February 21, 2015
Five Fun & Interesting Books Either Comics Or Comics-Related You Can Get Right Now For Less Than $5

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Moon Moth, Jack Vance and Humayoun Ibrahim, First Second, 2012.
These lists usually end up being filled with old cartoon collections, so I wanted to start with a book less than five years old. There are a lot of them starting to show up in this price range, as the publishing fervor for comics work has outstripped a bit the desired, broad audience that would support this much activity. Weirdly paced and odd-as-hell looking in the best way,
Moon Moth may be my favorite publishing project for First Second. It's not one you forget, that's for sure.
*****
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The Ladies, God Bless 'Em, Helen Hokinson, EP Dutton, 1950.
You can always find
New Yorker comics collections for less than $5. My favorites are the books by Charles Addams and Peter Arno, but I'm very fond of Helen Hokinson's cartoons as well. I think she may still gets a bit of grief for using gag writer, at least among the 30 people who care about old
New Yorker cartoonists, but I've always felt the writers used served a tone she supplies. It's difficult to make cartoons that puncture the pomposity of a group of people that aren't on top of the world without being cruel, and Hokinson never goes there. They're fun to look at, too: her staging always intrigues.
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The Best Of HT Webster: A Memorial Collection, HT Webster, Simon And Schuster, 1953.
I love this book, and you've probably seen it if you ever looked at the "cartoon books" in any library sale or in any used bookstore during the last 30 years. The blue of that cover is the blue I see when people say, "blue" -- that's how frequently I saw it in the 1990s. One thing that's great about it is that it really does try to capture the sweep of the then recently departed cartoonist, a cartoonist whose star had already faded (this book was the last one featuring the cartoonist's work). Webster worked early enough in comics that he moved through a bunch of different strips, not just one or two. He also worked during a time when it seemed -- at least to me -- there were wider entry points into humor than were later allowed and encouraged, and there's something poignant about reading a bunch of strips like the one above reprinted just as the high-concept gag cartoonists began to take over.
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As The Kid Goes For Broke, Garry Trudeau, Holt, 1977.
Joanie Caucus is a top 10 all-time comic strip character, and the Ginny Campaign storyline may have been her best extended narrative. Watching people on-line blab endlessly about that recent
SNL anniversary special reminded me that
Doonesbury preceded that television show in terms of something that appeared in mass media that spoke the language of baby boomers. In its own way, it was just as much a phenomenon. I like the original publication of this book but love the "Doonesbury classic" white presentation. One added bonus is that unlike the above example, this book presents the strips in black and white, which is the best way to see the deeply hilarious middle finger that was the five days of the camera flying through space before it finds Joanie and Rick in bed together. It's impossible to imagine anyone doing that now or anyone caring as much as folks did at the time. What a great little book.
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Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head And Other Drawings, B. Kliban, Workman, 1976.
B. Kliban may be the funniest cartoonist without a major archival publishing program behind his work (although Charles Addams, mentioned in passing above, is right up there). In the late 1970s Workman published this book, then
Whack Your Porcupine And Other Drawings and finally
Tiny Footprints back to back to back, which is as good a run as any comics-maker has ever enjoyed (it was preceded by the mega-popular and influential
Cat). If you've never had the pleasure, this is the book that's most frequently under $5 through used book sites. Kliban is essential.
*****
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