Overview
Arf Museum explores the unholy marriage of art and comics in a stunning array of rare masterpieces, guaranteed to make you "pop-eyed!" With 120 large-format and colorful pages, Arf is a treat for the senses, encompassing a rich treasure trove of images spanning the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. This iconoclastic tome showcases the gamut of artists, from celebrated innovators to forgotten geniuses.
Featured in this volume: Ten unpublished early 20th century paintings of "the Yellow Kid" by his creator, Richard Felton Outcault; Pablo Picasso's secret cartoon past is revealed; 1950s girlie cartoonist Reamer Keller's never-before-seen banned cartoons; the Gasoline Alley gang, Barney Google, Polly and Her Pals, The Addams Family, and Nancy take a trip to the art museum; "Kink Kong," a section spotlighting ape figures and damsels in distress, from World War I propaganda to the 1933 King Kong movie to "jungle" comic books of the 1940s to present day; contemporary art rebel Coop introduces a section of devilish cartoons by Art Young, the 1920's Commie cartoonist tried for treason; an examination of Rube Goldberg's foray into modern art via his drawings of modernist sculptures that playfully lambaste the beginnings of Modern Art; and a rare and hilarious Goldberg essay from the 1930s, titled "I Am Now A Modern Artist".
Arf Museum has all of this and more, including cartoons by Art Spiegelman, Patrick "Mutts" McDonnell, Ronald Searle, Dan DeCarlo, Gene Deitch, T.S. Sullivant, Maurice Henri and pin-up artist Gil Elvgren. Arf is edited by Craig Yoe, formerly the Creative Director and Vice-President/General Manager of the Muppets and a recipient of many awards, including the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators and the Eisner Award.
Synopsis
150 years of great cartooning under one cover.
Arf Museum explores the unholy marriage of art and comics in a stunning array of rare masterpieces, guaranteed to make you "pop-eyed!" With 120 large-format and colorful pages, Arf is a treat for the senses, encompassing a rich treasure trove of images spanning the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. This iconoclastic tome showcases the gamut of artists, from celebrated innovators to forgotten geniuses.
Featured in this volume: Ten unpublished early 20th century paintings of "the Yellow Kid" by his creator, Richard Felton Outcault; Pablo Picasso's secret cartoon past is revealed; 1950s girlie cartoonist Reamer Keller's never-before-seen banned cartoons; the Gasoline Alley gang, Barney Google, Polly and Her Pals, The Addams Family, and Nancy take a trip to the art museum; "Kink Kong," a section spotlighting ape figures and damsels in distress, from World War I propaganda to the 1933 King Kong movie to "jungle" comic books of the 1940s to present day; contemporary art rebel Coop introduces a section of devilish cartoons by Art Young, the 1920's Commie cartoonist tried for treason; an examination of Rube Goldberg's foray into modern art via his drawings of modernist sculptures that playfully lambaste the beginnings of Modern Art; and a rare and hilarious Goldberg essay from the 1930s, titled "I Am Now A Modern Artist".
Arf Museum has all of this and more, including cartoons by Art Spiegelman, Patrick "Mutts" McDonnell, Ronald Searle, Dan DeCarlo, Gene Deitch, T.S. Sullivant, Maurice Henri and pin-up artist Gil Elvgren. Arf is edited by Craig Yoe, formerly the Creative Director andVice-President/General Manager of the Muppets and a recipient of many awards, including the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators and the Eisner Award.
Publishers Weekly
Having curated actual museum shows, cartoonist/designer Yoe turns to the print medium to exhibit little known cartoon art. Appropriately, the book opens with cartoons about fine art museums by Charles Addams, Chester Gould, Cliff Sterrett and others. Some of these works, like Frank King's, demonstrate links between cartooning and "high" art. Others, including an essay by Rube Goldberg, voice a populist disdain for modern art and art critics. In the wake of the King Kong remake, Yoe presents works pairing apes and women, running a gamut from horror to simple titillation, such as photos of Bettie Page with guys in literal monkey suits. A segment on tattooing includes an EC-style horror tale written, surprisingly, by Stan Lee. In the book's most extraordinary works, 19th-century cartoonist Charles Bennett transforms animals into humans through a succession of images that Yoe insightfully compares to CGI "morphing" effects. Other highlights are remarkable, previously unpublished color paintings by Richard Outcault of the Yellow Kid, American comics' first iconic character. The book concludes with an examination of Picasso's interest in the comics. Lavishly illustrated, this survey of the long history of pop art entertains with a succession of bold, unexpected images. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.