Wednesday, August 24, 2011

1001 Riddles by George Carlson

I wrote about 1001 Riddles for Children in one of my studio tour entries, noting that it was one of my favorite books from childhood -- and in searching through my storage boxes, I discovered I had an extra copy -- so I'll be letting one of them go -- but not before sharing some of the illustrations with you.

I'd guess that most comics fans first heard of George Carlson from Harlan Ellison's essay about him and his Jingle Jangle Comics in All in Color for a Dime -- but I knew of Carlson from the beat-up crayon-marked copy of this book that was part of my childhood library. That particular copy is long gone -- but it seems I replaced it in my collection twice! This copy does have a dust jacket -- but the art on that is not by Carlson -- so never mind about that.

It seems Carlson's best known work is the spot illustration for the original dust jacket of Gone With the Wind (yes, that Gone With the Wind) -- but for me, he'll always be the guy who drew the dozens of illos for this fun children's book. What's shown here is just a sampling -- there are multiple illos on nearly every page!

As for the riddles -- well, they're not as memorable as the drawings, but I do like this one: What does an artist like to draw most? Answer: His salary!

So on that note, here are a whole bunch of illustrations by the wacky and wonderful George Carlson. I do so love that laughing parrot! Enjoy!






























2 comments:

leifpeng said...

Wonderful stuff, Terry - thanks for sharing these with us! I love the young artist "drawing a tiny salary" contrasted with the older artist at the end of your post drawing a HUGE fortune. Oh, if only it were true! ;^)

Anonymous said...

Hello....I have this book from my childhood. I was trying to see when it was written or the copyright date but it does not have any thing. Do you know anything about that? I was born in 1951 so I guess it was after that.