cartoons I don't get #27

I only get it when I have something to say, otherwise I don't.

I have a set of discs of the complete New Yorker cartoons. Only problem is that in order to fit all the cartoons on two discs, you can't have the highest resolution or size, so you can't see all the detail. Charles Addams was one of the greatest gag cartoonists of all time and there's obviously some kind of gag here, but I have no idea what it is.
New Yorker December 15, 1956

Robert Day
New Yorker December 15, 1962

Perry Barlow
New Yorker December 16, 1961

I've got a lot of cartoons where the punchline is that somebody turns out to be gay. Not necessarily homophobia per se when the idea of two men being a couple wasn't an occurrence in everyone's frame of reference, more of an absurdity than anything else. I don't know if that's what's being intimated or if maybe I'm reading too much into it. Maybe I'm the bigoted one and what the boss had been holding in all this time was that the file cabinet in the lower right is transparent.
Mischa Richter
New Yorker December 17, 1960

Claude Smith Playboy, December 1967

Playboy, December 1967

Robert Kraus
New Yorker December 18, 1954

Charles Elmer Martin
New Yorker, December 19, 1959

Eldon Dedini
New Yorker December 23, 1961

Perry Barlow New Yorker December 24, 1955

Barlow
New Yorker December 26, 1954

I guess after seeing a bunch of cartoons I can't make heads or tails of, when I see an obvious joke I just don't get it out of habit, and that's why it's here. But just because the joke about a toy turning out to be real is so painfully obvious doesn't excuse the head-scratchers here.
Otto Soglow
New Yorker December 27, 1952

Playboy, January 1968

Sideshow #1, 2 of 3

Cartoons from the first issue of Sideshow from 1949, Avon's contribution to the gals and gags genre. The last installment was posted last week.

Ben Roth

Henry Boltinoff

Bill Wenzel

Bo Brown

Michael Berry

They'll Do It Every Time

Otto Soglow

No American Home etc.

Another slew of excerpts from the book Comic Art in America By Stephen Becker, which was a history of the comic strip up until 1959 when the book was published.

These are all from the chapter Comics: No American Home Complete Without Them. The caption are all from the book accompanying each strip, so remember any reference to anything current refers to then.

A Sunday Pete the Tramp by C. D. RUSSELL. Pete is as popular abroad as he is in this country.

Buck Rogers in 1934, when PHIL NOWLAN had taken over the continuity.

Secret Agent X-9, by DASHIELL HAMMETT and ALEX RAYMOND, in the early days. Note the straw hats.

A Jungle Jim by ALEX RAYMOND, 1940. Superb drawing—note the light and shadow, and the change of pace in “camera angles”.

One of the early Flash Gordon pages, 1936, by ALEX RAYMOND. Less light and shadow here, but more action. The combination of narrative and dialogue in characteristic.

A Rip Kirby of 1953, by RAYMOND, with Desmond, Kirby's Man Friday. The lighting effects add eerily to the obvious mood of the suspense.

Another Rip Kirby, by RAYMOND, this one of 1954. The man is an unashamed intellectual—pipe, typewriter in use, spectacles.

A Rip Kirby of 1958, drawn by JOHN PRENTICE. The illustrator's style is still brilliant, the facial expression excellent.

V.T. Hamlin's Alley Oop. A recent strip, but happily the same old prehistoria, complete with caveman carrying off sweetheart.

A <"http://www.erbzine.com/mag8/0827.html">REX MAXON Tarzan. Danger, action, and the ever-present jungle. The strip is now done by JOHN CELARDO and DICK VAN BUREN.

A full page of HAROLD FOSTER's Prince Valiant. Note the variety of some of the literate narrative, the accuracy of medieval detail.

A broad panorama by HAL FOSTER. The succession of long shots, close-ups, and interiors in Prince Valiant is very effective in maintaining pace and authenticity.

CLIFFORD McBRIDE's Napoleon, making trouble for himself and Uncle Elby, 1935.

The British import, Pop, by J. MILLER WATT. The artist liked to run his scene across more than one panel. The drawing is not as simple as it looks.

OTTO SOGLOW's famous Little King, probably the most put-upon monarch extant.

More next Thursday. Save the date.

Older Comic Art in America

Here are more cartoons from Comic Art in America by Stephen Becker. It's a book about the history up to that point (1959). I've been posting excerpts every Thursday, the previous installment is ""here where there's a hyperlink to the one before it which has the one before that and so on and so on an so forth.

The chapter before this, called Added Attractions just featured stills and model sheets from animated films so I won't bother with that. This is the next chapter, A Century of Magazines: From Corny Almanacks to The New Yorker. As the captions on the cartoons say:

”Dicky Colwell”, a drawing by JAMES ARKIN in 1808, when it was still practicable to quote Othello.

ALEXANDER ANDERSON's most famous cartoon, “Ograbme”, a sharp comment on the Embargo of 1813.

“Johnny Bull and the Alexandrians” by the great WILLIAM CHARLES, drawn in 1818.

An old CHIP BELLEW gag, which is practically a strip. BELLEW loved to draw dogs.

One of C. J. TAYLOR's he-she cartoons, done about 1907. From Judge

A fine HY MAYER from Puck, in about 1910.

A page is cut out here for some reason. I didn't print an ethnic stereotype cartoon they featured earlier so whatever was here must have been so much worse, If anyone else has this book and wants to send me copies or scans of pages 121-122 (and they're not so offensive), I'll post them.

Continuing with the captions:

There's no caption here. The cartoon is by T. S. Sullivant. Don't know the source or the year.

*Ahem* Continuing with the captions:

The primitive pun, by A.S. DAGGY, who was a popular cartoonist of the turn of the century. From Judge.

The Great ZIM (EUGENE ZIMMERMAN) drew this in 1908. After the first world war the Irishman ceased to be a victim of cartoonists, possibly because he was better assimilated. From Judge.

The next two cartoons are by JAMES THURBER in 1937, this and the rest (except for one) are from The New Yorker.

Helen Hokinson, 1926

PERRY BARLOW (mislabeled as Percy), 1954

MARY PETTY, 1940

RICHARD DECKER, 1958

OTTO SOGLOW, 1947

CARL ROSE, 1953

MISCHA RICHTER, from newspaper strip Strictly Richter