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June 27th, 2022

Pinups: Girl Cartoons From "Booby Traps" and "Nuggets"

Sometimes I think I must have the best job in the world…

Today some nice folks who had Googled up this website stopped by to offer us some material to digitize that they had rescued from a relative’s garage. They had a laundry basket full of 1940s magazines and a big stack of original inks from a 1947 girlie cartoon magazine, colorfully titled Booby Traps and Nuggets. My jaw hit the floor when I started going through the artwork. Here is a part of cartooning history that has been largely overlooked- especially by me. But not any more!

The artwork is quickly executed and sometimes a bit funky… and for good reason. On the back of each ink is the amount the cartoonist was paid for his work. The prices range from $3 to $5. You would have to work pretty doggone fast to make a living at that rate! I have to admit, I don’t know much about these artists. So I’m going to present them a couple at a time with the little I do know and see if any of you readers out there can help fill in the blanks about their careers.

JACK O’BRIEN

Jack O’Brien lived in Los Angeles, and this photograph shows him with his daughter, Suzanne. In the 1960s, O’Brien drew the Sad Sack comic books, he came up with a beatnik character named "Cool Cat", and he created the G.I. Juniors line of comics for Harvey. If you know anything else about O’Brien, please post to the comments below.

MILO KINN

All I know about Milo Kinn is that he lived in Seattle, Washington. I’m guessing he was married, (based on the pretty dingle ball curtains!) and it’s clear that he didn’t mind drawing the exact same pretty girl profile over and over. In fact, he seems to have a lot more fun with the "broads" than he does with the "babes". Anyone have any more details on him?

BILL WENZEL

Bill Wenzel is the best known artist in this batch, working here under the pseudonym, "Candace". Fantagraphics recently published a collection of his work, and GoofButton.com posted scans from a late sixties collection of his cartoons, titled Tender Loving Care. Here, we get a rare chance to see Wenzel’s rough alongside the finished ink…

STANLEY RAYON

All I know about Stanley Rayon was that he lived and worked in New Orleans. Does anyone have any more info on him? Although his drawings are pretty primitive, they do have that spark of fun that makes post-War girlie cartoons so appealing.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Magazine Cartoons.

Labeled: magazine, pinups |

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Posted by admin @ 10:45 am

June 22nd, 2022

Comics: Paul Coker Jr’s Cartoons For Mad

Paul Coker Jr. is one of those cartoonists that always seems to be overlooked, yet he is one of the most talented and stylistically ubiquitous artists of modern times. His drawings have appeared in advertisements, on greeting cards and in the pages of Mad Magazine for over half a century. He designed characters for many of the Rankin/Bass holiday puppet TV specials, including “Frosty the Snowman” and “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”. His sketches are deceptively simple on first glance, but they are solidly drawn and incorporate many fundamental principles in a sophisticated manner. (For instance, check out the masterful control of perspective in the cartoon above.) John Kricfalusi has written an appreciation of Coker’s work, as has David Apatoff. Check out this devastating satire on network television and you’ll be a fan too.

From “The Mad Guide To Careers” 1978
BE A NETWORK TV EXECUTIVE

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Magazine Cartoons.

Labeled: comic, mad, paul coker |

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Posted by admin @ 2:54 pm

June 21st, 2022

Illustration: Boris O’Klein’s Dirty Dogs of Paris

Today’s images are a bit of a mystery. Even though untold numbers of these prints have sold over the years, very little is known about the artist who created them. The compositions are all very long and don’t fit the computer screen well, so make sure you click on the images and look at the full size scans.

If you had visited Paris on a vacation anytime during the 1930s to the 1950s, odds are you would have brought back one of these prints as a souvenir. My Uncle who was a Rear Admiral in the Navy had a pair of these hanging in his bathroom and as a child I was fascinated by them. Called "The Dirty Dogs of Paris", this series of etchings was created by an artist who went by the multi-ethnic name "Boris O’Klein". His real name was Arthur Klein and he was born in Moscow, Russia in 1893.

O’Klein emigrated to France as a boy and became a successful magazine illustrator in Paris during the 1930s. The story goes that he spent hours watching the stray dogs in the streets outside his studio and realized that their personalities weren’t all that different from people. He was inspired to create a few cartoons of the dogs doing what dogs do… peeing on trees, chasing female dogs and sniffing each others’ butts.

The dog cartoons were just a lark. His real passion was painting hunting and wilderness scenes. But he realized the money making potential of the Dirty Dogs, and supplied a series of etchings to gift shops and galleries all over Paris. They became hugely popular and overshadowed all of his other work. Eventually, they even overshadowed the artist who created them.

I found these prints at eBay. They appear to be quite common. There are at least four or five different signatures on them, depending on the vintage, so it’s evident that they were cranked out in quantity by a third party. They appear to be still in production, although the recent prints are not nearly as good looking as the older ones.

Boris O’Klein passed away in 1985. I wish I could tell you more about him, but that’s all I know. If anyone reading has any info, please share it in the comments.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources