The Inconvenient Truth

Wednesday Illustration Day. 

A couple of years ago the American publisher Checker produced a couple of interesting books. The first volume of the complete Scandinavian reprint op Beetle Bailey (taking over the design and the notes and comments from that excellent edition, whch was producent with the help and input of Mort Walker and his sons), a book with the best of the less well known Windsor McCay strips, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Steve Canyon, Alan Moores work on Image's Surpreme title and a book reprinting al lot of McCay's political cartoons. I got them all and they were all disappointing in their own way. Some were printed very badly, some were badly sourced and used second rate scans and all were very badly laid out - except maybe the Beetle Bailey book, which suffered from the fact that it stopped after the first volume (where the Scandinavian series went up to 1980 or so). 

Not long after, Fantagraphics did their own book of McCays political cartoons. Which was a lot better, but concentrated on the art at the detriment of the meaning to my opinion. Now that is a difficult point. The editorials McCay was asked to illustrate were unreadable, like pilitical sermons that seemed intended to sent it's readers to sleep. McCays illustrations were often so alligorical or vague, that they all belended into on gray mess. 

I think that for me, a perfect reprinting of the McCay cartoons would be complete, they would have a short version of the editorial, a historical background and some sort of explaination of the cartoon. Since no one will probably ever do that, here are a couple I clipped earlier.

Dreams Of A McCay Fiend

Saturday Leftover Day.

Recently I ran across some Windsor McCay material that is not very often seen. McCay is most well known as the artist of Little Nemo, Hungry Henrietta and my personal favorite (and least reprited) A Pilgrim's Progress. He is also known as The Father of Animation, since the handmade animation shorts he did at the begining of the last century were an inspiration to many (as well as miles away in quality from anything procused until years after his death). For the last part of his life he did editorial drawings for the Hearst papers, which are as outdated as they are beautifully drawn. One of his most fanous strips was Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend, depicting the insane nightmares of people who ate to much rarebit before going to sleep. In 2007 the German fan and collector Ulrich Merkl published a huge volume collecting most of these black and white strips, complete with a cd disc tha reprodues all of them as well as many related pieces, some great commentary and comparisons with movies and cartoons which took their inspiration from this great strip. Included with the extra's were a series of strips McCay did about five years after the Rarebit series, alternatively called It's Only A Dream and Dream of a Lobster Fiend. It's from this last series I found a few, as well as an add for a movie with the same name and subject from the same period. I don't know if the movie was inspired by McCay or if McCay was inspired by the movie (not fearing a lawsuit, since they movie director clearly took his earlier strip as an inspiration - and maybe even taking the movie as a chance to take up his own strip for another syndicate or newspaper, this time signing it with his own name instead of the pseudonym Silas he had used on the original). It is even possible he was asked to do the series as a sort of promotion or to change the name of It's Only A Dream to Dream Of A Lobster Fiend for the same reason. Anyway, he is te material. I also checked on Amazon, but Ulrich's rediculously low priced book is still available there. That surprises me because it had only a low print run. It should be in every American library and in the collection of any serious fan of the art form.

March 28 1912:


April 23 1912:


April 26 1912:


April 29 1912:


0ay 1 1912:


May 8 1912:


Another May 8 1912:


May 19 1912:


May 12 1912:


May 27 1912:


May 1912:


May 1912:

Rare Bit

Wednesday Advertising Day.

A rare ad by comic strip legend Windsor McCay.

Have you all got your copy of Ulrich Merkle ultimate compilation of all of Windsor Mccay's Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend and associated strips? It is the best privately publised book ever done on a comics subject. There are only about 100 left from the original ptint run of 1000. The boo itself is wonderful, but even more impressive is the complete collectio of all strips and assorted pieces of documentation on the accompanying disc. I hope Ulrich or someone like him will somday do a similar book with all of McCay's other forgotten strip, the superbly symbolic A Pilgrim's Progress. Read more about the book and order it here: http://www.rarebit-fiend-book.com/