An "unknown" Clifford Berryman self-portrait

This surfaced recently in the National Geographic archives before being sent out for deep storage. Berryman apparently drew it for the editor Gilbert H. Grovesnor as an RSVP to a luncheon invitation because it's on a piece of his stationary.

Berryman is hurrying to see artist / explorer Alexander Iacolevff who had worked on a story about Vietnam for them in 1935. Presumably he was back in the States by the beginning of the year, because Berryman's dated his cartoon to March 15, 1935 for a lunch on the 18th. Here's one of the artworks Iacolevff did at the time. Here's a painting that National Geographic used to own before they auctioned off a good bit of their patrimony in 2012, including more by him, and paintings (plural for both) by NC Wyeth, and dinosaur artist Charles Knight, and a lot of famous photographs. Browse the whole list here. They made $3,776,587 before selling themselves to Fox a few years later.

Framish Yuk Yuk minicomic and Family Circus 'bootleg' in the Secret History of Comics

 

Family Circus bootleg political ad from the  Nicholas County News-Leader May 29, 1974 p. 2-13

and this is a link to a 'make it yourself' minicomic gag and joke book, probably cut out of a newspaper. I will donated it to either the Library of Congress or the Billy Ireland Library.

Framish Yuk Yuk minicomic: https://archive.org/details/framish-yuk-yuk-minicomic-as-printed

Warren Bernard's Willard Mullin collection (pre-Columbia U donation)

 Warren Bernard spent years collecting sports cartoonist Willard Mullin artwork and ephemera. Before he donated it to Columbia University this month, he had a showing of material at his house. With his permission, here are photos of the material that went to NYC (with a few ringers that stayed home with him).  

Prof. Joseph Witek sent me a note about this post. "In one of the random projects that came my way back in the helter-skelter pioneer days of comics studies, I wrote the Dictionary of American Biography entry for Willard Mullin (who I had never previously heard of). Mullin was just an excellent cartoonist / caricaturist from back in the day when sports cartoons were the sports-page counterpart of editorial cartoons, during an era when boxing (Joe Louis), thoroughbred racing, and East Coast college football were the premier sports in US culture (the Army-Navy game was once a huge deal).  But Mullin covered a bit of everything."

And the ringers, Winsor McCay, Gluyas Williams, and Bringing up Father posters.

Uncorrected Proofs in comics libraries? Keep or toss?

This question came up in the librarian section of the Comics Studies Society.

I argued in favor of keeping them as the art is frequently in an unfinished state, and can be thumbnails, pencils, or uncolored.

Here is an example of a proof, or Advance Reader Copy, of Trashed by Derf with an added editor's note and marketing information that may not be available anywhere else. It's from my own collection that I happen to run across recently, so I decided to take a few pictures to bolster my argument, and then thought I'd share them here as well.

I'd call this part of the Secret History of Comics.

My apologies for the so-so photos.

 

 

 

Alison Bechdel, carabiners, Flickr, documentary films, and me

 A couple of months ago, I got a request to use this photo I took of the great cartoonist Alison Bechdel at Politics and Prose on May 4, 2012 in a short documentary.

 

 Alexia Lafeuille, the film's producer wrote, "I'm reaching out on behalf of WaterBear (www.waterbear.com), a digital media publisher and free streaming platform dedicated to social-impact content. I'm currently producing a short documentary called 'This History of the Carabiner'. This multimedia film celebrates the significance and history of the carabiner as a symbol of queer identity and belonging for women and non-binary people."

 Since I shoot these pictures to capture the history of comics and cartoonists, I said yes, and now the film is out. Alexia informed me, "[The History of the Carabiner is] available to stream on WaterBear (you will have to create an account to access, but it's completely free): www.waterbear.com/watch/the-history-of-the-carabiner."

The film is described on the site as follows: "Through a creative blend of mixed-media and charismatic narration balancing humor, sass and historical gravity, discover the queer history of the carabiner in this latest WaterBear Original, directed by Gianna Mazzeo and made in partnership with Nikon. Follow the carabiner’s story, from its humble 1911 climbing roots (thanks, Otto "Rambo" Herzog), to empowering butch mechanics and postal workers in the 60s, becoming a potent signal of identity and attraction in the 80’s (think Tinder, but with hardware) and as a TikTok fashion sensation today."

 Here's my pic, de-colorized, at 4:12:

 

 

and I got a credit in the end. Trust me, it's there...

 

 

I'm absolutely, completely NOT the target audience for the film, but I quite enjoyed it.  I'm glad I said yes, because now I know this film exists AND I may know something about lesbian sexuality if they aren't having us on. Give it a watch.