This time of the year is special (and harried) for would-be gardeners – plants carefully nurtured from seed are carefully hardened off (or being plonked into the outdoors soil, for those in the warmer regions), which involves a lot of running back and forth clutching pots and bags of soil, and brandishing favourite raking and digging implements.
I was spoiled for choice when it comes to strips featuring gardening front and centre, so this theme shall be broken up into several installments. Part I: Nancy! We’ve mentioned Nancy a few times… sort of — see here, except that this John Stanley’s Nancy, and here, a post about an unexpected gem co-admin RG dug up from Nancy creator Ernie Bushmiller. Speaking of co-admins, thanks to the aforementioned RG for locating and scanning these strips. Frankly, my arms are elbow-deep in soil and I’m (w)ra(c)king my brain trying to remember what I planted and where, so mental capacity is sorely depleted.
Strip from May 17th, 1944.
In case the term is new to you, victory gardens were encouraged by the government during wartime — to supplement rations, but mostly boost civilian morale. While the intention was a bit manipulative, surely most would agree that growing one’s own food is immensely rewarding, which reminds me of this meme:
Strip from May 30th, 1950. Given concerns about going away for even a few days (‘who’s going to mind the plants?!’), Nancy’s plan sounds good to me.
Strip from June 15th, 1951.
Strip from June 2th, 1944. I wondered why Nancy was planting sausages in her garden, when I realized that’s probably a green bean…
Strip from June 16th, 1948.
Strip from June 20th, 1951.
Strip from June 28th, 1943.
Strip from July 2nd, 1945. The size of the foliage does not hint at the size of the carrot 😉
« Len Norris portrays rather the little man in his everyday complications, and by showing us his, and our own predicaments, he helps relieve us of the burden of the daily toll of bloodshed and terror we see in the news pages. » — Stu Keate
Here’s to a semi-forgotten Canadian legend.
In my long-ago teen years, when I began haunting second-hand bookstores, single-author collections of political cartoons were everywhere, dirt-cheap, largely interchangeable to the untrained eye.. and evidently hard to dispose of.
Most common were collections of The Daily Express’ Ronald “Carl” Giles (1916 – 1995), AKA Giles — but this being Canada, we saw plenty from The Montreal Gazette’s Terry Mosher AKA Aislin and the Vancouver Sun’s twin cartooning stars, Roy Peterson and Len Norris. Peterson is the one that first caught my eye — Vancouver was a long way off — thanks to his quarter-century run illustrating Allan Fotheringham‘s back page column in Maclean’s Magazine. However, I shelled out folding kale for but a single one of these collections, and it was the one comprising the cream of Norris’ 1960-61 output; it turned up in a long-neglected chest at my folks’ place last month, and so it’s ripe for rediscovery.
Here’s a bit of background on the man… born in 1913 in London, England…
« Norris came to Canada with his family when he was 13, growing up in Port Arthur, Ont. (now Thunder Bay). He moved to Toronto during the Great Depression, where his artistic talents landed him jobs in ad agencies. Before he joined The Sun, he was the art director for Canadian Homes and Gardens Magazine.
Norris didn’t become a full-time cartoonist until he joined The Vancouver Sun in 1950.
Norris was a sensation out of the box, picking up a National Newspaper Award for Top Canadian Cartoonist in 1952. His work was so popular that 27 collections of his cartoons were published.
He produced an estimated 8,000 cartoons during his 38 years at The Sun. He officially retired in 1979, but kept producing two cartoons a week until he finally hung up his pen in 1988, at age 75. He died in 1997 at 83. » [ source ]
Ah, those quaint Colonials… « The phrase “the natives are getting restless” emerged from racist colonial origins. It sets up a scenario where wise, cool minds are overseeing and running things. And there is a more “savage,” “uncivilized” set of local people, the natives, who are seen as subordinate. Who deserve to be ruled by the lighter-skinned European colonists. »Quite timeless, that one — regrettably.Unlike a couple of these political parties, the Shrine Circus is still around — so it might have been the savvier investment after all. You can take the Englishman out of England, but… it’s snap to picture this appearing in the pages of Punch instead of a North American newspaper.Note that each and every child has his or her own ambulatory posture. Now that’s draftsmanship. Clearly, in Norris’ case, the verisimilitude of each detail, every gesture, springs from a deep well of visual observation — and he was no slouch with the verbal either. Like many a cartoonist, Norris was unambiguously on the side of the animals.I can relate far more readily with this gag since I’ve acquired a home with both a septic tank and lots of greenery.While the point might be a tad obvious — though still worth making — the expert composition is what makes this one special.Speaking of that Punch spirit: with this particular cartoon, Norris gleefully wanders into Rowland Emett‘s garden patch.I love how Norris didn’t stack the deck, where a lesser light surely would have: the members of the academic body on the right are still recognizably educators.Ah, poor Laika. Such a heartbreaking tale. Though she notably inspired a monument in Moscow, an outstanding Finnish rock band, a moving verse of a Divine Comedy song, and this cartoon, it’s a given that the poor doggie would have rather lived her life in peace than die alone and terrified.
The next two make it thanks to bravura use of compositional space. Such chops!
With a population of 3,985 — and rising — Grand Forks, BC, “is Boundary Country’s largest city”. All kidding aside, it does look like a very nice place to visit.Dig if you will the artist’s mastery of volume and gesture, of costume and body language. The Mr. Coyne alluded to is James Elliott Coyne (1910-1979), who was the Bank of Canada’s second Governor, from 1955 to 1961. He resigned in the aftermath of what was known as The Coyne Affair.
His Vancouver Sun colleague Trevor Lautens eloquently depicted the Norris he knew: « Len limned not the pompous event, but the pompous event’s effect on ordinary people. He seemed a small-c conservative, but look and you will find that his drawings were blandly subversive. The bureaucrats were black-suited, pince-nezed satraps. Pietistic Social Crediters wore haloes and walked on fluffy clouds. The Victoria Conservative Club was populated by dozing, look-alike, pear-shaped gents with walrus moustaches. »
For a deeper burrow into Norris’ œuvre and legacy, here’s a fine documentary film on the subject.
« In 1900, she bought from a Medicine Lodge hardware store the implement that became both her weapon and her symbol — a hatchet — and at the age of fifty-four sallied forth on a smashing campaign that carried her across the country, shouting: ‘Smash! Smash! For Jesus’ sake, Smash!’ »
These days I’ve been reading Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (1973) by John Kobler. I didn’t know much about the temperance movement in general, but what surprised me most is how intimately it was tied to suffragette activism. It’s in Ardent Spirits that I came across the fascinating character of Carry Nation*, ‘a bulldog, running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like’. She seems a very fitting figure for a post on this March 8th, International Women’s Day.
Whether she was a total barmpot or a blazing visionary is up for some debate; I must give credit to Kobler, who cobbled together a fairly well-balanced portrait of her while many historians tended to quickly dismiss this hatchet-wielding devotee as a crazed lunatic. While basic facts remain the same (disagreement about Nation’s height notwithstanding), interpretation of events and motivations varies wildly. This can be quickly demonstrated by comparing two modern articles of some depth: Carry Nation is described as ‘a flamboyant, theatrical and completely outrageous woman at nearly 6 feet tall [..] smashing barrels on stage and singing her temperance songs to enthusiastic audiences who howled for more‘ (Carrie Nation: American Woman by Richard Behrens) but also as ‘a fearless populist progressive just over 5 feet tall** […] fighting tirelessly for good governance, women’s rights, civil rights, and cleaning the corruption out of the body politic‘ (Hatchet Nation by Mark Lawrence Schrad).
One of six postcards published in 1905 depicting Nation’s ‘hatchetations’: On the Warpath; Raiding a Public House; Addressing Cigarette Fiends; Smashing a Pub; In a Restaurant; In a Pub.
Nation went through an arsenal of weapons (aside from rocks and incidental objects, a sledgehammer) before settling on her beloved hatchet and coining the term ‘hatchetations’ to describe her saloon smashings. It comes as no surprise that she grabbed cartoonists’ imagination, even taking into account that real juicy conflict remains unillustrated (and this was a ruthless war between temperance advocates and their opponents). Just picture this colourful scene — a woman, garbed in the usual constrictive dress of early 19th century, marching into a bar and smashing up bottles, mirrors, chairs, slot machines with her trusty little axe. This striking image is likely why Nation’s name is first to spring up when the topic of prohibition arises in modern conversation.
Happy Women’s Day (and Women’s History Month) to all readers!
~ ds
* This original name came about when Carry Moore, named Carry by a semiliterate father, married David Nation. She preferred to spell her name as ‘Carrie’, until she married David, yielding the grandiose full name Carry A. Nation (A. stood for Amelia), ‘carry a nation for temperance’.
** This question of height intrigues me, for most articles describe Nation as tall and powerful. Mark Lawrence Schrad, who just portrayed her as being just over 5 feet tall, has also written another article in which he calls her ‘imposing in stature, prone to violence and—claiming God spoke to her, urging her to attack saloons—slightly unhinged‘.
« Before the incalculable capacity of the Internet to answer nearly any question put to it while allowing a legion of pedants to hold forth without constraint, getting the facts of the matter took some effort. »
Weekly column ‘Why Things Are‘ ran in The Washington Post from 1990 to 1996. During these diverting (at least as far as the common topic is concerned) years, WOT favourite cartoonist Richard Thompson tackled such various brain bafflers as ‘what does the inside of your nose smell like?’ or ‘why does overdrinking cause a hangover?’ These, at any rate, were the questions posed by Joel Achenbach, staff writer for TWP, questions from which Thompson bounced into sometimes altogether unexpected directions. « The column was fundamentally zany », explains Achenbach in the introduction to the collection of Why Things Are, «though larded with real information and interviews. Richard, it turns out, had crammed his brain over the decades with all manner of esoteric information. The cartoons sang – and sing to this day – with the perfect pitch if the slightly demented intellectual. » There are few things closer to my heart than a non-sequitur with a pedantic bent!
Here is a selection of cartoons from the aforementioned collection, published in 2017 by Picture This Press. While these illustrations need no further accompaniment, the questions submitted to (or by) Achenbach are included under each image. Enjoy!
Why do sexual turn-ons vary so greatly from person to person? Undated (circa 1990-1992).
Why is some cholesterol good for you? Undated (circa 1990-1992). The cholesterol chap looks Klibanesque if not in line, then in spirit.
Why do beer companies brag that their products are ‘cold-filtered’ or ‘beechwood-aged’ or ‘drybrewed’ or ‘genuine draft’ even though no one knows what these terms mean? October 31st, 1993. Given the influx of shitty ‘artisanal’ beer produced by huge companies, I think modern society really needs an official term like ‘Pabst-smeared’.
Why do some people think watching birds is fascinating? February 6th, 1994. When one hits thirty, one is supposed to acquire a set of hobbies only appropriate for people who have suddenly waded into the category of ‘vaguely old’ – gardening, knitting, and, yes, bird watching. I plead guilty to all three.
Why didn’t the Black Death kill everyone in Europe in the fourteenth century, rather than just a third of the population? Undated (circa 1990-1992). I couldn’t resist the adorable Roger Mortis.
Why is rain sometimes dreary and depressing, and other times wonderfully romantic? April 18th, 1993.
Why can’t they invent pantyhose that don’t run? May 30th, 1993. I recently stumbled across a ‘new’ colour, ‘greige’, a beautiful amalgamate of grey and beige. In a world where several shades of grey are on offer for items from radios to cars (battleship grey, steel grey, stormy grey…), I am not sure we needed this particular variation. As for rip-free tights, they do exist, but you pretty much have to sell one of your kidneys to get your hands on a pair.
Why did people once upon a time believe in vampires? Undated (circa 1990-1992). This guy reminds me both of our last company-wide meeting with an uplifting speech from the CEO and, in more pleasant associations, of Daniel Pinkwater‘s Vampires of Blinsh (illustrated by Aaron Renier).
Why did Freud think women suffer from ‘penis envy’ when that is obviously absurd? January 16th, 1994. Well, that’s easy…
Why do owls seem to turn their heads 180 degrees without turning their bodies? August 1994. A lot of owls can actually turn their heads 270 degrees!
Why do the ‘f’ and the ‘s’ and the ‘p’ and the ‘t’ sound so similar over the phone? February 26th, 1995.
December 4th, 1994. If you’re not yet aware of the great and deliberate lemming fraud, just read this… or go jump off a cliff.
Why does hot water freeze faster than cold water in an ice-cube tray placed in the freezer? April 9th, 1995. Tax season is fast approaching – have you prepared your family-size package of prosciutto?!
I’ve gathered most of the yule-themed Cul de Sac Sundays… one of these days, I might devote an entire post to Madeline Otterloop’s Christmas sweater dailies.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
RT: « The creepier side of Christmas. A German Expressionist Christmas has been done by someone, somewhere, I’m sure. » December 11, 2005.RT: « Taking down Christmas is always so hard. I like the timing here. » January 1st, 2006.RT: « Petey dreams of Christmas with music by Tchaikovsky. » December 24, 2006.RT: « Santa Claus commands a lot of fear and awe in children.I could never get a coherent sentence out when sitting on his lap when I was a kid, and I doubt I could today. Thank God I don’t believe in him anymore! » December 23, 2007.RT: « The first appearance of Dill’s mysterious, malignant, poignant, and possibly educational toy. I just wanted something that’d be easy and repetitive to draw, because I was behind. » December 30, 2007.RT: « What I like the most is the tree seller’s resemblance to a mortician. » December 21, 2008.December 28, 2008.RT: « Drawn from life. Nothing more need be said. » December 19, 2010.RT: « Petey’s faith in his commentaries’ scathing qualities is misplaced. » December 4, 2011.RT: « Doing this was a joy. The hard part was doing it in pantomime. » December 11, 2011.
I talked about Carol Lay all the way back in 2017 (see The Giant Licking Machine), but did her a disservice by only featuring a single one of her Story Minutes. I am here to remedy that inadequacy.
In 1990, Lay drew a 5-page story for LA Weekly titled The Thing Under the Futon (read it here – the thing under the futon even has tentacles). « The pay was several times what independent comics paid and the audience was larger and included women », Lay quips on her website, so a one-time story planted the seed for a weekly comic strip called Story Minute, so named because it would just take you a minute to read a story (I might also add that it’s very difficult to stop at reading just one). That eventually was rechristened Way Lay and ran until 2008.
My introduction to the subject at hand.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, the most recent collection of these is Illiterature, published in 2012, and it’s where the strips below have been selected from. Lay picks all kinds of topics as strip springboards, but since I am the one selecting the ones to feature, there’s a definite interpersonal tilt, as I think her forte is her ability to showcase the inner workings of a close relationship by plonking people into a slightly surreal or sci-fi context. The line between cynical and poignant is navigated with ease.
« I kept mostly to the order in which I produced the strips, but I took the liberty of tossing some clinkers or shuffling a few so that they flow better in book form… I also used my artistic license to improve on some of these older works – I’m a better writer and artist than I was when I created these strips… In a sense several of the strips in these volumes are ‘director’s cuts’ in that I’m a better director now than when I drew them. »
« I’m going to Boston to see my doctor. He’s a very sick man. » — Fred Allen
My turn to spotlight a recent find: last month, during a fruitful visit to Ellsworth, ME’s The Big Chicken Barn, I spotted — among others — an item of interest in the humour section: a hardcover volume entitled Dahl’s Brave New World, published 1947. Spare but effective cartooning, plenty of imagination and wit. See what you make of it.
Replace ‘miniature plane’ with ‘drone’ and you’ve got a cartoon for these here times.While the ordinary citizen has been waiting for his long-promised, personal jet pack for decades on end, a ready-to-wear helicopter would be, it seems to me, a reasonable substitute.
I love knowing that there’s a world of talented folk I’d never gotten wind of. Even if a lifetime is too short, even if I’ll miss out on some great art, both capital A and lower-case, I prefer to hold the optimistic view and raise the half-full glass in a heartfelt toast.
By way of biography, Mr. Dahl (1907-1973) thankfully rated an obit in the New York Times on May 7, 1973. Allow me to quote liberally from it:
« Francis W. Dahl, Boston’s best‐known cartoonist, whose works have appeared in newspapers here for 45 years as well as in a series of books, died today at his home in Newton. He was 65 years old.
Mr. Dahl’s cartoons focused on Bostonians and their politics, customs, costumes and foibles, with most of his subjects growing out of local news items.
From 1928, when he began his newspaper career as an $20‐a‐week illustrator, until last June, Mr. Dahl drew his cartoons for The Boston Herald and its successor, The Herald Traveler. When the paper was purchased by The Record‐American last June, he joined The Boston Globe.
Collections of the cartoons also appeared in a number of books, including “Left Handed Compliments,” “Dahl’s Cartoons,” “What, More Dahl?” “Birds, Beasts and Bostonians,” “Dahl’s Boston” and “Dahl’s Brave New World.”
Stories about Mr. Dahl have become part of Boston’s journalistic legends. Once, for example, a Herald engravers’ plate broke just before deadline and 144,000 copies were printed without his cartoon. A printed box asked readers if he was missed, and 4,000 letters were sent to the editor saying yes.
On another occasion, Mr. Dahl broke his right arm — his drawing arm — but rather than miss a day the paper had him draw left‐handed for six weeks. »
While the NYT piece itself draws heavily from a 1946 Time Magazine profile of Dahl, it left out the juiciest part of the anecdote: « Since draftsmanship is the least of Dahl’s assets, the switchover didn’t show much. »
It’s refreshing to see — especially in light of the era it was produced in — the lady take the amorous initiative.I couldn’t pass this one up: I mean… mushrooms, bats, moles and skinks!
And here’s some insight into Dahl’s relative obscurity: « Because he concocts his cartoons out of local news items, and refuses to change his ways, mild-mannered Francis Dahl has never been syndicated. But for his collections of reprints, he would be unknown outside New England. » [ source ]
« I didn’t say she was dead, I said I killed her. » — Barnabas Collins
… and speaking of that tormented bloodsucker, Mr. Barnabas Collins — mentioned in passing just yesterday — here’s a look at the short-lived (fifty-two contracted-for weeks, just like Daniel Pinkwater and Tony Auth’s Norb) syndicated strip that appeared at the tail end of Dan Curtis‘ preeminent supernatural soap opera‘s run (1966-71). The strip was likely scripted — at least in part — by Little Abner creator Al Capp‘s prolific brother Elliot Caplin (who also had a hand in the creation of Russell Myers’ Broom Hilda around the same time!)
Dark Shadows, the comic strip, was illustrated by veteran cartoonist Kenneth Bald (1920-2019), who’d worked for Fawcett, ACG and Atlas before judiciously decamping to the more rewarding and respectable milieu of syndicated newspaper strips, first with Judd Saxon (1957-1963) and then with Doctor Kildare (1962-1984).
The March 28, 1971 strip. While I’m not inclined towards photo-aided realism in comics, Bald was such a master of the mise-en-scène — that is to say layout and pacing, that he rarely failed to draw me in, as opposed to, say, more acclaimed photo reference addicts such as Al Williamson or Gray Morrow. April 25, 1971.June 6, 1971.July 11, 1971.August 29, 1971.
December 12, 1971. Richard Howell explains: « The Dark Shadows strip also invoked a very unusual use of coloring techniques (for the Sunday instalment), which eschewed a realistic look in favor of underscoring the strip’s mood (including a meaningful experimentation with color knock-outs done in harmonious gradations in the same color families). The first two Sundays were colored by Bald himself, who gave it up due to dissatisfaction after seeing the printed versions, and the extensive amount of time it took him to achieve the color effects he wanted. »
Here’s a trio of examples as they showed up in (news)print.
May 2, 1971.September 26, 1971.October 24, 1971.In 1996, the strip was collected in more than satisfactory fashion by Pomegranate Press — colour might have been financially prohibitive — in no small part thanks to superb documentary material provided by Ken Bald and cartoonist and longtime DS fan Richard Howell. An actual fan, unlike, say, Tim Burton*.
-RG
*despite getting a free pass to see it, the abomination that was Burton and Johnny Depp’s franchise-murdering Dark Shadows (2012) made me want to scream for a refund. Or the perpetrators’ heads on spikes.
« There are no innocent bystanders… what are they doing there in the first place? » — William S. Burroughs
I’ve sung the praises of The American Bystander before, and I do believe it could still use whatever publicity it can get. And so here are some choice excerpts from the magazine’s Hallowe’en-themed issue — no. 13 (naturally), Fall 2019… starting with its unfathomably gorgeous double-spread by Armando Veve.
The editor wrote: « Some of our covers are so good they could conjure an entire book, and when Armando Veve delivered his art, a whole story blossomed in my brain. This wired witch is speeding to her digs downtown, a well-appointed brownstone on West 11th between Bleeker and West 4th. She received the deed some years ago from a grateful secretary of state Seward, in exchange for “Mr. Stonewall Jackson’s unfortunate accident.” More recently, she’s occupied herself by magically manipulating the stock market; she delights in dropping enormous, anonymous college scholarships into the laps of earnest high school Wiccans. Most afternoons she can be found at Tartine, eating pastries and slipping love potions into unsuspecting patrons’ teacups. She agrees that the neighborhood isn’t what it used to be but — being 227 — knows it never was. » Horror is around all the year ’round… we just celebrate it more fervently in the Fall. A strip by Brandon Hicks.I certainly hope that’s not Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio‘s spectre on the right, since he couldn’t handle that scene in real life. A cartoon by Matt Percival.I love that extra second-level chuckle (hint… ‘spell’). A cartoon by The New Yorker cartoonist Mick Stevens.A low-key guide to lethal passion in the suburbs from WOT? favourite Stan Mack. And I’m with the squirrels; that neighbour got what he deserved.The kids’ grapevine is utterly unforgiving. If you’re very fortunate, your ill repute will turn over with the next generation. A strip by Jim Siergey (b. 1949).
« They wanted me to do something that would be absolutely horrific, and so I was thinking silly monsters and putting all kinds of political twists on it. Then I began thinking, what is really, really scary and hasn’t been faced? I thought of being a kid. » — Gahan Wilson
Gahan Wilson (1930-2019), who else? I’ll gladly confess that it’s always a bit daunting to pick the opening and closing salvos of a countdown… especially the opener.
I’m fairly confident there’ll be no controversy as to my decision to bestow the inaugural spot to one of Mr. Gahan Wilson’s creations.
After all, Gahan was truly one (along with colleagues Addams and Gorey, to name but an obvious pair) of those gnarly souls — bless and/or curse them all — who made each day Hallowe’en… in the finest way.
« Remember how confusing it was, being a little kid? Remember trying to make sense of the weird rules grownups always made you follow, and how you always guessed wrong and which ones they’d figure were really important?Remember how small you were and how brave you had to be to get through it all? »
Oh, what the heck. Here’s a bonus strip, still a perfect fit for the occasion:
Incidentally, for those entirely unfamiliar with it, Nuts was Mr. Wilson’s first sequential strip, and it was published in the pages of The National Lampoon between 1972 and 1986.
Who's Out There? 