I always dig it when political cartoonists use a reference to comic strips characters in their cartoons. That’s been going on since the days of the Yellow Kid. There’s a particularly great one featuring the Yellow Kid as William Randolph Hearst in Arf Museum printed from the original art.
Just ran across this one by Draper Hill for the Memphis paper The Commercial Appeal with Richard Nixon as Mandrake the Magician. They don’t call him Tricky Dick for nothing!

(click for a closer look)

BTW, if you’ve got political cartoons featuring comic strip characters send ‘em in! I heartily welcome items like this or other cool things you have or ideas for Arf Lovers. Thanks!

(click for a slideshow from this book)

I teach at Syracuse University occasionally for fun on comic history or on creativity or on toy design. I was intrigued to see a vintage ad taped to another professor’s office for this 1964 book “Daddy is an Artist”. It looked like fun and kind of Arf-y so I tracked a copy down. Turns out it is stunningly, beautifully drawn (reminds me of Alex Toth’s work). And it was done by a bona fide cartoonist, Dan Heilman, who drew the comic strip “Judge Parker”. And it’s pretty wonky.

At a certain point the son and daughter decide to help Daddy and “finish” one of his paintings while he’s sleeping. “Well, after we had finished, it really was a scene…with purple trees and yellow grass and sky a pretty green.” Dad doesn’t appreciate the young Picassos and gets all pissy, throws a hissy fit and sends the errant offspring to their rooms. Does Daddy’s squelching of the kid’s creativity remind you a bit of Hitler’s admonition? The Nazi leader said, “Anybody who paints and sees a sky green and pastures blue ought to be sterilized”. Amen to that!

Seriously, what about the cartoonist’s name? Dan Heilman. As in “Sig Heil”? I’m not passing judgement, just pointing this out.

Anyway, click on the cover above to see more pages from this wonderfully drawn, but a little disturbing, book.

I’m pretty damn excited about the chapter in the upcoming Arf Museum. “The Erotic Arf of Reamer Keller.” Boody “Sparky Watts” Rogers told me Keller was a great practical joker. On Wednesdays, cartoonists in New York City made the rounds to the different magazine offices to sell their gag cartoon ideas. One Wednesday, Boody, Bill “Smokey Stover” Holman, and Keller were approaching the Colliers office. The Cartoon Editor there, Gurney Williams, hated Holman’s ever-present cigars. So, as he always did, Holman politely parked his stogie on a window ledge out on the street before entering the Colliers door. At the same time, Reamer spotted on the sidewalk a dried piece of dog shit. When Holman had his back turned, Reamer made the switch. Later, when the ‘toonist trio came out of the offices, Bill Holman grabbed the turd thinking it was his cigar and put it to his lips, much to the great amusement of Reamer and Boody.

God, how lucky I was to get to know all three of these, and many other giant cartoonist geniuses! I am so grateful and humbled by that. It’s my supreme privilege and mission to show you the often forgotten art of those geniuses in this blog and in the Arf pages.

To see a little slide show of some of the Keller Kartoons that I didn’t have room for in Arf Museum click on the animation below of a Keller Girl.

P.S. Come say hi if you’re at the NY ComiCon this Sunday. I’ll be at the Midtown Comics booth #317 signing Modern Arf from 2:00-2:45. And check out the sexy art and books by Dean Yeagle at his table. Dean did the awesome caricature of Reamer surrounded by Yeagle Babes in Arf Museum.

(click for a slideshow of Reamer Keller’s art)

CARTOONIST Michael Kupperman, also known as P. Revess, has had his work appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, LA Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, The Believer, and Heavy Metal. Harper Collins published his book Snake ‘n Bacon’s Cartoon Cabaret in 2000. Last year, he started a comic book series called Tales Designed To Thrizzle, published by Fantagraphics.

Michael’s characters include Underpants-On-His-Head Man, a costumed crime-fighter who (DUH!) wears underpants on his head. And then there’s Hercules, the Public Domain Superhero, who often smashes things.

Michael and I will both be autographing out books, he Thrizzle, and me, Modern Arf, at the NY Comic-Con, at the MidTown Comic booth #317, on Suday from 2:00 to 2:45 pm, so I thought I’d get to know him a little first. Michael Kupperman, give me five!

1. Do you have any mainstream comics that are a guilty pleasure?

I think it’s pretty obvious from my work that I love the old mainstream comics, especially the ones that look like they were drawn overnight by fifteen-year-olds. It’s been a while since I’ve read any current mainstream stuff, though. In art school I had a roommate who read them all, and I got into some of them for a while… my favorites were Swamp Thing (the Moore/Bissette/Veitch/Totleben era), and Nexus (terrific writing, and Steve Rude is an incredibly skillful artist/designer).

2. What do women want, anyway?

Well, we have to remember that we do still live in an unequal society; women have to struggle harder than men to make something of themselves. A nice general answer to that question would be that women want to be respected, listened to, and understood on their own terms. But I’m in a successful relationship now – I’m engaged – and I think it took all of my unsuccessful relationships, and learning from them, to make this one work. When I was younger I didn’t have a clue!

3. Are you a cartoonist that moonlights as an illustrator or an illustrator that moonlights as a cartoonist?

A cartoonist that moonlights as an illustrator. Frankly, I hate most of the illustration work that I’m forced to do… and the conditions for an illustration career keep getting worse and worse, in terms of money, time given for assignments, etc. (not that comics is great for money either).

I’ve done a lot of work for the New Yorker that I’m quite proud of – they take their illustrations quite seriously – and in the last two years, a lot for McSweeney’s that’s been quite rewarding – but I’d be happy to ditch most of my current illustration workload, if I could. I need the money, unfortunately, and have no other skills.

4. I read that as a kid you liked political cartoons, has that early fascination translated into any of your current work? Who? What? How? When? Why?

I do think old political cartoons are fascinating – unfortunately, the one-panel political cartoons feels as good as dead to me now. What’s been lost is the symbology – the visual language of the top-hatted plutocrat, the octopus on top of the globe, Mr. H-Bomb, etc.; as well as a certain amount of sophistication that the cartoonists were able to expect from their audience. I think that does get reflected in my comics… in a deconstructive way…. the further back you go with political cartoons, the less sense they make. I have some old bound volumes of 19th-century Punch, with Tenniel cartoons that are beautiful and usually incomprehensible… sometimes just symbolic figures shaking hands with each other, commemorating some more or less forgotten event.

5. What for you would be the ingredients of the ultimate Dagwood sandwich?

Ooh. Tough question… I’m just going to go with the reuben… that’s my favorite, next to tuna with lettuce. I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a “Dagwood”, at least the way I visualize it. But I’m always worried about gaining weight… it happens so easily when your job involves a lot of sitting combined with tension!