By Jack Markow (Pitman Publishing Corporation)
No ISBN
I’m just showing off now but I found this slim little lovely in a local charity shop. I know nothing about the author save what it says on the back, but as a ‘How-To’ guide from an obviously highly talented journeyman-cartoonist this is probably one of the most useful examples I’ve ever seen.
Jack Markow is (was?) an artist and printmaker whose work appeared in the New Yorker, the Saturday Evening Post, This Week, Ladies Home Journal, Argosy, Cosmopolitan and a host of others, as well as for a host of high profile advertising clients.
Published in 1956 this edition, part of the ‘Pitman Arts Series’ clearly and methodically lays out the prime fundamentals every new and aspiring pencil-pusher absolutely must know, ranging from Creating a Cartoon Style, shape construction, the head, hands, Cartoon Types, Proportion, Emotion, Action, Backgrounds, Techniques, How To Get Ideas, and The Process from Roughs to Finished Sale.
In an arena that is ever-changing because of new technology, this is a superb, concise and entrancing primer in the art of being graphically amusing. The publisher who picks up and reissues this is going to reap a whole heap of benefits, and they will certainly have my blessing.
© 1956 Pitman Publishing Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Jack Markow was my father. He died in 1983. He was a cartoonist, lithographer and painter. He taught at thr original Visual Arts School in NYC.(Cartoonists and Illustrators School, then) Wrote a column in Writers Digest and was cartoon editor of Argosy magazine. He wrote four or five books and I’m happy to see that they are still used.
There is a lot more about him on the web if anyone is interested.
Hi Janet
Thanks for getting in touch, and thanks for the information about the internet. Unbelievably, when I was writing the review I didn’t even think to look online – the perils of being an old geezer, I suppose.
Your father’s work is an absolute godsend for creators starting out – I only wish I’d had access to them during my 25-year stint teaching comics production at the London Cartoon Centre and London College of Printing.
If I had my way they’d all be back in print permanently…