jim henson

PLEASE NOTE: In accordance with a cease and desist message received from About Comics, current copyright holder for the images from Charles M. Schulz's 'Two-by-Fours' book, the color scans from a vintage copy of that book have been removed from this blog until further notice.

Thank you.

About Comics would also like you to know that their book 'Schulz's Youth' collects cartoons from both the 'Young Pillars' series and images from 'Two-by-Fours'.

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This little book of child psychology for churchgoing folk was a collaboration between beloved cartoonist
Charles M. Schulz and writer Kenneth F. Hall.

It first appeared in the
mid-1960s, right around the same time Schulz was finishing up his run on 'Young Pillars', a comic strip with similar gently religious overtones, focused on teenagers.

Schulz' 'Peanuts' gang were certainly already hugely popular at the time, though it would still be a couple of years or so before they'd take over the planet and all its media.

If the lanky, elongated teens in 'Young Pillars' looked sort of like older versions of Charlie Brown and his friends, the 'Two-By-Fours' kids look sort of like kids who were their same age but who lived across town or went to a different school.

- A bit of text from the book's back cover ▲ and preface ▼ defining the concept...

"When a Two-by-Four is a piece of lumber, you can stack it on a neat pile or cut it to just the right length and nail it to a wall.

"But, the kind of Two-by-Four we discuss here (children living in their second, third, and fourth years) you can never quite nail down so permanently or stack up so neatly.

"In fact, these youngsters do not themselves have a clear picture of just who they are, and they do a lot of groping to try to discover the answer."



Fun to see Schulz working in a single-panel format, as opposed to his customary strip motif.

The vivid colors are reminiscent of those in his book Happiness is a Warm Puppy, and bring back memories of greeting cards and calendars of the era, or 'gift' books printed around the same time by Price/Stern/Sloan and other such publishers.

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Boy howdy, short of having someone explain why a joke is funny, there's nothing more entertaining than heavily dated old magazine cartoons in need of contextual footnotes...

Fortunately (or hopefully), the esoteric charm of this batch of panels may transcend their bygone topicality.

Cartoonist Alan Dunn (1900 – 1974) may still hold the record as the New Yorker's most prolific illustrator, responsible for 1906 cartoons and 9 covers during his tenure there, from 1926 - 1973.

Capitalizing on his background in design, Dunn also contributed many cartoons to Architectural Record, beginning in 1936.

A collection of those cartoons, 'The Last Lath' was first published in 1947.
In addition to lampooning the modern design trends and technologies of the 1930s and '40s, much of the humor centers around the terminology used by contractors and architects of the day, as well as realities like WWII-era material shortages and the post-war
housing boom.

- - Oh, and they're cool, too.

Probably there are very similar gag cartoons around today, just with more up-to-date buzzwords...

For a bit more about Alan Dunn, see also:

- A brief bio about Dunn and his wife, fellow New Yorker cartoonist, Mary Petty.

- Other Alan Dunn book covers displayed at Christopher Wheeler's Cartoon(ist) Gallery.

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These illustrations appeared in the October, 1949 issue of Liberty magazine, accompanying that month's featured 'condensed book'.

Most of artist
Tom Sinnickson's cartoony panels are lighthearted and playful (and delightfully incongruous when divorced from the main text), but the 'cover' and a couple of others effectively carry a darker feeling.








In the 1950s, Sinnickson illustrations turned up in many popular children's books, including some picture-book editions of various Wizard Of Oz stories for younger readers , 'A Child's Book of Planes', 'The Five Jolly Brothers', and several adaptations of older Raggedy Ann stories, all published by
Wonder Books.

Any other info you can share about Tom Sinnickson and his artwork is most welcome.
Please leave a comment or drop an e-mail.

'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living' was first published in
1948, written by American lecturer and pioneering
'self-help' author
Dale Carnegie. ▶

It was a
follow-up to his immensely popular book, 'How to Win Friends and Influence People', first published in 1936.

Those curious can read Carnegie's own summary to this book by following this link,
or one may click over to Google Books for
a preview of the current revised edition.

Hopefully you enjoyed the recent post of ''Strictly Personal' illustrations by Charles Rodrigues', because I've just stumbled onto an old paperback collecting some of his one-panel magazine cartoons.

- Follow the link to that previous post for some bio and background links about this cartoonist who was often known for his 'sick' material - - especially when he began working for National Lampoon in the 1970s.

'Spitting On The Sheriff And Other Diversions' was first published in paperback in 1966. ▶
According to Rodrigues' intro notes, many of the cartoons within had originally appeared in the magazines Stag, Male, Men, For Men Only, and Rogue, and some had never appeared in print before.

Scroll down for a few excerpts, click on the images to enlarge in a new window.

Truth be told, the reproduction of many of the cartoons in the book was pretty poor, so I've concentrated on some highlights that 'read' more clearly.


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UPDATE, 7.11.09: A couple more specific cartoons added, by request of a reader with a long memory...

Cartoonist
Charles Addams was 20 years old in 1932, when his work first appeared in the pages of
The New Yorker.

His macabre cartoons were still running there on a regular basis when this article appeared in the September 13th, 1976 issue of People Magazine, and did so up until his death in 1988 - - and beyond.

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Consider this article a companion to the previously-posted 'Charles Addams: Master of the Macabre', an earlier magazine 'profile' from 1953 that appeared her almost a year ago.

Follow link to that piece for further background links, photos and more info about the three wives of Charles Addams.

See also:
Several great vintage Addams cartoons are on display over at Hairy Green Eyeball.


















































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