Barreling Along

Wednesday Illustration Day.

In the early sixties, Al Jaffee got himself a bit of extra work by illustrating a gag book from Scholastic. Publishing books and magazines for schools and school children, they never shied away from comic book material or artists. Jerry Robinson illustrated a couple of their young adventure novels and a few years later after this, Bud Blake did a kid's book as well. In 1958 they published two articles about Stan Lee and Joe Maneely's newspaper strip Mrs. Lyons Cubs. I have copies of one of those two instances, but only a written record of the second. Anyone with comics related material in their Scholastic magazines can see me after class. I have shown these before, but accidentally without the cover.

Barrel of Fun

Monday School Day.

I am a big fan of the work of Al Jaffee (and proud to be able to include his new fold-ins in the Dutch Mad). He was always a prolific artist as well as an inventive one. One of his most inventive series was the elongated panel Tall Tales. For most of it's run the panel was silent as well (and better for it). It was only on the strong advice of his main paper that he started ading words and the strip ended soon afterwards. But while he was doing Tall Tales he still had time to contribute to magazines such as Humbug (in the early years) and sell cartoons to Playboy and Esquire. Apparently that was not all. Doing a routine search on e-bay, I found a kids book he illustrated for Scholastic. Given the nature and output of that publisher, I wouldn't be surprised if more comic book and newspaper artists moonlighted for the, but here at least is Al Jaffee's effort. I have chosen some of the most remarkable illustrations for the book, although I stringly believe they would have been beter and funnier if he had written them himself.