Studio Tour Part Two: Ruth's Bookcase

Opposite my Batman collection sits this little art deco bookcase. This originally belonged to my mother's sister Ruth. A number of the books that reside in it came from my father's cousin -- also named Ruth. And so, this is forever and always "Ruth's bookcase." There's even an illustrated edition (Arthur Szyk) of The Book of Ruth on the bottom shelf....

Taking up increasing amounts of space on the top of the bookcase are the current reprint volumes of Peanuts and Dennis the Menace. The Coney Island beer bottle is a recent addition. Inside the case are a variety of books and collectibles.

This Goldsmith edition of Huck Finn has cover art by Henry Vallely -- the prolific illustrator whose work was often found in original content Big Little Books. The original art for this illustration hangs on the wall. The Sgt. Bilko paperbacks are just a few of the Bilko items scattered throughout my collection.

The new Dennis volumes are kept company by a vintage vinyl figure of Dennis and Ruff -- and a signed edition of More Dennis the Menace. I found the book at a used bookstore on a long-ago trip to California -- priced no higher than the other Dennis hardcovers they had. I suspect they'd never noticed the inscription and drawing from Hank Ketcham inside!

This PeeWee Herman pennant was a gift from Paul Reubens -- from a visit Max Collins and I made to his Los Angeles digs during a San Diego Comic Con trip. We clueless Iowans had no real idea how far LA was from SD! The drive back to San Diego was a long chore -- and we very nearly missed our flight home the next morning due to oversleeping. Thanks to old friend (and TBG publisher) Alan Light pounding on our hotel room door, we managed to get up just in time to rush to the airport!

The witch version of my Trick or Treat "garage kit" lurks in the corner of the top shelf. Sharing that space are a number of items from the Earl Carroll Theatre. This Hollywood hotspot was famous for the celebrity signatures it had on display -- as well as their lovely dancers. That's a program from one of the Earl Carroll Vanities shows, signed by the performers leaning against the back of the bookcase. In front of it, is a set of six glasses covered in faux autographs of the biggest movie stars of the day. An ad for one of these sets claims eight total -- but the shipping box for same (see below) only has room for six -- so perhaps there were multiple versions.

This little -- and fairly flimsy box -- is what the glasses were shipped in -- from Hollywood to Iowa. Not a nick on the glasses. Can you imagine shipping something so fragile like this today? They wouldn't make it past the front desk of the PO before being shattered! Some more Earl Carroll paper below.

Here's a better look at the glasses -- well, five of the six anyhow. And a good look at the Aurora Plastics OZ-kins -- which seems to be missing one figure -- Wooden Sawhorse -- which has since turned up, thank goodness! These are based on the original Denslow illustrations for Wizard of OZ, and are very nicely done. This set was made in '67 and is fairly tough to find complete. Can you guess which figure is almost never found unbroken? I'm rather amazed that long thin piece of plastic on the left hasn't gotten snapped in one of the three or four moves these figures have been though with me. I guess I must pack things well, huh?

The rest of the bookcase is taken up by -- books! The My Book House series is a recent purchase -- and one I hope to share with my son as he gets a little older. The bottom shelf is mostly books that I inherited from the aforementioned cousin Ruth -- with a little Rockwell Kent and Lynd Ward of my own mixed in.
One of the My Book House volumes -- these are chock full of great stories and illustrations.

I love Rockwell Kent's art and writing. N by E is a particular favorite.

Arthur Szyk illustrated edition of the The Book of Job, followed by an interior illustration. Gee -- why didn't I photograph The Book of Ruth, considering...?

A Lynd Ward illustration from Beowulf -- one of cousin Ruth's books.

And finally, from on top of the bookcase -- and hidden by the beer bottle in the pic of that above -- is a Tintin tin! And if there's anything more fun to say than "Tintin tin," I want to know what it is! Much more Tintin in a future installment of this tour.

That's it for Part Two of the studio tour. Part Three coming soon!

Li'l Abner -- pitchman!

It's a testament to the popularity of Al Capp's comic strip, Li'l Abner, that clients must've been falling all over themselves to use Abner as pitchman for their products.  Have a look at the variety of ads shown here.  As always, click on the images for larger versions.

 Abner and family want us to buy Fruit of the Loom underwear -- Abner seems to prefer boxers, while the next generation is sporting briefs. 

Abner is knocking back Kraft caramels in this ad.  A previous blogpost on comic ads featured the Daisy Mae version of this advertisement.

Abner hawks laundry soap, while urging you to name this Shmoo!  Heck, I'll name a Shmoo for 20 grand!

Abner plugs the Bob Hope movie, That Certain Feeling -- which, not so coincidentally, features a cameo by Al Capp!

And now we come to the cream of the crop -- literally!  Cream of Wheat ran an ad campaign featuring Li'l Abner for over a decade -- from the early '40s into the '50s. The two full page ads directly below are not typical of the campaign.  Most of the ads were of the comic strip variety -- keep scrolling down to see three examples of those.

The first comic strip ad is an early one -- from 1941.  Early examples all have this "long shot" look to them, but it wasn't long before someone figured out the format allowed for a big top panel - and that panel could feature a big sexy shot of Daisy Mae (or Wolf Gal, on a few occasions) -- and the strips started looking more graphically pleasing (in more ways than one).   Ads usually ran in black and white or two color -- I've only seen a very few full color examples.  I have dozens of these -- and if you folks like them, I'll scan and post more -- just ask.

Alas, all good things come to an end.  After a decade of  selling their product with comic strips featuring a lunkheaded hillbilly and (more importantly) his gorgeous backwoods gal, Cream of Wheat retired the Li'l Abner campaign and brought in a rambunctious kid to pitch their cereal.  Here's Dennis the Menace taking Abner's place.  Dennis' mom is kinda cute -- but I must admit -- she's no Daisy Mae.
Now before anyone takes me to task for forgetting the Fearless Fosdick Wildroot Cream Oil ads -- I do have a few -- and will scan and post them soon.  In the meantime, please let me know if you'd like to see more of these comic strip ads!

 

'Toons on wax!

Comics and cartoon characters have made plenty of appearances on record -- here are a few from my collection.  This Batman/Superman 45 was released at the height of  1960s "Batmania."

Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace on disc. 

Crockett Johnson of the Barnaby comic strip illustrated this sleeve for The Carrot Seed.

This two disc 78 RPM set of Dick Tracy records comes in a fold-out sleeve, with three pages (one shown) of comic strip panels in B&W and without lettering in the balloons.  As you can see on the front cover, children were encouraged to write in the balloons and color the art.  Hurray for the kid who owned this one, who did neither!

Animated cartoons often had story or soundtrack versions released on 78 RPM discs.  This Disney Pinocchio has a particularly lovely read-along booklet inside.  One page of that is shown below the cover.

Fleischer Studio's Gulliver's Travels had this great multi-disc 78 soundtrack set issued.  No storybook pages inside -- but B&W images from the film on the inside covers -- plus a small fold-out booklet with info on the creators of the film's music (cover shown).  I suspect few copies of this exist with the booklet intact, as it could be very easily lost.

I have very fond childhood memories of listening to these Bugs Bunny records, and reading along with the storybooks included.  These copies are in rather rough shape, so I did a little Photoshop clean up on the covers -- just enough to make them presentable enough to show here.

Storybook art on these is by Richard Thomas and Bob McKimson -- wonderful drawings -- a few shown here.  Bugs Bunny in Storyland was my favorite -- largely for the appearance of Daffy Duck as "Duck Twacy," otherwise only seen in the fantastic animated Dick Tracy spoof,  The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.

Th-th-th-that's all folks!  Please leave a comment if you like what you see here.

What does a WInkerbean taste like?

I'd forgotten about this breakfast cereal until I stumbled across this ad in an '80s Chicago Tribune Sunday comics section I'd saved.  I think I actually bought a box or two of this stuff.  I don't recall what it tasted like, but I do remember liking the idea of the box covered in comic strips!