Jules Feiffer’s Triumph

redscraper6 Comments

It’s Jules Feiffer’s birthday! Break out the bubbly (not the cheap stuff)!*

Born on January 26th, 1929, today he turns a respectable 89. He’s still releasing new books, so let’s wish him many more happy and productive years.

If a book with no pictures has no use (according to Lewis Carroll’s Alice), I figure a blog post with no pictures is equally devoid of purpose, so here’s a few fun Feiffer bagatelles.

FeifferABC

“Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips” was supposed to collect everything in four handy volumes, but unfortunately so far there’s only been one (published in 2008) and no mention of others to come. Still, it’s well worth seeking out. Check out an excellent review of it here, tempting you to it with this pithy quote:

« Explainers is a ‘dipping book’. It’s not something to storm your way through but something to return to over and again. Feiffer’s thoughts and language, his observations and questions are fearsomely eternal. Best of all, Feiffer’s expressive drawing is a masterclass in style and economy all by itself. »

In his earlier years, Feiffer’s excitable, skittish pen was a little more subdued. Case in point: Clifford, Feiffer’s first published strip.

CliffordJulesFeiffer
Kewpies #1, spring 1949.

CliffordJulesFeiffer2

Clifford first appeared in Kewpies #1 (spring 1949), published by Will Eisner, when Feiffer was but 20. In « Out of Line : the Art of Jules Feiffer » (2015), Martha Fay explains that Feiffer had the style of Walt Kelly’s Pogo in mind when he created Clifford.

FeifferCliffordDarkA
Robert Boyd writes: « From 1949 to 1951, Jules Feiffer drew Clifford, which appeared in Will Eisner’s The Spirit Section, an eight-page comic book insert syndicated to newspapers. » This particular strip first saw print in the January 14, 1951 section.
FeifferBoyGirl
Feiffer’s lively cover to his 1961 strip collection Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl (Random House)

Nowadays, Feiffer is writing and illustrating children’s books. In an interview with Gary Groth, he explained that « They represent the gentler, sweeter world that, as we grow older, we go about corrupting first chance we get. No, that’s too cynical. Second and third chance we get. » They may be intended for children, but they are, for the most part, every bit as clever and multi-layered as the Feiffer-for-adults.

JulesFeifferBarrelofLaughs
1995, Harper Collins.

What kind of plot would a Feiffer-book-for-children have, you ask?

« Prince Roger sets out eagerly on a quest and finds a few adventures, a lot of friends, a damsel or two in distress (not!) and himself, in the end. A ‘carrier of joy’ whose mere presence causes everyone to laugh uncontrollably, Roger finds cruelty and kindness equally amusing, and expects his quest to be a lark. It’s anything but: As Roger passes through the Forever Forest, nearly starves at the Dastardly Divide, sees people at their worst in the Valley of Vengeance, and temporarily despairs in the Mountains of Malice, he sobers up, learns to care for others, becomes an expert peacemaker, does Good Deeds, and falls in love with Lady Sadie, who says what she thinks as she repeatedly saves his bacon. »

Read an excellent (though 10 year-old) article from New York Times about Feiffer here.

~ ds / RG

*A triumphant return to the home town
Treated with love and respect
A special school assembly
Before they would have broken my neck
My favourite colour
An E-type Jag
Roll out the red carpet
A glass of champagne – Not the cheap stuff!

(Black Box Recorder, « Being Number One »)

Buon compleanno, Gianni De Luca!

gasp65Leave a comment

« Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. »

On the ninety-first anniversary of his birth, we take the opportunity to salute fumetti gran maestro Gianni De Luca (b. January 25, 1927; d. June 6, 1991)… and to share some of the striking images he crafted. In comics, the term « innovative » has been applied far too liberally, all too often in ignorance. In the case of of Mr. De Luca, no hyperbole is involved, I assure you.

I first came upon his work in the mid-70s, through my parent-sponsored subscription to the québécois catholic youth magazine Vidéo-Presse (1971-1995), which was kind of didactic, I suppose, but still quite fun. The publisher had licensed much of its comics content from Italy, and it was definitely high-toned stuff, such as adaptations of Jules Verne novels. I recall « L’Île mystérieuse » being among them. Accustomed as I was to the madcap and hyperkinetic tone of the dominant Franco-Belgian and American schools, the Verne stuff, while clearly well-executed, seemed a bit languid and wan.

However, this feature was followed by, as fate would have it, the bane of any schoolboy*, Shakespeare adaptations. But wait… these were MIND-BLOWING. Decades later, I became fast friends with another cartoonist roughly my age, and he’d had the very same epiphany with De Luca’s Hamlet. Other than that, I’ve never really met anyone familiar with the work. Even locating a copy was a bit of an ordeal, but I managed to snag, a few years ago, a handsome volume gathering Hamlet and La tempête (The Tempest), published by Les Humanoïdes Associés in 1980.

Hamlet19A
Hamlet, page eighteen. Adaptation by Barbara Graille and lettering by Roberto Roquemartine. Colours presumably by De Luca himself, as the credits are mute on that point.
Hamlet22A
Hamlet, page twenty-three.
Tempête57A
La tempête, page five.
Tempête64A
La tempête, page twelve.

I don’t believe there’s any De Luca out there in the English language… save for one happy exception: UK publisher Running Press‘ The Mammoth Book of Crime Comics, discerningly edited by critic Paul Gravett**, contains « Strada », a superior entry in writer Gian Luigi Gonano and De Luca’s ‘Il Commissario Spada‘ series (1970-1982). « The series was groundbreaking in many ways, since it introduced subjects like violence, organized crime, satanic sects, terrorists and murderers to the pages of a Catholic magazine for young readers, that was at the time mainly distributed in parishes. »

*To be fair, we never studied Shakespeare in school.

**Speaking of Mr. Gravett, he happened to write an illuminating essay on De Luca’s Hamlet: http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/article/gianni_de_luca_hamlet

-RG

Tentacle Tuesday: Your Basic Contemporary Tentacle

redscraperLeave a comment

Today’s Tentacle Tuesday veers away from more traditional tentacles and such, straying into more current territory where normal octopuses fear to tread. In a battle between a member of the Octopoda and a Lovecraftian horror, the latter would indubitably win…

Exhibit no. 1: a painting by Julián Totino Tedesco that uses the classic combination of sexy and frightening. It was used as the cover of Creepy no. 21 (Dark Horse Comics, August, 2015)…

JulianTotinoTedescoCreepy21

And here’s the actual cover:

Creepy21
I think adding « NEXT STOP: TERROR » was a tad unnecessary, not to mention cheesy. Isn’t a girl with a tentacle coming out of her face terrifying enough? Dark Horse pompously describes this issue as « featuring spooky sequential storytelling from graphic greats », promising we’ll be « sweating with sickening satisfaction », proving that there *is* such a thing as too much alliteration.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Next up is a charming bibliophile, who looks mournful rather than scary.

providence-raulo-cover-04-greatrace_copy
« Stop interrupting while I’m trying to write! » Providence no. 11 (December 2016). Century Variant art by Raulo Caceres, a Spanish comic artist.

No-one will be surprised to find out that Providence (12 issues published from 2015 to 2017), written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Jacen Burrows, is meant to be considered as belonging to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. In his 2013 interview with Pádraig Ó Méalóid, Moore had pointed out that Providence required a staggering amount of research on his part, and that he had been « living and breathing » Lovecraft while writing it. The following exchange illustrates this research-focused approach:

AM: I’m even trying to check out what the weather was like, which is difficult to establish other than in broad generalities, but I can at least sort out what the sky looked like, and what the phases of the moon were – which is something that Lovecraft used to take pains to do, so I feel that I should as well.

PÓM: Find out if the moon was gibbous, or something like that?

AM: Yes, that was it, he used to – yeah, gibbous, the gibbous moon, which is nearly, what, three-quarters full, waxing or waning?

PÓM: Yeah, three-quarters full. It’s a wonderfully Lovecraftian word.

AM: In one of his stories he changed all the dates in it because he found out that a gibbous moon hadn’t happened on the day that he said it had. He said, ‘this is a lesson for all aspiring writers of fiction.’ And I’ve taken that to heart.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Finally, we have another Dark Horse entry:

Hellboy2ActualCover
Hellboy: Seed of Destruction no. 2 (1994).

The sketch for the cover (1993):

MignolaHellboyTentaclesSketch
Now we know what’s behind the hand-and-sword symbol!

Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, the first Hellboy mini-series (4 issues, March-June 1994), was plotted/illustrated by Mike Mignola and scripted by John Byrne. (It was also the basis for 2004’s Hellboy movie, which you can safely ignore, IMHO.) You can read the whole thing here. The individual issues were collected in a paperback in 1994, which also contains a couple of bonus stories from various sources.

The insides have sufficient tentacles to please even the pickiest, most tentacle-crazed reader:

HellboySeedsofDestruction2

HellboyTentacles1

~ ds

 

Happy Birthday, by Crom!

gasp652 Comments

« Whatever got Juan is coming for me, too! »

It’s birthday number one hundred and twelve for pulp wordsmith Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) who, in his tragically short lifespan, yet found time to unleash upon the world Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, Kull of Atlantis and, more significantly for this reader, the chilling classic Pigeons From Hell, a short story posthumously published in Weird Tales’ May, 1938 issue.

ChillsBrunner

Howard’s The Horror From the Mound, originally published in the May, 1932 issue of Weird Tales Magazine, presumably had its title sanitized here because the H-word was still verboten in the early 1970s. Hailing from the second issue of Marvel’s Chamber of Chills (January, 1973), it was reprinted in glorious black and white in 1975’s Masters of Terror no. 1 (original title restored, hurrah!)

MastersTerror1A
And here it be. Seems a bit inaccurate to refer to a group of mostly pulp writers (some long dead) from the 30s to 50s as “Modern-Day Masters of Terror”, but I suppose it depends on one’s definition of “Modern-Day”. Cover illustration by Gray Morrow from a drawing by noted fabulist, fervent Trump supporter and fellow Hair Club for Men habitué Jim Steranko.

Gardner Fox and Brunner give it their all, but the story could have used more pages to truly do justice to Howard’s moody proto-weird western.

Read the full adaptation here:
http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.ca/2009/02/monster-from-mound.html

Better yet, read Howard’s tale:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601761h.html

And Pigeons From Hell, while you’re at it:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600721h.html

-RG

Treasured stories: “Abide With Me” (1975)

gasp652 Comments

« She stared at Douglas… at this man she had judged to be an ideal mate… yet he had this very fatal flaw. »

Even to the occasional reader of mystery or ghost comic books from the late 60s to early 80s, the absurdly narrow range of plot variations must have been glaringly obvious. Same goes for any genre, of course…

For instance, at DC, mainstays Jack Oleck and Carl Wessler drove the same hoary scenarios into the old sod with numbing insistence (editor Joe Orlando‘s insistence, presumably): the greedy nephew murdering his rich, elderly uncle, the avaricious white explorer / big game hunter / mercenary purloining the sacred idol and incurring its terrible vengeance, the bank robber on the lam getting his ironic comeuppance, satanists vs werewolves vs vampires vs witches and so on… Still, the occasional inspired yarn did crop up, often to the outraged bafflement of readers.

On the other hand, Charlton was the field’s top producer of ghost stories, wisely keeping away from Marvel and DC’s spandex preserve. While one hears (correctly) about artistic laisser-faire attracting maverick stylists, Charlton’s ace in the hole, and the backbone of its comics line, was the remarkably prolific and versatile writer Joe Gill (1919-2006). Unlike his counterparts at DC, Warren, and most famously EC Comics before them, Gill rarely resorted to the O. Henry “twist” ending. An overplayed strength becomes a weakness, and so the “sting in the tail” soon was anything but. Having to write most of Charlton’s line, Gill could afford to experiment and improvise. Fact is, he pretty much had to. In my view, Gill’s work stands out from most of his peers’ in that it seems nourished by high and extensive erudition. When a Gill character discusses business deals or the combustion engine, it’s not just hot air and a family-size tub of Fluff.

Here’s a favourite of mine, a tale scripted by Gill and illustrated by Sururi Gümen (1920-2000). It appeared in Ghost Manor no. 23 (May, 1975, Charlton). The nearest it skirts a ghost story is when Regina says « I… I’ve heard that people who die unhappily haunt the place where they die! »

Abide1AAbide2AAbide3AAbide4AAbide5AAbide6AAbide7A

I love how Abide With Me carves out its own niche between romance and horror without calling upon any of these genres’ habitual devices. It’s like a well-played game of chess, a philosophic two-character play, a gravesite deliberation. Hope you’ve enjoyed it too!

– RG

Tentacle Tuesday: Swashbuckler vs Octopus

redscraperLeave a comment

For as long as there have been tentacles, there have also existed brave men to combat them (preferably whilst garbed in tight costumes).

Heroes have battled poor, innocent octopuses in water…

Prize43A
« The mantled crime-battler makes a desperate lunge… a razor-keen blade knifes into rubbery flesh! » Prize Comics no. 43, July 1944. The cover is by Dan Zolnerowich, illustrating a scene from « Wanted – Dead Or Alive ». Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein also puts up an appearance in this issue, this time fighting – pardon, smashing – the Nazis.

The aforementioned scene doesn’t look anything like it does on the cover, involving a much bigger tank, an orange octopus, and a quite underwhelming fight scene (my main emotion was sympathy towards the octopus for getting stabbed by some idiot in a mask with ears).

PrizeComicsTentacles
Nobody was asking you to get into the tank, bubba. Observe the octopus knitting its tentacles together in distress (we knit our brows; octopuses knit their tentacles).

Octopuses have also been defeated by valiant warriors in space…

BorisKarloff56
« Earth to Starlab – why don’t you answer? » «Well, sir, we were grabbed by this giant space-octopus and he just won’t let go…» Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery no. 56, 1974 (This one is a Whitman variant.) This painted cover is most likely the work of the prolific George Wilson.

And intrepid daredevils have also gone tentacle a’manglin’ in… say, what is that gooey stuff, anyway?

HouseofMystery301
Is that green thing attacking our hapless hero a malevolent butterfly, a hostile starfish, a vindictive serpent? Only one thing is certain: it has tentacles! (Also, here’s the form-revealing, tight clothing I was pining for earlier.) House of Mystery no. 301 (February, 1982); cover by Joe Kubert illustrating The Scoop.

The Scoop (script by Bruce Jones, art by Tom Yeates) has an intriguing premise (I won’t spoil it – read it for yourself). Here’s the original art of its first page:

TheScoop

Well, that’s it for now. I’ve got some pretty cute tentacled creatures saved up for next week’s installment. À bientôt!

~ ds

TentacleTuesdayIcon

 

Don’t Slide on Your Hide!

gasp65Leave a comment
Pep168A
This is Pep no. 168 (Jan. 1964, Archie.)

This splendid Bob White cover brings to mind science-fiction satirist Douglas Adams‘ prescription for achieving flight: « … all one must do is simply miss the ground. »

Judging from the distribution of stars, it would appear that Archie’s left cheek took more of a hit.

BettyA
Betty gets her turn: This pin-up theme was sugge(s)ted to Dan DeCarlo by his son, Dan Jr., who grew up assisting his father on Betty and Veronica stories and later (early 80s) became one of the feature’s main artists. Originally published in Archie Giant Series no. 10 (Archie’s Christmas Stocking, 1961.)

-RG

Steig Swoops In: The ‘Epic in Jazz’ Cat Sextet

gasp652 Comments

« The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats » – Albert Schweitzer

In the mid-50s, New Yorker cartoonist (and children’s book author, sculptor and Orgone Box owner) William Steig (1907-2003) was called upon to throw together some illustrations for Epic Records’ “Epic in Jazz” LP series, which featured classic 30s recordings from the likes of Johnny Hodges, Chu Berry, Count Basie, Barney Bigard and Cootie Williams. One might safely opine that the good Mr. Steig outdid himself. You be the judge.

HodgePodgeA
John Cornelius “Johnny” Hodges (1906 – 1970) was a saxophone giant of the big band era, and closely associated to Duke Ellington’s band. This 1955 compilation gathers some key recordings from the mid-to-late 30s, including Rent Party Blues, Skunk Hollow Blues and Dooji Wooji.
SteigHackettHornA
Bobby Hackett (1915-1976) was a trumpet, cornet and guitar player who performed with Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller’s bands. Among my very favourite of his recordings are some he made in the 1950s with trombonist supreme Jack Teagarden. There was tremendous musical and personal camaraderie between these two.
SteigBeriganA
Trumpeter Roland Bernard “Bunny” Berigan (November 2, 1908 – June 2, 1942) had, according to Al Rose, the custom of carrying « several packages of chewing gum in his pocket, not because he was addicted to the vigorous mastication of chicle. He had an even more practical use for the stuff. He’d put three or four sticks of gum in his mouth as we approached a boîte with liquor in mind. Once inside, we’d sit at the bar and order our drinks. Then he’d excuse himself, promising to come back in a moment. He would walk purposefully off, to the men’s room I assumed incorrectly. Early on I discovered that what he was doing was finding the jukebox, putting a wad of Wrigley’s Doublemint through the coin slot, then pushing the slide in to assure the device’s inoperability for at least as long as we’d be there enjoying our drinks. He’d return to the bar secure and relaxed in the knowledge that our ears wouldn’t be assaulted by bad music. »
Chu!A
The great Rex Stewart recalls Chu: « Chu Berry was a big bear of a man and, as a matter of fact, he resembled a great big teddy bear. He was always in good humor and never had an unkind word to say about anyone. His given name was Leon Berry, his home town was Wheeling, West Virginia, and he hove onto the Harlem scene with his tenor saxophone. While he lived, he loved the life of a musician, late to bed and even later to rise. His favorite hangouts were Tillie’s Chicken Shack on Lenox Avenue and the Victoria Cafe on Seventh Avenue, where they used to serve good barbecue. Later he’d frequent the Woodside Hotel along with the fellows with Count Basie’s band when they lived there. Chu loved to talk, drink and eat, and if he could do all three while playing he was in his particular seventh heaven. »
SteigDukesMenA
« Probably no other band has brought such fame to sidemen as the Duke Ellington band », sagely states Shirley Hoskins Collins in the liner notes of this peerless LP showcasing four of the Duke’s finest acolytes: Barney Bigard, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams and Johnny Hodges.
SteigLesterLeapsInA
If I need to tell you who Count Basie and Lester Young are, you need to treat your ears to some fine vintage jazz, pronto.

These sets were reissued over the years, often with bland photo covers (oh, the infamy!), but Sony Japan has done right by the series a few years ago, reissuing it on cd while retaining the essence of its visual allure and, in most cases, adding four tracks of the same calibre and vintage to each disc.

Did I mention that Cab Calloway and Dizzy Gillespie are also in attendance? Sorry, it must have slipped my mind, what with all the excitement and bathtub gin.

« My neighbours listen to good music whether they like it or not. » – Unknown

– RG

“He sure is my heap hep dream beam!”* In praise of Bob Lubbers (1922-2017)

gasp651 Comment

Mr. Lubbers (pronounced LEW-bers) , born January 10, 1922, left us last summer at the venerable age of ninety-five. As it happens, he also left us some fine, fine artwork.

My initial encounter with Bob Lubbers‘ work came in 1978, when he provided a handful of covers and a couple of issues to Marvel’s Human Fly, a book about masked Canadian stuntman Rick Rojatt, whose real-life, non-funnybook story is a gripping read**. Anyway, the series was usually pencilled either by Lee Elias*** or by the mighty Frank Robbins; by the time Lubbers came along, Robbins had rightly had his fill, given the comics industry the one-finger salute and decamped to México to retire and paint in peace. Wise man.

HumanFly16A
Lubbers’ fourth and final The Human Fly cover (no. 16, Dec. 1978, Marvel). Inks by Bob McLeod. Inside, “Niagara Nightmare!” is written by Bill Mantlo, with art by Lubbers and Ricardo Villamonte.

I then became aware of Mr. Lubbers as one of the Golden Age’s primo ‘good girl’ cover artists, with Fiction House, no less. That’s what I’ll chiefly focus on here. Can you honestly blame me? Unlike some of his peers (hello, Bill Ward), he wasn’t just good at, and interested in, the saucy depiction of lightly-clad sirens: he could draw anything with finesse and brio.

Wings82A
Mouth-breathing, slope-browed… I guess he’s not the hero in this one. Wings Comics no. 82 (June 1947, Fiction House.)
Wings90A
Arguably the most (in)famous of Lubbers’ Wings covers. “Classic bondage and headlights cover!”, cry the ancient fanboys. Wings Comics no. 90 (Feb. 1948, Fiction House.)
Wings91A
If our man of the hour had rescue in mind for the imperilled damsel, dropping a payload (you heard me!) a hundred feet away from her is likely to… make the situation a bit messy. Wings Comics no. 91 (March 1948, Fiction House.)
Wings94A
« Seriously? The engine is on fire, we’re being strafed, I’m hogtied and helpless, and he’s still going to threaten me with a gun? » Wings Comics no. 94 (June 1948, Fiction House.)
Wings98A
The life of a crocodile dentist isn’t an easy one, but the satisfaction of a job well done is its own reward. Wings Comics no. 98 (Oct. 1948, Fiction House.)
Wings100A
Here comes the mother of all rope burns, sister. You’re supposed to grab the loop! Wings Comics no. 100 (Dec. 1948, Fiction House.)
AuthenticPolice5A
The exception to the Fiction House Wings set: Authentic Police Cases no. 5 (Oct. 1948, St. John.) The babes never could resist a bad boy.

Yet farther along, I would learn of his large and distinguished body of comic strip work: Long Sam, Secret Agent X-9, Tarzan, The Saint, Lil’ Abner, and best of all, his most personal work, Robin Malone (1967-70). On the latter, I can’t praise enough Tom Heintjes‘ definitive article (Hogan’s Alley no. 19, 2014), here’s a version of it: www.hoganmag.com/blog/the-life-and-death-of-robin-bob-lubbers-robin-malone

… and don’t forget to scroll down, down, down so you can sample (though it’s never enough!) the article’s lavish bounty Robin Malone Sunday strips.

*From the Captain Wings adventure « The Spider and the Fly-Guy » (Wings Comics no. 82) Read it right here (or pick from a generous selection of Wings Comics issues at Comicbookplus.com)

**speaking of which, check out this fine piece about The Human Fly’s rocket bike and the stunt that ended his career: http://kymichaelson.us/human-fly. You have to admit that jumping over 27 buses is a tad ambitious… and he was originally going to try for 36!

***likely picked for the job due to his fine work on another masked stuntperson character, Harvey’s The Black Cat.

– RG

Tentacle Tuesday: Adopt an Octopus Today!

redscraper1 Comment

I’m in the mood for a light-hearted Tentacle Tuesday, an octopus-as-gentle-companion kind of mood.

Without further ado, I invite you to take a peek at the lives of those who opted for a slightly unorthodox pet!

Here’s our first friendly fellow. Ocho the octopus may be a minor player on this cover, but I’d like to think that he can still be part of our Tentacular Tuesday line-up (I couldn’t resist his puppy eyes).

10845760_788912494490179_7872800748136590150_o
The Addams Family no. 1, October 1974. Cover by Bill Ziegler.

AF#1 not only features Ocho, but also a creature called Boola-Boola, basically a shaggy, colour-changing octopus – so you get double the tentacular pleasure in one issue!

AddamsFamily1GoldKey
Art also by Bill Ziegler.

You can read the whole story here. Interestingly enough, the website that has beautiful scans of all three Addams Family Gold Key issues seems to be dedicated to teaching young people’s English, or to quote from the horse’s mouth, “Improve your English through Reading Comic with Fun”.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Next up are Victoria and Otto, a nattily-dressed Victorian girl and her pet (confidant, friend, butler…) octopus.

OttoVictoriaSkating

Given the style of these comico-illustrations, I don’t think it will astonish anyone to learn that Brian Kesinger is a Walt Disney Studios alumnus. Apparently, Otto and Victoria’s popularity has taken him by surprise, though it seems rather obvious that a curvy steampunkette and a friendly octopus would be a hit with a lot of people. This may be overly cute, but how can you resist the chronicles of two dear friends (though they may be of different species), especially when they regularly drop everything for a tea or reading break?

Read-To-Your-Octopus

ice_bucket_art_challenge_by_briankesinger-d7vyhhk
Ice bucket challenge!

Otto and Victoria (with some involvement from Kesinger, I imagine!) have three books to their name – Walking Your Octopus: A Guidebook to the Domesticated Cephalopod (2013), Coloring With Your Octopus: A Coloring Book For Domesticated Cephalopods (2014) and Traveling With Your Octopus (2015), all three published by Baby Tattoo Books.

Here’s a self-portrait of the artist as a tentacle man:

BrianKesington
I think he’s stuck drawing tentacles for the rest of his life, now that Otto & Victoria merchandise is selling well. Careful what you wish for!

You can peruse more octopus adventures here.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

 

For our last entry, a friendly game of cards.

Now you see this brand new razor
I had it sharpened just today
I’m comin’ in there with my own rules
That you must follow when you play
Hey kid, keep your hands up there
While you’re givin’ them out, please
Stop puttin’ them wildies
Down there ‘tween your knees***

LUckyDuckn6
Lucky Duck #6 (May 1953), art by Irv Spector, (1914-1977), whose career was mostly in animation, though he left behind some lovely comic work as well. The madcap energy of his stories certainly makes it look like the characters are actually in motion!

The inside stories are also by Irv Spector.  His son, Paul Spector, hosts a wonderful blog about his father’s work, and you can find many Lucky Duck stories for your enjoyment on its online pages for a dose of the sort of ebullient zaniness one only finds in animal funnies of the 1950s.

As a little bonus, a peek at Gary Larson’s view of octopuses as pets.

GaryLarsonOctopusObedienceSchool

~ ds