_MOpBjeoLm5L-1Y5L02tNDMl_ZrwpJV3f4/s1600/Shannon+Dink+Mooney+Miggles+origin+august+19+1906.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMnq7HqKzM6t-WUnu7U1mzrkDgFD6eoOp5l-owDAjSZkF4x8mFZjlhjqG00rnAuci69m_VST_jOetpj41ptBblxD5KoPDLj-UO7rg3lJx5r_MOpBjeoLm5L-1Y5L02tNDMl_ZrwpJV3f4/s640/Shannon+Dink+Mooney+Miggles+origin+august+19+1906.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mooney Miggles and the Magic Cap<i> by Shannon Dink - August 19, 1906</i>(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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Check out that wordless fifth panel of Mooney sinking into the earth -- I love the Cubist, deconstructionist feel in this panel! Dink's art constantly feels on the verge of falling apart and rebuilding into something else -- a dreamlike morphing that, in some ways, comes from the same place as Winsor McCay's surreal comics.<br />
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The above strip also shows that, in <i>Mooney Miggles</i> at least, Dink was one of the most distinctive letters ever to work in comics.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzWXSFySpyPrPb5PpTVeTSCJ8NSBxJMihYje80X1h_6vPUC0cRCT8iEVBOQFRXK8C6nywaUfeNQM3-NVO_FFfciAQid-aDO-5_qLNF8Xif27W-qGU-qqxkeCJ9kGyFGQb0smxFWpm8WdU/s1600/Dink's+lettering.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzWXSFySpyPrPb5PpTVeTSCJ8NSBxJMihYje80X1h_6vPUC0cRCT8iEVBOQFRXK8C6nywaUfeNQM3-NVO_FFfciAQid-aDO-5_qLNF8Xif27W-qGU-qqxkeCJ9kGyFGQb0smxFWpm8WdU/s640/Dink's+lettering.jpg" width="408" /></a></div>
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<i>Mooney Miggles</i> is also an early example of continuity. In the undated episode from below, Mooney has lost his cap and expends some effort to find it, only to wind up in "The Foolish House."</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuHxa7MuzuMayL0OruBHMBGFx1MDqjvoOnvyRjhO6ii9tANj3TBOyly9wET-6btzRASVt6PPa85F_8ZzNUQUQUTzFfD7F7NnzK7nfMk8NAeugT9AUtt4Yk_TRVAcSFqSBshTtNrvZd7E8/s1600/Shannon+Dink+Mooney+Miggles+The+Foolish+House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuHxa7MuzuMayL0OruBHMBGFx1MDqjvoOnvyRjhO6ii9tANj3TBOyly9wET-6btzRASVt6PPa85F_8ZzNUQUQUTzFfD7F7NnzK7nfMk8NAeugT9AUtt4Yk_TRVAcSFqSBshTtNrvZd7E8/s640/Shannon+Dink+Mooney+Miggles+The+Foolish+House.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mooney Miggles and the Magic Cap</i> by Dink Shannon - date unknown<br />
(from the collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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In the above strip, I am struck by how Shannon sets up a grid of tall, narrow panels (10 panels in the space of the usual six) and elongates his figures proportionate to the panels. </div>
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AMong Dink's last known work is the series <i>Sallie Snooks, Stenographer</i>. In 1908, a stenographer was similar to what was later known as a typist, or a secretary. One of Dink's motifs seems to be the mis-adventures of the lower and working class folks. In the strip below, we can see a familiar drawing of a policeman in the fifth panel that echoes the policeman in the 7th and 8th panels, above.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZpBS3rO0gZQFtggrLuEYztPivAglCI6_xmhVDXh_dEvEU-faJ1SkXHHcFKd13J-8dIspacwIXaMjJOHpjxJ667sRL3vzX3jfKexmgfT9ERAJTTd4MTSExOI3yJS4RxQEwEpU1LI7V8k/s1600/Dink+Shannon+Sallie+Snooks+Stenographer+1908+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZpBS3rO0gZQFtggrLuEYztPivAglCI6_xmhVDXh_dEvEU-faJ1SkXHHcFKd13J-8dIspacwIXaMjJOHpjxJ667sRL3vzX3jfKexmgfT9ERAJTTd4MTSExOI3yJS4RxQEwEpU1LI7V8k/s640/Dink+Shannon+Sallie+Snooks+Stenographer+1908+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="456" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sallie Snooks, Stenographer</i> was one of Dink Shannon's last known comics series,<br />
and may have influenced the creation of the hit strip, <i>Somebody's Stenog</i>, by A.E. Hayward</td></tr>
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Dink's work, it seems to me, is certainly interesting enough to merit further exploration. I've spent some time digging for more information on this artist and have come up with nothing. On his Stripper's Guide, Allan Holtz, shares some great Dink material <a href="http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/search?q=dink+shannon" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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Bound in the finest cajun Skin, with deckled edges,</div>
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Screwball Paul</div>
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Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-17664572700399348692013-05-04T09:50:00.001-07:002013-05-15T07:30:28.682-07:00Rube Goldberg Machines Found in Bobo Baxter and Lala Palooza<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMfDJgpSg7jhYmd0BxpOoITPaDwf4p0BoiMHVWXaokTNgz9TzkWJQ1f5cEWcYn8n07Jl-k6ZOnmFtWCnZpzpNmaM20nVbw0hr5cu41PBcYIHVyKDXAwAUX1eDJXBQ_l_JkvyZko880-Bg/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+Machine+Cartoon+Invention+5+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMfDJgpSg7jhYmd0BxpOoITPaDwf4p0BoiMHVWXaokTNgz9TzkWJQ1f5cEWcYn8n07Jl-k6ZOnmFtWCnZpzpNmaM20nVbw0hr5cu41PBcYIHVyKDXAwAUX1eDJXBQ_l_JkvyZko880-Bg/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+Machine+Cartoon+Invention+5+Tumey.jpg" /></a></div>
Rube Goldberg first created his famous invention cartoons around 1914. They appeared sporadically in his daily newspaper comics, randomly rotating with a host of other series such as <i>Foolish Questions</i>, <i>I'm The Guy</i>, and <i>Father Was Right</i>. In retrospect, Rube's freewheeling approach to comics was nothing short of astonishing. Sadly, most of his output from his best years 1914-1922 remains out of print and unknown to most readers, even fans of Goldberg's.<br />
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He drew perhaps 20-30 invention cartoons a year (the exact number remains unknown, and this number is purely a guess). In the 1920s, American comic strips began to change, with a greater emphasis on adventure strips that told longer stories, as with <i>Little Orphan Annie</i>. With continuity on his mind, Rube -- for the first time -- locked himself into <i>Bobo Baxter</i>, a single daily continuity strip in 1927. Even so, inventions were a prime theme in the strip,which lasted about a year (the strip ran from December 7, 1927 to November 24, 1928). Bobo himself was a backyard inventor who -- inspired by Charles Lindbergh's recent solo trans-Atlantic flight -- developed a flying bicycle (complete with two never-deflating helium balloons). Here's the first strip:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZkn1IU0wzEiMoyjJ9O4Qw82Khj1Xl9b2i4aGXJBWGzcg_cICGsVa0HkmmHCT4MyXtWZJeNRXva8Q7XvRXEP_Sqwi6HoyQoxlary0ue67AQqeL1PaO29UziM383ot1BI1Fd4ULfU-kz4/s1600/001Bobo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZkn1IU0wzEiMoyjJ9O4Qw82Khj1Xl9b2i4aGXJBWGzcg_cICGsVa0HkmmHCT4MyXtWZJeNRXva8Q7XvRXEP_Sqwi6HoyQoxlary0ue67AQqeL1PaO29UziM383ot1BI1Fd4ULfU-kz4/s640/001Bobo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first episode of Rube Goldberg's first daily continuity strip,<i> Bobo Baxter</i><br />
December 7, 1927</td></tr>
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Even though he was telling a long story in short installments, Rube could not resist the urge to make more cartoon inventions. It is fascinating to see how Rube worked these into his continuity. Here's the seventh Bobo Baxter episode, which features his Rube Goldberg Machine called "An Easy Way to Make Up Your Mind."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4S0KXO2_d36CEu_YHu99LY2UqsDyQnpxGIwzy4XhwU3u324DPjViP6jFWl21SVPZH2_1gqo8ByopYP3TI49FvA8OC9Uj7_nAJLxbIfmBfDYTo7IX6jxe79wgSLiR_K1SNvZdZpO8ovWw/s1600/007Bobo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4S0KXO2_d36CEu_YHu99LY2UqsDyQnpxGIwzy4XhwU3u324DPjViP6jFWl21SVPZH2_1gqo8ByopYP3TI49FvA8OC9Uj7_nAJLxbIfmBfDYTo7IX6jxe79wgSLiR_K1SNvZdZpO8ovWw/s640/007Bobo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rube Goldberg integrated his invention cartoons into his daily continuity strips<br />
<i>Bobo Baxter</i>, December 14, 1927</td></tr>
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The little man in the derby at lower left is Bobo Baxter. Otherwise, there is no element of continuity in this episode -- and it become merely an excuse to show another invention cartoon. Later in the strip's run, Rube became a little smoother at working the inventions into his storyline. He created a mad inventor character and played him off his regular characters.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNOhlSKVnSKw1SY14ScWTlarqavXT9KG-UjTyN2fqlHO8Q4vdDG-7wpxOj49b8aRDGTIeCYfmX-UMuT-fNUAo61THJO6t1UhDseGkTlFYugC6jhdYHyFEoY5G9XVKTwvAUqj2eRrIB1o/s1600/Bobo+Baxter+Rube+Goldberg+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNOhlSKVnSKw1SY14ScWTlarqavXT9KG-UjTyN2fqlHO8Q4vdDG-7wpxOj49b8aRDGTIeCYfmX-UMuT-fNUAo61THJO6t1UhDseGkTlFYugC6jhdYHyFEoY5G9XVKTwvAUqj2eRrIB1o/s640/Bobo+Baxter+Rube+Goldberg+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early version of Professor Butts in <i>Bobo Baxter</i> by Rube Goldberg</td></tr>
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After<i> Bobo Baxter</i> ended, Rube went back to his randomly shifting, a different strip every day approach. In 1929, however, he created a new series, The Inventions of Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K. for Collier's magazine. We can see the prototype of Professor Butts in the Bobo Baxter strip above. In fact, Rube even drew the Professor -- who remained unseen in the series named after him -- in a 1928 Collier's story ("It's the Little Things That Matter," which can be read at the bottom of the Rube Goldberg page on this blog) in which he introduced the character:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-luwWPfDy33fjeQSttltp0zdZ5PKtWc8L3JVmHbZA6zDfesOyCyzQz7xgkZLN2FENgNDuc6ci4R8Axlmez9lgoIDA4Jg84_WrG-Si1mQrEFlBO7Fieto7lS39Fo9UUK9g0I549ZoZn1U/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+First+Professor+Butts+drawing+1928.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-luwWPfDy33fjeQSttltp0zdZ5PKtWc8L3JVmHbZA6zDfesOyCyzQz7xgkZLN2FENgNDuc6ci4R8Axlmez9lgoIDA4Jg84_WrG-Si1mQrEFlBO7Fieto7lS39Fo9UUK9g0I549ZoZn1U/s400/Rube+Goldberg+First+Professor+Butts+drawing+1928.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rube Goldberg's first depiction of Professor Lucifer Gorganzola Butts, A.K. in his story<br />
"It's the Little Things That Matter" (Collier's, November 3, 1928)</td></tr>
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You can see the lineage of the character from <i>Bobo Baxter</i> -- the appearance is virtually identical.<br />
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While the Collier's series ran from 1929-1931, Rube also sprinkled his daily cartoons with inventions. Even though he is known today for his crazy inventions, back in 1937, Rube was famous for his grotesque, surreal cartoons. In fact, in the 1937 Paramount film, <b><i>Artists and Models</i></b>, Rube makes a cameo appearance as himself. He is introduced in the following clip at the 2:19 mark by fellow cartoonist Russell Patterson (with whom he founded the National Cartoonist Society) as "the original surrealist."<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/O25LCuOiiD0" width="420"></iframe><br />
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In 1934, Rube created a new continuity strip, <i>Doc Wright</i>. Oddly, it was a non-humorous soap opera. I have the complete run, and it is devoid of any hint of crazy mechanical contraptions. Small wonder that Rube ditched the strip in less than a year.<br />
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His next continuity strip,<i> Lala Palooza</i> (September 14, 1936- December 4, 1937) was stuffed with humor. As with <i>Bobo Baxter</i>, Rube found ways to work his inventions into the strip's continuity. Lala's brother, Vincent, shifted from a lazy layabout to an industrious inventor and began to produce a new contrivance every week. Here's his "<b>Simple Device to Foil Stick-Up Men:</b>"<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDrJfU6KAIOV0mMQ_lAE73ZkOaZCByYhvi0pk5e_51mwYBbH4Mma78geCPfI1jOMKregxEn7xjIKS1yJadSq0pIjBOA6__EyVu-HSO5r2mVb5Eix-fRNNgMqvyuHDvGuhXwfSITY7vi-A/s1600/lalapalooza.1937+-+invention2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDrJfU6KAIOV0mMQ_lAE73ZkOaZCByYhvi0pk5e_51mwYBbH4Mma78geCPfI1jOMKregxEn7xjIKS1yJadSq0pIjBOA6__EyVu-HSO5r2mVb5Eix-fRNNgMqvyuHDvGuhXwfSITY7vi-A/s640/lalapalooza.1937+-+invention2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rube Goldberg integrates an invention into a 1937 episode of his <i>Lala Palooza</i> daily humor-adventure comic strip</td></tr>
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With his steady output of invention cartoons, even using them in his editorial cartoons of 1938-1960, Rube won a place for himself in the collective consciousness as an inventor of nutty machines. In fact, for most people today, his name is synonymous with "complex machine to accomplish a trivial task." A recent poll of people under 30 revealed that most of them know what a "Rube Goldberg" is, but very few indeed realized that the name belonged to an actual person -- a great cartoonist.<br />
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Be sure to check back tomorrow for another Rube Goldberg invention cartoon. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">And don't forget -- </span><b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">be sure to visit the official <a href="http://rubegoldberg.com/Contest" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg Machine Contest</a> to see the ELEVEN FINALISTS (just announced today!) for the 2013 Online contest. While there, you can vote for your favorite -- the winner will score the coveted "People's Choice" Award!</b><br />
<b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></b><b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">See Also:</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://rubegoldberg.com/gallery" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg, Inc. Gallery</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-origins-of-rube-goldbergs-professor.html" target="_blank">The Origins of Rube Goldberg's Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K.</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/05/rube-goldberg-machine-cartoon.html" target="_blank">A Simplified Can Opener</a> (1929)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/05/rube-goldberg-machine-invention-cartoon.html" target="_blank">An Automatic Cigar Cutter (1930)</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/rube-goldberg-machine-for-testing.html" target="_blank"><b>Rube Goldberg Machine For Testing Liquor In 1930s Prohibition America</b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-original-iconic-self-operating.html" target="_blank">The Original, Iconic Self-Operating Napkin Cartoon and Others by Rube Goldberg</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>More Lala Palooza can be read <a href="http://www.screwballcomics.blogspot.com/search/label/Rube%20Goldberg%3A%20Lala%20Palooza" target="_blank">here</a></b></span></div>
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<b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></b><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Yours In All Things Great and Screwball,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Paul Tumey</span><br />
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<i>All text copyright 2013 Paul Tumey and may not be used without written permission</i><br />
<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-50326277344855414292013-05-03T12:34:00.000-07:002013-05-03T12:34:21.885-07:00Rube Goldberg Machine Cartoon Invention: The Only Sanitary Way To Lick A Postage Stamp (1916)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8vEpvbCqoIYADv5Ww72ICUyIpQBxuAfNrVoVzgVGiDfNktmkd8_yvib_WCW2sd7iun9zed-8cjGrb-u1w-Ja1XR1SMtrWTTOVTzaDnKip6TpuurmuD7PWRpq3OKarTfxcdQaG48iJRV0/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+Machine+Cartoon+Invention+4+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8vEpvbCqoIYADv5Ww72ICUyIpQBxuAfNrVoVzgVGiDfNktmkd8_yvib_WCW2sd7iun9zed-8cjGrb-u1w-Ja1XR1SMtrWTTOVTzaDnKip6TpuurmuD7PWRpq3OKarTfxcdQaG48iJRV0/s320/Rube+Goldberg+Machine+Cartoon+Invention+4+Tumey.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
How many invention cartoons did Rube Goldberg create? Thus far, no one has actually successfully cataloged the entire output of this seminal American humorist-cartoonist.<br />
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We simply don't know. Certainly hundreds. Maybe thousands. Rube himself estimated that he had created over 50,000 cartoons in his career -- a staggering number -- but he didn't specify how many of these were his Rube Goldberg machine cartoons. Incredibly, some 43 years after his death, this question remains unanswered.<br />
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In the upcoming book, <b><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Rube-Goldberg-Inventive/dp/141970852X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367608155&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+rube+goldberg" target="_blank">The Art of Rube Goldberg </a></span></b>(Abrams ComicArts, November 2013), you'll find an ersatz list of Rube's comic series that I assembled. This far from complete list took me months to research and document. The list in the back of the official biography,<i> Rube Goldberg: His Life and Work</i> by Peter Marzio (Harper and Row, 1973) turns out to be filled with errors and omissions. Marzio was working from the memory of an ailing 87-year old man and whatever records he could find in the pre-Internet era.<br />
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Even with access to today's online digital archives, the challenge of finding and documenting every published Rube Goldberg cartoon is daunting, requiring perhaps years of dedicated work. However, until we have a day-by-day record of Rube's published cartoons, we'll never be able to say much of anything about his work with authority.<br />
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For example, Peter Marzio's book states that Rube's first A to Z diagram style invention cartoon, an <b>Automatic Weight Reducing Machine</b>, was published in August, 1914. Here's the cartoon as reproduced the book (sans text, unfortunately):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3oUPqyhwkxqWgdF4ZhNm_HjDsWcYrmil8_DjWimJ7X2aK9rKOxAjGUvXPAp2ud8gg7s6BqAsjK-ZcoFBr853kEDtBOjdfYglKVgVXjh2kRW7Ef72UsrNCRoQlgCWbTlo1hyphenhyphenUIqbrE5nE/s1600/First+Invention+Cartoon+1914.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3oUPqyhwkxqWgdF4ZhNm_HjDsWcYrmil8_DjWimJ7X2aK9rKOxAjGUvXPAp2ud8gg7s6BqAsjK-ZcoFBr853kEDtBOjdfYglKVgVXjh2kRW7Ef72UsrNCRoQlgCWbTlo1hyphenhyphenUIqbrE5nE/s640/First+Invention+Cartoon+1914.tif" width="640" /></a></div>
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While I haven't found anything earlier, I also haven't made an exhaustive search through 1907-1914, which is the only way to really be sure.<br />
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I hope someday to get a sponsor to fund the creation of a catalog of Rube's cartoons -- something that I think would of great use in future cartoon history projects.<br />
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I have for you today a scan from a scrapbook I purchased in 2012 that contains numerous early Rube Goldberg cartoons clipped from newspapers and pasted onto its pages. This scan presents an early invention cartoon which carries a "Copyright 1916" slug in it. In some cases, I have been able to ascertain actual dates of my scrapbook cartoons by carefully separating them from the scrapbook pages and examining the content on the reverse side. If there's no date, there often is a news story that can be researched. Rube's cartoons were published in the sports pages during this era, so it's often pretty simple to look up a boxing match or ball game mentioned on the reverse side of the cartoons and discover the actual date of the clipping. Unfortunately, for the following invention cartoon, I could not locate any such information.<br />
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That being said, this is a pretty sweet example. You'll notice that, compared to the Professor Butts cartoons done some 15 years later, the drawing is less accomplished, and the inventions are simpler, with less "moving parts."<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMuCFV7K5c4vQJOyeolGzVce4XXURQcknCX63PS9mApXTIonlp0mCasUDq0vGXmlCyEyc0iWWIE-aGSSQjnHPffby5IUGQIjmSt2jQilUb1t-Zd8hxgoTZoWYeVWm7KRrIHcJHQvsY1M/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+1916+invention+Lick+Postage+Stamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMuCFV7K5c4vQJOyeolGzVce4XXURQcknCX63PS9mApXTIonlp0mCasUDq0vGXmlCyEyc0iWWIE-aGSSQjnHPffby5IUGQIjmSt2jQilUb1t-Zd8hxgoTZoWYeVWm7KRrIHcJHQvsY1M/s640/Rube+Goldberg+1916+invention+Lick+Postage+Stamp.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Only Sanitary Way to Lick A Postage Stamp by Rube Goldberg, 1916<br />(Collection of Paul Tumey)</td></tr>
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However, the basic concept is all here -- with people and animals mixed with strings, pulleys, and other devices in a mad scheme to moisten a postage stamp. Compare this cartoon with a similar invention created 15 years later, <b>A Simple Appliance Fro Putting Postage Stamps On Envelopes</b> (January 26, 1929 - <i>Collier's</i>) and you'll see the exact same general idea.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij-Ze5bYd79E5xUa611Bq-BsnKT3dl2YhdTy9y957bfQYJMuXbCoA4k6hyCYslvL0lCQ1qcbsSZWkUpZ_Jc_aGY9WYEx3jpHsBX5SUuXXrpRVc7Nq9XDeZ-NuMTiWqBHTWqwARXgcojaA/s1600/butts19290126+Colliers+Jan+26+1929+first+Prof+Butts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij-Ze5bYd79E5xUa611Bq-BsnKT3dl2YhdTy9y957bfQYJMuXbCoA4k6hyCYslvL0lCQ1qcbsSZWkUpZ_Jc_aGY9WYEx3jpHsBX5SUuXXrpRVc7Nq9XDeZ-NuMTiWqBHTWqwARXgcojaA/s640/butts19290126+Colliers+Jan+26+1929+first+Prof+Butts.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first cartoon in The Inventions of Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K.<br />January 26, 1929 - Collier's</td></tr>
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Be sure to check back tomorrow for another Rube Goldberg invention cartoon. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">And don't forget -- </span><b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">be sure to visit the official <a href="http://rubegoldberg.com/Contest" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg Machine Contest</a> to see the ELEVEN FINALISTS (just announced today!) for the 2013 Online contest. While there, you can vote for your favorite -- the winner will score the coveted "People's Choice" Award!</b><br />
<b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></b><b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">See Also:</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://rubegoldberg.com/gallery" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg, Inc. Gallery</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-origins-of-rube-goldbergs-professor.html" target="_blank">The Origins of Rube Goldberg's Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K.</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/05/rube-goldberg-machine-cartoon.html" target="_blank">A Simplified Can Opener</a> (1929)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/05/rube-goldberg-machine-invention-cartoon.html" target="_blank">An Automatic Cigar Cutter (1930)</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/rube-goldberg-machine-for-testing.html" target="_blank"><b>Rube Goldberg Machine For Testing Liquor In 1930s Prohibition America</b></a></span></div>
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<a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-original-iconic-self-operating.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The Original, Iconic Self-Operating Napkin Cartoon and Others by Rube Goldberg</b></span></a></div>
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<b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></b><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Yours In All Things Great and Screwball,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Paul Tumey</span><br />
Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-801545793749494312013-05-02T15:27:00.002-07:002013-05-02T15:33:58.489-07:00Rube Goldberg Machine Invention Cartoon: An Automatic Cigar Cutter (1930)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7UXdl7Ous3VNLmuZyg8KX58b4KBW6jzcJ2oh_ur2IC_PAYOQpt9ZmAjOlIFHtQSibcIoUA2EfBHZpuDgrnoRG-Eautfyc4jjUCoTrzUlA5N9JGQcdAA1JK3kH2Mdj_6jougHy36OZTgs/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+Machine+Cartoon+Invention+3+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7UXdl7Ous3VNLmuZyg8KX58b4KBW6jzcJ2oh_ur2IC_PAYOQpt9ZmAjOlIFHtQSibcIoUA2EfBHZpuDgrnoRG-Eautfyc4jjUCoTrzUlA5N9JGQcdAA1JK3kH2Mdj_6jougHy36OZTgs/s320/Rube+Goldberg+Machine+Cartoon+Invention+3+Tumey.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Rube Goldberg's pseudo-scientist alter-ego, <b>Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K</b>., first appeared in a 1928 Collier's short story by Rube Goldberg called "It's the Little Things That Matter." You can read that story <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSps3Lx6w2ZAYfOJz8FWez2VoRczaHcfzOtENzaNXateREN5ewNBHN9DsWMukkd6XuJ4Day1LHOagCnRq5IgSs5rIncQFEPq_G0ETk6W2FJB7C9e0-QMtvjHsQfSJ-rKfPhwI7NnDIcKY/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+article+Colliers+Nov+3+1928+1.jpg" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFBpmvOObVaptvnme8BuvpZPV8Feew6rXmtNyDeIhyphenhyphenL6xG2ivh_BoqjM3Ek_e4tct7TjVFYpWzfznWpzslXtAWe5jujYiAAUdObrzLN1oSNbh5RrnIXbSwYTqY2cEaHoSBy7-CqNO7fZ0/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+article+Colliers+Nov+3+1928+2.jpg" target="_blank">here</a>. A year later, Rube Goldberg began a 3-year cartoon series presenting the inventions of that engineer of over-complexity, Professor Butts. Rube created about sixty of these Butts masterpieces from 1929-1931.<br />
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The character was an instant success, despite the odd fact that Professor Butts never actually appeared in the series named after him, <i>The Inventions of Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K. </i>We get to know the Professor through his inventions, and through the brief bits of text about him in that appeared on the left side of the cartoon. He was forever knocking his head into things, or falling into machinery and emerging with new inspirations. (It's an interesting diversion to ask who is writing the text about the inventions, if not Butts?).<br />
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Here's his amazing solution for cutting cigars -- an invention that includes an Eskimo and a Zoovle-Pup (one of Rube's many made up animals):<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsRZlZQYHsHiRFuq95rECU5-BHvUJDQVsspQNYouhZkNmsjokN2xVYPHUecd4Ma6mSW9muFMliLs8oKfzbmy6tAFjKLJNXpI44YyG8ftWa1ilRi-wpC42H96ISRRTK6gK-87owR3j4IuA/s1600/butts19300111+Automatic+Cigar+Cutter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsRZlZQYHsHiRFuq95rECU5-BHvUJDQVsspQNYouhZkNmsjokN2xVYPHUecd4Ma6mSW9muFMliLs8oKfzbmy6tAFjKLJNXpI44YyG8ftWa1ilRi-wpC42H96ISRRTK6gK-87owR3j4IuA/s640/butts19300111+Automatic+Cigar+Cutter.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>An Automatic Cigar Cutter </b>by Rube Goldberg<br />
January 11, 1930 - <i>Collier's</i></td></tr>
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In the cartoon above, we learn that the absent-minded Professor waked through a glass door. Despite his Godot-like presence, the Professor was a hit with readers. Here's a letter from the September 28, 1929 edition of <i>Collier's</i>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFv2UlmLBx0NDMZCTtyQh6iq_5fsO2J-Iru90jm1eFMtROsxoKWg28Z6Ydd9qyBA6Gw-Do8Ja9O2LoxVWL24qLsODrGPtMBZilSLmsvqoukDXeW_kTn_0pYhRBD-HNs1sHvzbEBZG2RRo/s1600/butts19290928+letter+about+professor+butts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFv2UlmLBx0NDMZCTtyQh6iq_5fsO2J-Iru90jm1eFMtROsxoKWg28Z6Ydd9qyBA6Gw-Do8Ja9O2LoxVWL24qLsODrGPtMBZilSLmsvqoukDXeW_kTn_0pYhRBD-HNs1sHvzbEBZG2RRo/s320/butts19290928+letter+about+professor+butts.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Few people know about this series, or the actual publication history of these invention cartoons, which have been oft-reprinted (one was the basis for the United States 1995 commemorative stamp). Fewer still know that Professor Butts was also a star character on a popular radio program.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPsYeO_986BrZBk2xGaZtGuY22CSZfbupl9Fq4geji5XkvrzMXzPhhvLsLruKE9RugosZAFIVVxMcaScLoffZVfInkPwdBeWkvnKKrlgmqHV1pfi0ePOMObpOtpI_1oSaCe21sHx0WfJY/s1600/butts19291005+ad+for+Prof+Butt+and+Rube+on+radio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPsYeO_986BrZBk2xGaZtGuY22CSZfbupl9Fq4geji5XkvrzMXzPhhvLsLruKE9RugosZAFIVVxMcaScLoffZVfInkPwdBeWkvnKKrlgmqHV1pfi0ePOMObpOtpI_1oSaCe21sHx0WfJY/s640/butts19291005+ad+for+Prof+Butt+and+Rube+on+radio.jpg" width="467" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rube Goldberg's Professor Butts appeared on the Collier's Radio Hour<br />
Ad from Collier's -- Oct 5, 1929 (art is NOT by Goldberg)</td></tr>
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To help boost circulation, Collier's magazine sponsored <i>Collier's Radio Hour</i> -- a weekly show with content based on what was appearing in the print magazine. The show appeared in the prize prime time slot on Sunday evenings. An actor portrayed Professor Lucifer G. Butts, although Rube Goldberg did appear in at least a couple of episodes as himself. Collier's ran regular ads in their magazine, promoting the show and often positioning the Professor as a star attraction.<br />
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I've searched high and low for a recording of the radio version of Professor Butts, but have yet to find anything. If anyone out there has any audio of this, please contact me -- Paul Tumey -- at paultumey@gmail.com.<br />
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I have, however, found a few descriptions in newspapers of the audio version of the professor that provide a good idea of the standard approach to the character. Here's one:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXA-4uoNiOhJCmUuu3eoYA01gF-iKmHoOLOP855k_u1EH63qTts59ieXsgTnUX1j35E-IR8JQiua7e4n7KZBMd6_0b5wIOb4Sjq0G5jyDTeRZsWIYVlKt7brcX5i-mLy4jhsLQRGSBwA8/s1600/butts19290420+Butts+on+radio+description+of+act.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXA-4uoNiOhJCmUuu3eoYA01gF-iKmHoOLOP855k_u1EH63qTts59ieXsgTnUX1j35E-IR8JQiua7e4n7KZBMd6_0b5wIOb4Sjq0G5jyDTeRZsWIYVlKt7brcX5i-mLy4jhsLQRGSBwA8/s640/butts19290420+Butts+on+radio+description+of+act.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
April 20, 1929</td></tr>
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To Rube's credit, he refrained from actually depicting the Professor in his <i>Collier's</i> cartoons (except as an illustration in his 1928 short story introducing the character). By leaving the Professor's appearance to the imagination, the character assumes a far more potent wackiness that any literal depiction -- even one by the great Goldberg -- could only disappoint.<br />
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In later years, however, Rube did give form to the Professor in a few sketches, such as this one, reproduced in his 1968 book, <i>Rube Goldberg vs. The Machine Age (</i>the original art was in black and white -- I've added color, here):<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFhB0-kCsqhgybILLvPQnHOp7mt_cJC2VtZSoA0-_1NhDW4-b35_wQtA1IhXtPKEcFPtuJ6Y6p6ZADvJ6qIFgzRuN3o2FEve8bmpJ4t48SsRFNW-7FsQwJOUuNCeeM2bJcH3EPN9fmm0/s1600/Proff+Butts+colored+by+Paul+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFhB0-kCsqhgybILLvPQnHOp7mt_cJC2VtZSoA0-_1NhDW4-b35_wQtA1IhXtPKEcFPtuJ6Y6p6ZADvJ6qIFgzRuN3o2FEve8bmpJ4t48SsRFNW-7FsQwJOUuNCeeM2bJcH3EPN9fmm0/s320/Proff+Butts+colored+by+Paul+Tumey.jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A later version of Professor Butts by Rube Goldberg</td></tr>
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Be sure to check back tomorrow for another Rube Goldberg invention cartoon. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">And don't forget -- </span><b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">be sure to visit the official <a href="http://rubegoldberg.com/Contest" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg Machine Contest</a> to see the ELEVEN FINALISTS (just announced today!) for the 2013 Online contest. While there, you can vote for your favorite -- the winner will score the coveted "People's Choice" Award!</b><br />
<b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></b><b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">See Also:</b><br />
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://rubegoldberg.com/gallery" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg, Inc. Gallery</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-origins-of-rube-goldbergs-professor.html" target="_blank">The Origins of Rube Goldberg's Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K.</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/05/rube-goldberg-machine-cartoon.html" target="_blank">A Simplified Can Opener</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/rube-goldberg-machine-for-testing.html" target="_blank"><b>Rube Goldberg Machine For Testing Liquor In 1930s Prohibition America</b></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-original-iconic-self-operating.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The Original, Iconic Self-Operating Napkin Cartoon and Others by Rube Goldberg</b></span></a></div>
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<b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></b><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Yours In All Things Great and Screwball,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Paul Tumey</span><br />
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<br />Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7778777435910011284.post-55794155174147055852013-05-01T17:04:00.003-07:002013-05-01T17:26:10.532-07:00Rube Goldberg Machine Cartoon: Simplified Can Opener (1929)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheAC8qsQ51i9aSIALwQkam9G7TMCu7HhmmVM17FCBkfqXcOtYLkALvptvFTP7Eye7s0ekqf_2tbctMqRocRFKQ0oqAo2SyuHgU_cWW8G-XMFjwzModzlUqNs1q1kaW4B32Px_S1ZsFY2s/s1600/Rube+Goldberg+Machine+Cartoon+Invention+Tumey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheAC8qsQ51i9aSIALwQkam9G7TMCu7HhmmVM17FCBkfqXcOtYLkALvptvFTP7Eye7s0ekqf_2tbctMqRocRFKQ0oqAo2SyuHgU_cWW8G-XMFjwzModzlUqNs1q1kaW4B32Px_S1ZsFY2s/s320/Rube+Goldberg+Machine+Cartoon+Invention+Tumey.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Continuing our week-long extravaganza of Rube Goldberg inventions, here's his <b>Simplified Can Opener</b>, originally published in the July 27, 1929 issue of <i>Collier's</i> weekly magazine.<br />
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Of course, nothing about Rube Goldberg's inventions is simple, and this particular machine for opening a can involves a maid, an alarm clock, a net, a golf club, and a milk can -- and that's just for starters!<br />
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This design also includes waltzing mice and a dragon. One thing that's often overlooked about Rube Goldberg's invention cartoons is that he combined <u>both</u> living creatures and inorganic objects into new forms -- reminding us of <b>Marshall McLuhan's</b> famous observation that technological developments are extensions of our physiology and senses.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQX7qEefHBZzLH3vIciHgUOOfsFIL9q2anbTVUgVnoVjFK2plWm1Bhu3QTLaEvLr-gID43lRayymPT8MoQXbbZr_YP4fTuooiJ-MR1rEttS2U4rumVjWZxeTtkTd7E_pOMmDY-PzyvEMU/s1600/butts19290727+Simplified+Can+Opener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQX7qEefHBZzLH3vIciHgUOOfsFIL9q2anbTVUgVnoVjFK2plWm1Bhu3QTLaEvLr-gID43lRayymPT8MoQXbbZr_YP4fTuooiJ-MR1rEttS2U4rumVjWZxeTtkTd7E_pOMmDY-PzyvEMU/s640/butts19290727+Simplified+Can+Opener.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Simplified Can Opener</b> by Rube Goldberg<br />
Originally published July 27, 1929 in <i>Collier's</i> magazine</td></tr>
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A manufacturing process combines people with objects to transform things into something else. Rube's machines also often involve people and, for good measure, lots of different animals. In this cartoon, Rube integrates a "pet dragon," which is a rare instance of a fantasy animal appearing in his inventions. Usually, Rube worked hard to make his inventions feel plausible, drawing not just A soup can cartoon, for example, but THE soup can cartoon. However, in his 1929-1931 series for <i>Collier's</i>, <i>The Inventions of Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K</i>., Rube achieved a new level of mastery which allowed him to not only include more and more objects into his inventions, but also more animals -- even mythological creatures such as fire-breathing dragons.<br />
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Looking at this piece, a tableau of domestic surrealism, rendered with straight-faced wit, it seems clear that Rube was as much a Surrealist and Dada-ist as Magritte, Dali, Duchamp, or Man Ray who also enjoyed presenting the absurd with a deadpan manner. In fact, Duchamp and Man Ray included a Rube Goldberg cartoon panel in their 1921 publication, <i>New York DaDa</i>. In 1936, three of Rube's invention cartoons were chosen for a landmark exhibit, "Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism," displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1936. Here's a review of the exhibit that includes an admiring mention of Goldberg's inclusion:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-khFoCoZ0ZIZ3HsAL9pJLE9FbOk8-27o0waUYH-9C0RDr9ZQ1yndDwkPZTg2wSVo4ffhJaCgZtoTLIxjlxeRsqcPeQKzS61-efUXJUjhWM-JUJ4HE7P_HXGu-OHMT1QCA-rjC1cxEMYk/s1600/Literary+Digest+Dec+12,+1936+Rube+cartoons+in+DaDa+show.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-khFoCoZ0ZIZ3HsAL9pJLE9FbOk8-27o0waUYH-9C0RDr9ZQ1yndDwkPZTg2wSVo4ffhJaCgZtoTLIxjlxeRsqcPeQKzS61-efUXJUjhWM-JUJ4HE7P_HXGu-OHMT1QCA-rjC1cxEMYk/s640/Literary+Digest+Dec+12,+1936+Rube+cartoons+in+DaDa+show.jpg" width="404" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rube Goldberg's invention cartoons are recognized as Surreal and Dada art<br />in this 1936 review of a MOMA exhibit</td></tr>
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A modest man, Rube Goldberg never placed himself in any such context, but it seems clear that his screwball sensibility was a direct influence on a significant artistic movement, and if you ask me, it's high time we recognize this!<br />
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Be sure to check back tomorrow for another Rube Goldberg invention cartoon. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">And don't forget -- </span><b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">be sure to visit the official <a href="http://rubegoldberg.com/Contest" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg Machine Contest</a> to see the ELEVEN FINALISTS (just announced today!) for the 2013 Online contest. While there, you can vote for your favorite -- the winner will score the coveted "People's Choice" Award!</b><br />
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<b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">See Also:</b><br />
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<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="http://rubegoldberg.com/gallery" target="_blank">Rube Goldberg, Inc. Gallery</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-origins-of-rube-goldbergs-professor.html" target="_blank"><b>The Origins of Rube Goldberg's Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K.</b></a></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2013/04/rube-goldberg-machine-for-testing.html" target="_blank"><b>Rube Goldberg Machine For Testing Liquor In 1930s Prohibition America</b></a></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div>
<a href="http://screwballcomics.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-original-iconic-self-operating.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The Original, Iconic Self-Operating Napkin Cartoon and Others by Rube Goldberg</b></span></a></div>
<br />
<b style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></b>
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Now, Where Did I Put My Simplified Can Opener,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Paul Tumey</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 17px;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">All text copyright 2013 Paul Tumey</span></i></span>Paul C.Tumeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05398929835829679477noreply@blogger.com2