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\nEdited by Jonathan Barli<\/b> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-664-5<\/p>\n
\nEdited by Jonathan Barli<\/b> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-60699-664-5<\/p>\n
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: impossibly inventive \u00e2\u20ac\u201c an all-year-round treat\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 9\/10<\/b><\/p>\n
Virgil Parch is another of those almost forgotten key men of comedy cartooning: a pervasive creative force working away for years, making people laugh and slowly, steadily changing the very look and nature of the industry.<\/p>\n
Although largely unremarked upon and unremembered these days, Virgil Franklin Partch II (1926-2004) is probably one of the most influential – and most successful – American cartoonists in history.<\/p>\n
His arch, absurd, rude, sly, subtle, skewed, whacky and astoundingly unique gags, strips, stories and animated shorts were generated with machine gun rapidity from a seemingly inexhaustible well of comedy excess, which could be rendered in a variety of styles which completely revolutionised the American publishing from the moment in 1941 that the artist switched from Walt Disney Studio ideas man to freelance gag-maker.<\/p>\n
He is most well regarded for his cavalier abandonment of traditional form and anatomy. Partch is the guy who liberated gag-cartooning from the bonds of slavish attention to body detail: replacing broadly human shape and proportion with a wildly free and frenetic corporeal expressionism – perhaps even symbolism – which captivated legions of fellow artists and generations of fun-starved readers. He’s the guy who made 19 fingers on one hand work\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
This superbly comprehensive and lavishly huge (260x315mm) landscape hardback art book\/biography (in monochrome & full-colour) covers his life and career in scrupulous detail through a wealth of his best cartoons – many shot from original art – and includes oodles of roughs, sketches, layouts and doodles, all accompanying the bright and breezy life-history by James Barli, and all augmented with loads of intimate photos.<\/p>\n
The joyous journey begins after a heartfelt Introduction<\/i> by stylistic and thematic heir Peter Bagge with ‘Partch ad absurdam’<\/i><\/b>: broken down into easily digested chapters beginning with ‘Prologue: Under the Volcano’<\/i> which introduces the man’s remarkable forebears whilst ‘The Call of the Wild’<\/i> and ‘Of Mice and Men’<\/i> details his early life and the eclectic education which led to his joining the fabled Walt Disney Studio in its golden, pre-strike prime.<\/p>\n
‘Brave New World’<\/i> and ‘The Divine Comedy’<\/i> reveal how the assembled animators’ habit of pranking each other with gag cartoons led friend Dick Shaw to dispatch many of Partch’s drawings to magazines such as Collier’s<\/b> and The New Yorker<\/b> in 1941, whilst ‘A Farewell to Arms’<\/i> covers the new family man’s stint in the Army where his gift was exploited by Forrest J. Ackerman, beginning his own stellar career as editor of Army newspaper Bulletin<\/b>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
On demobilisation Partch’s path was assured and he became the most prolific gag-seller in America: it was almost impossible to find a magazine or periodical that didn’t carry one of his cartoons, and when Playboy<\/b> debuted in 1953 there was one of his women sharing cover-space with Marilyn Monroe\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
As seen in ‘Point of No Return’<\/i> and ‘The Genius’<\/i>, whilst working as an animator (for Walter Lantz on Woody Woodpecker<\/b>) and as a cartoonist for leftwing New York newspaper PM<\/b>, Partch started a constant stream of book collections in the fifties which captured and reflected the risqu\u00c3\u00a9, hard-drinking sophistication of the era as well as simultaneous lives as an ad man and writer for other draughtsmen, and worked with futurist economist William J. Baxter on a series of prognosticative books which warned of such nebulous dangers as out-of-control capitalism, the Military-Industrial Complex, \u00e2\u20ac\u01531 Per-Centers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and even Global Warming\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
His passion for sports – especially sailing – is covered in ‘Three Men in a Boat’<\/i> whilst in<\/p>\n
‘As a Man Grows Older’<\/i> changing times and the urgings of old pal Hank (Dennis the Menace<\/b>) Ketchum provoked the restless creator to launch his comicstrip Big George!<\/b> whilst increasingly becoming a cultural ambassador for his craft and art form. He also upped his range of commercial and design projects and invented the grittier strip The Captain’s Gig<\/b>.<\/p>\n
The rise and rise of Virgil Partch is covered in ‘The Old Man and the Sea’<\/i> whilst ‘Epilogue: the Death of Virgil’<\/i>, like a bad punch line, recounts the truly stupid and meaningless end of a legend when both the artist and his wife perished in a car crash on August 10th<\/sup> 1984\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n The Unknown Quantity<\/i><\/b> then focuses on his astounding output through ‘A Partch Picture Gallery’<\/i> subdivided into ‘Cartoons from PM<\/b>‘<\/i>, ‘War in Pieces’<\/i> (military madness), surreal and absurd ‘Reality Bites’<\/i> and the boozy world of ‘Cork High and Bottle Deep’<\/i>.<\/p>\n His laid back view of sex is recapitulated in ‘The Eternal Chase’<\/i> and ‘Battle of the Sexes’<\/i> whilst ‘The Sporting Life’ <\/i>and ‘Partched’<\/i> focus on his other overweening interests\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n His graphic expertise and design triumphs are celebrated in ‘Covered’<\/i> and ‘(m)Ad Man’<\/i>, his skewed view of the world’s leaders in ‘Political Partch’<\/i>, after which a selection of his articles and stories kicks off with ‘The Private War of Corporal Partch’<\/i>, before ‘The Vipper Comes to Town’<\/i>, ‘Bourbon and Watercolors’<\/i>, ‘Vacation for Vipper’<\/i> and ‘Inland Cruise of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lazy B\u00e2\u20ac\u009d’<\/i> bring this glorious tribute to times past and an incredible artist to a close.<\/p>\n Virgil Partch was blessed with a perpetually percolating imagination and a unique visual point of reference which made him a true catalyst of cartoon change, and Fantagraphics Books have once again struck pure gold by commemorating and celebrating this lost legend of graphic narrative arts.<\/p>\n Most importantly this is an astoundingly funny collection: the vast accumulation of funny drawings and clever stories still as powerfully hilarious as they ever were, and all brilliantly rendered by a master craftsman no connoisseur of comedy can afford to miss. Edited by Jonathan Barli (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN: 978-1-60699-664-5 Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: impossibly inventive \u00e2\u20ac\u201c an all-year-round treat\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 9\/10 Virgil Parch is another of those almost forgotten key men of comedy cartooning: a pervasive creative force working away for years, making people laugh and slowly, steadily changing the very look and nature of the industry. … <\/p>\n
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2013 Fantagraphics Books. All text \u00c2\u00a9 2013 Jonathan Barli. All images \u00c2\u00a9 their respective copyright holders. Introduction \u00c2\u00a9 2013 Peter Bagge. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"