This year I started selling all the magazines on Ebay I used to find the material I have been sharing here ovre the years. In most cases that meant going back through them if I scanned everything (and usually I didn't). One of the major projects I left to be done things, were illustrations Virgil Partch did for True magazine's letters page. Partch was the cartoon editor of that monthly men's magazine and one of his tasks was to illustrate the letters. Eventhough his style changed over the years to become less and less weird, they were always fun to see.
I have started to scan them last month and I am nowhere near ready. But there is enough to start sharing what I do have. Here are all the letters illustrations I have from the second half of the forties. I scanned them with the letter they belonged to as well as the editor's reply - if there was one. On one occasion Partch was asked to take over the replies as well, so the editor in question could go on holiday.
Partch was a master illustrator as well as a very funny man. These small vignettes show his abillity at design as well as his whacky sense of humor. We hardly have illustrator's sections any more these day - frankly, we hardly have magazines any more.
4 comments:
I would be very delighted to see more of these. Many thanks!
Virgil Partch speaking of his own ingenious style in the 3rd person: “Partch avoids detail. Backgrounds are kept as uncluttered as possible. He puts in only the props which are necessary to put over the idea”; and: “Partch believes that the cartoon should serve as more than just an illustration for a caption. He tries to develop a drawing that smacks of the illogical.”
I wonder if he was related to the avant-garde composer Harry Partch?
Yes, I believe it was his uncle.
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