We All Go Soglow
Otto Soglow is one of my favorite cartoonists. I don't know when I first saw his work but I seem to have fond memories of reading his Little King in one form or another. Since I was too young to have seen it in its orginal incarnation in The New Yorker magazine, or even later as a newspaper strip, it's possible I came across it as a comic book or - most likely - in a collection of strip reprints like the Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics.
Soglow used a fairly static line and almost geometric forms to create flat, iconic imagery. This sort of "crude" cartoon-drawing language has always attracted me, and many of my favorite cartoonists - Ernie Bushmiller, Richard McGuire, Chirs Ware - seem to approach their work similarly. Mark Newgarden, another cartoonist I'm crazy about, was directly inspired by the Soglow's Little King to create his own mute troublemaker, the Little Nun.
Here are four samples of the Little King, I'm guessing these date from the 30s/40s:
Next up are a few dozen scans from a pamphlet called It's Against the Law!, written by Dick Hyman, illustrated by Soglow and published in 1971 by Reader's Digest. A web search suggests this was one of a series of book/booklets they collaborated on making light of obviously antiquated or arcane laws. I don't really approve of the idea, because it seems to suggest that we're so much more enlightended and fair-handed now, despite the fact that we currently live under some of the most unnecessary and absurdly PC restrictions imaginable (including laws that "grant" us freedoms - if that isn't ass-backwards, I don't what is), while common sense considerations are discarded. Anyway... there are lots of great pics here, though I've omitted the captions as they simply recite the laws and, really, it's funnier to try and make sense of these without any text (I think). Soglow drew a great horse, that much is certain.
This next set of images is a little more interesting. I had seen It's Against the Law in several bookshops, trash piles, etc. over the years, but when I happened upon this book - Carnival Crossroads - it was new to me. The book itself wasn't all that great or well-written, but I do like the subject (a history of NYC's Times Square) and of course Soglow knocked out some unusually good illustrations. His typical style is in effect here, though with a couple minor adjustments, most notably the use of a very coarse zip-a-tone pattern, without any sort of outline, for hair, skin, clothing, etc. This results in a strange, tactile quality to parts of the drawings, almost as if they were embossed. The book is from 1960.
Finally, here's some odds and ends by Soglow I found elsewhere online - none of these images are my scans, I pretty much swiped 'em all from ebay auctions, etc. I'm especially amused by the drink coaster art - there's an era that will, sadly, never return.
