Funny Aminals

Sam Cobean, originator of thought balloons, is best known for his New Yorker cartoons, and the one collection of his work which he lived to see.

(This is what thought balloons were originally intended for…showing how a lady with her clothes on would look without them on)

Like Virgil Partch he got his start at Disney. Their lives were often parallel, uncannily so. Both left Walt after the strike…Partch from the story department and Cobean from the in-between department. Cobean was in charge of publicity for the strike…which, incidentally, looks like it was a lot of fun…here’s the meat of the matter, but check out the tail end of part 3 of this expose for some of the striker’s funnier antics. “We had the best signs…”

Both Cobean and Partch were drafted into the army shortly after. (What’s a red commie unamerican union joiner do after a good strike? Serve 4 years in the United States army, that’s what!) Both began working for the New Yorker while in the army. Both published well received collections of their cartoons. Both died in tragic car accidents. Cobean was a close friend, and collaborator of Charles Addams. I mentioned I thought some of Chas Addams gags reminded me of Virgil Partch’s writing…I wonder if the three didn’t pal around…

I love that the only “gag” in effect here is the look on the dog’s face when he becomes a third wheel, and that it’s not HaHa funny, but you still go haha.

Official website

Jeff

This, while funny, entirely forgot to include animals…

Funny animal comics are difficult to do…in this example, Jack Chick has included the animals.  But, is it funny?

Is this not the Citizen Kane of trained animal movies?

I’m not sure what Homeward Bound would be.

Aaand a talking chicken…

A quick overview of Virgil Partch’s career: Virgil Partch got his start at Disney, leaving the story department after four years there in the strike of 1941, with fellow future New Yorker stable staple Sam Cobean, who also died in a car crash (fun trivia). Partch immediately began submitting cartoons to magazine markets.

He was drafted into the army in 1944, eventually becoming art director of the Army’s weekly paper, Panorama.

After leaving Disney and before going into the army, he worked at Walter Lantz Studio, on Woody Woodpecker. Now I don’t know which cartoons he worked on, but a blog with no links is worse than no blog at all, so perhaps it was this one, from 1941.

I’m surprised more characters weren’t a l l p r i m a r y c o l o r s. Drybrush on Woody looks really cool though.

Here’s a Donald Duck with Partch credit.

Partch went on to become Vip…one of the top selling gag cartoonists of the era. His style was very distinctive, almost Saul Steinbergy contour drawings, signed the modest gag cartoonist way, his initials, with a little dash of flourish in the V.
His initials were actually VTP, but people always mistook the T for an I, so he just started signing it that way.

He sold a lot of gags to the New Yorker. People like Peter Arno and George Price, who were both in the NYer every week, were some of the biggest users of gagmen. I wonder if some of Charles Addams sight gags weren’t something Partch might have submitted as roughs, or to Addams himself.

His gag cartoon collections are his crowning achievement. Like B. Kliban, and Sam Gross he is known for his “sick” cartoons.

His first, a collection of cartoons about alcoholism, is a classic, right up there with I Am Blind And My Dog is Dead.

Hairy Green Eyeball has some wonderful scans of it here.
Bottle Fatigue

And…one more link to someone else’s hard work, and I’m calling this blog good! Here’s an example of Partch’s comic strip,
Big George.

J. Lok