Marx's Mangy Memoirs
A bounty of scans here from Groucho Marx's Memoirs of a Mangy Lover, a paperback from 1964. The cover art is by Robert Weber while the interior drawings are by Leo Hershfield - neither of whom I was immediately familiar with... though looking at Weber's stuff online reminds me I've certainly seen it before. Hershfield is more of a mystery to me, though. His cartooning isn't terribly great or idiosyncratic here - he's obviously more concerned with gesture than with detail or composition. The linework is fairly unexpressive (Speedball nib?) but it gets the job done. I suppose that sounds like I'm slighting his work, but I'm not - it just lacks a few of the qualities that most of my favorite cartoonists' work possesses. But looking at again it's clear to see he's a fine cartoonist, or at least probably did exactly what Groucho (or his editors) had in mind for this project: he conveys the physicality of the various gags as well as captures the likeness of Groucho and his brothers... and even their cousin Karl.
