Harvey Kurtzman's Pigtales for Parkinson's - Sizzling Screwball Comics From 1946!

Ya gotta admit: cartoon pigs are funny. One of the undisputed masters of screwball comics is Harvey Kurtzman, who certainly seemed to appreciate the comedic possibilities of porcine antics. In today's post, I've snuffled out the rare, first Kurtzman Pigtales story that sits like a truffle in the mud of Timely's lackluster golden age humor comics.

If you like the Pigtales comic below, you can buy the entire series of six in a digitally restored ebook (in cbr format) for only $3.00 (please allow 24 hours for email delivery as I sending these out manually to keep the cost low).

Here's the Table of Contents page from the ebook:

You'll also get links to download FREE .cbr viewers for PC and Mac.

Kurtzman's work stands in direct lineage from screwball masters Rube Goldberg, Milt Gross and Bill Holman (with a little Jack Cole thrown in). Kurtzman's work has the skewed perspective, exaggerated action, and zany energy found in screwball comics. It also has the characteristic compression of information, with jokes buried within jokes. In the early 1950s, Kurtzman's MAD brought self-awareness to American pop culture and profoundly influenced generations of creative minds, including art spiegelman and Robert Crumb.

I won't attempt a recap of Kurztman's career and influence, here. There's a few books out there that do a pretty good job of that, especially The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics by Dennis Kitchen and Paul Buhle (New York: Abrams Comic Arts, 2009) - which currently (April 2013) is available from Amazon for a bargain price of $18 (regularly $45).

Most fans of Kurtzman's comics know about his wonderful early surreal Hey Look! one-pagers, and a few folks even have the excellent 1992 Kitchen Sink collection (long out of print). Here's a color paper scan from Willie Comics #7 (Timely, April 1947).

Harvey Kurtzman loved drawing pigs. From Willie Comics #7  (April 1947)

It's always been fascinating to me to consider that the editor who bought and published these experimental-type comics was none other than Marvel mogul Stan Lee. That's right, before he hooked up with William Gaines at E.C. Comics and created MAD (as well as Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat, and a stream of brilliant and under-appreciated science fiction comics) Harvey Kurtzman did humor comics for Marvel/Timely under the editorship of Stan Lee. Talk about a study in contrast! Still, it's great that Lee gave Kurtzman this early outlet and encouraged his development.

Eventually, Stan Lee imposed his editorial control over Kurtzman with the Rusty stories, a dismal Blondie knock-off that Kurtzman -- professional that he was -- dutifully created for nearly a year before he jumped ship and eventually found E.C. Comics. Here's a couple of pages from a Rusty story, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Harvey Kurtzman.

Well, you get the idea. When Kurtzman drew the Hey Look! pig- piggybank one-pager above, he may have been thinking of his Pigtales series, which in the last half of 1946. As forgotten as Rusty, the Pigtales stories are worth rooting out, because they are both written and drawn by Kurtzman and show him working out some of the self-reflexive concepts and graphic treatments that would get so crispy and tasty in his later work.

The Pigtales stories appeared in extremely obscure Timely humor titles like All Surprise and Krazy Komics. Below is the very first episode featuring Homer and Hickstaff, from Kid Movie Comics #11 (June 1946).

As you hoof thru this story, notice how Kurtzman is artfully playing with self-awareness as humor. Homer and Hickstaff know they are only lines on paper, and encourage us to see them that way. Essentially, this is a science fiction premise: what if characters drawn on paper were sentient beings? The logical conclusion is that they would be painfully aware of their own limitations as ink on paper, and yet they also posses unlimited potential to go anywhere and do anything:

Carefully considered, the spiral that winds back on itself that is a pig's tail makes a fitting visual metaphor for Kurtzman's approach to humor, which also winds back on itself.

Kurtzman's figures in the 1946 Pigtales have the form, but not the total verve they would assume in later years. Compare the above pages with this visually sophisticated 1949 Hey Look! page:

from Patsy Walker 22 (May 1949)

Here's a rare WWII 1944 Kurtzman cover from his army days that recently surfaced (and as of this writing on April 7 2013 is still available on ebay here). You can see the little heavily outlined blobby figures in this piece have the same playful presentation as Homer and Hickstaff, once again carrying the awareness that they are only lines on paper.

As an army Private, Kurtzman drew this cover for the Camp Sutton, North Carolina base paper

As another example of the embryonic early style of Kurtzman, here's what is believed to be Kurtzman's first professional job in comics, a one-pager than ran on the inside front cover of Four Favorites #8, published in May, 1945. Notice the exaggerated perspective from above and below -- the very same visual approach we see in the Pigtales stories a couple of years later.

Kurtzman's first pro comics page? From Four Favorites #8 (Ace, May, 1945)

In all, Kurtzman wrote and drew six curly Pigtales stories. In the six months he worked on these stories, his art and storytelling style grew richer and more confident. here's a page from the last published story, from December, 1946 where he hams it in fine style:

Page 5 of Kurtzman's last Pigtales story, from Krazy Komics #25 (December 1946)

If you enjoyed the Pigtales story in this post, you might like to pork over three measly bucks and get the whole run. These ain't easy to find, and they are a lotta fun to read. You also get a BONUS section of goodies:

-  Four Giggles and Grins pages which feature nine surreal, silly, color Kurtzman gag cartoons
- The complete rare 5-page Rusty story excerpted in this blog - by Stan Lee and Harvey Kurtzman
- Eight rare Hey Look! page scans from their original color comics publications

I hope you'll go for it, as these fine Pigtales deserve to be re-read. But mainly I hope you'll go for this because I could really use the three bucks -- hoo ha!

Actually, all proceeds from this ebook sale will be donated to the National Parkinson Foundation in honor of Harvey Kurtzman, who suffered from Parkinson's Disease.

Note: This is not connected with any organization -- it's just a little thing I'm doing on my own. I don't expect we'll sell many at all -- other ebooks I'm associated with sell about two or three a month, so it's a pretty small amount we're talking here -- but even so ... it's something.





Harvey Kurtzman's Pigtales for Parkinson's
55 page ebook delivered as a download link via email for only $3.00
(please allow 24 hours for delivery as this is a true rinky-dink one-man operation and I'll be manually emailing this to you to keep the costs down on the product):

Yours in all things Screwball,
Paul Tumey

Double Your Fun With This 1927 Rube Goldberg Boob McNutt

From 1907, when he created the Irish-Jewish twins Mike and Ike (They Look Alike), Rube Goldberg had a thing for depicting doppelgangers in his comics. Below you will find an excellent example of this obsession from 1927 -- but first, a bit of news for all you Rube Goldberg fans.

Since August of 2012, I've been working with Rube Goldberg's granddaughter, Jennifer George, on The Art of Rube Goldberg: A)Inventive B) Cartoon C) Genius, the ultimate art book on Rube, forthcoming in November from Abrams ComicArts books. You can pre-order the book at an astonishingly good discount here. 

My pal and fellow comics historian Carl Linich has also been heavily involved in this project, doing a heroic job of scanning and providing numerous goodies from his private collection. The book will feature essays by Carl, Pete Maresca (the talented Sunday Press publisher), famous comics historian Brian Walker, and famous cartoonist Al Jaffe. The book will have an introduction by Adam Gopnik.  The book is edited by Charlie Kochman (ComicArts is his imprint, and he's also the editor of the bestselling Wimpy Kid books, which I love). I'm officially credited as "co-editor" but I'm not sure that I have done enough to earn that generous appellation. On the other hand, I hear the Appellations are quite lovely to visit, although I am not a fan of mountain-climbing. 

I have spent the last six months rounding up artwork, scanning, researching, digging, and writing. In August of last year, I sojourned to New York City (from Seattle) for an intense week on this book with Jennifer George, Carl Linich, and Charlie Kochman. I'll share some stories about that in the months to come. Everyone is still working furiously hard on the book, especially Charlie Kochman and the book's talented designer, Sara Edward Corbett. I'm sure we are all (cough, cough) seeing double from this hard work -- !

August 2012: Working with Carl Linich (left) on The Art of Rube Goldberg.
Yes, that's a pile of rare Goldberg photos and artwork you see in front of us!

I'll be sharing more details of the book in the months to come.  For now, to celebrate all the progress, here's a choice Boob McNutt Sunday page I ran across in my art selection process (one that will not be included in the book) and threw on the smoking scanner to share with my fellow screwball comics fans. This page, originally published May 7, 1927, comes from a story arc in which Boob is trying to locate twin brothers. Rube has a lot of fun drawing doubles (also a thematic obsession of Jack Cole's work). 

Goldberg would later create a "Boob's Ark" topper panel in which he invented bizarre nonsense animals and drew them promenading two-by-two. And, of course, Rube created his first set of twins, Mike and Ike (They Look Alike), from 1907 to 1908 for his first Sunday funnies page, The Look-A-Like Boys, distributed by World Color Printing (later revived from 1913 to 1914 as Mike and Ike (They Look Alike).

This particular page is a standout, however, because it offers two extra large rectangular panoramic panels, a rare occurrence in the Boob McNutt Sundays, which were usually grids of 15 and then later 12 square panels. Not only that, but one panel is an "x-ray" image of the previous panel! As usual, Rube finds a way to weave his penchant for wacky technology into his work.

Boob McNutt by Rube Goldberg - May 7, 1927
(collection of Paul Tumey)

We also get to see Boob's outspoken Siberian Cheesehound, Bertha, in this episode. Rube had a flair for inventing nonsense words, and with Bertha, he truly excelled at creating DOGgerel!

Doubling Down on Baloney Avenue,

Screwball Paul

All text copyright 2013 Paul Tumey
All art copyright respective holders, including Abrams Books and Rube Goldberg, Inc.

More Screwball Dinky Dinkerton and Art Huhta

Hmmm... studying the panel at left, one wonders what the "surprise" is in the pocket of world famous detective Dinky Dinkerton's rotund, loyal woman-chasing assistant Sniffy.

Presenting... another dose of high-octane screwball from the pen of Art Huhta, including a nice selection of Dinky Dinkerton dailies, as reprinted in the pages of Heroic Comics. Dinkerton is a fun screwball comic parody of Sherlock Holmes that ran as a daily and Sunday from 1939-1944). It was distributed by the Jones Syndicate, The name comes from "Pinkerton," a famous detective agency that operated in the early 20th century. The strip is filled with visual and verbal humor. Even though the concept is not new (see Gus Mager's Sherlocko the Monk here), Huhta's sense of play is refreshing and, as with many 1930s and 40s screwball comics masters, you get a super high GSI (gags per square inch). I consider this strip to be a lost screwball gem.

For more on Dinky and the career of screwball master Art Huhta, see my earlier article: Art Huhta and Dinky Dinkerton.

Be sure to stop by Ger Apeldoorn's Fabulous Fifities blog for a nice big scan of a great, zany Dinky Dinkerton Sunday strip. Here's a juicy panel:

A panel from the high-octane screwball Dinky Dinkerton Sunday
recently posted at Ger Apeldoorn's blog.

Before we dish out your delightful daily dose of Dinky dailies, here's a dazzling dollop of Art Huhta art from later in his career that I ran across in my microfilm mining:

As far as I can tell, this piece was a reprint from a magazine called Practical Builder. In any case, Huhta's delight in compressing as much as he can into his cartoons that we see in Dinky Dinketon is certainly evident in this dense cartoon. There's some pretty good gags built in:

And while I'm pulling out some recent finds, here's a 1941 Simp O'Dill ghosted by Art Huhta:

Simp O'Dill ghosted by Art Huhta in 1941

And now, drum roll please. 

Here's a selection of Dinky dailies from the pages of Heroic Comics #1 (August, 1940). This issue featured the debut of Bill Everett's Hydro Man. I'm not sure, but I think this sequence could be a reprinting of the very first Dinky Dinkerton daily strips. The opening episode is a nice introduction to the characters, which is how strips of this era often debuted. In any case, it's a pretty wonderful adventure as Dinky and Sniffy madly pursue the "dinky" mystery of a telephone call...

And, of course, the call turns out to be nothing more than a cat knocking the receiver off the hook. Never mind that Dinky has destroyed half the city and called out the militia in a mad race to trace the call! Great stuff!

By the way --- if you like this blog, please plug it -- your support makes a difference!

Yours in Screwball Excellence,

Paul Tumey