Not too long ago Legendary Larry Reid asked me to put together an exhibit of HUMBUG art and artifacts for the Fantagraphics Bookstore. The show opens March 7th 2009 and it's going to be fantastic, if I do say so myself… seriously, the work is so good! If you're a fan of comics or art or history then you'd be a fool not to check it out! Anyway, I spent the better part of this morning going through original artwork by the likes of Will Elder, Al Jaffee and Arnold Roth… and Russ Heath (see above image). Heath didn't do a lot of work for HUMBUG but what he did do was amazing trompe l'oeil-esque cartooning, parodying the ads and articles of the day, circa mid 1950's. His HUMBUG contributions are so stark and deadpan, sincere and illusive that they're subversion is felt at a gut level. Since assitant editing HUMBUG I've been thinking a lot about Heath. I even pulled out my beat up old copies of BLAZING COMBAT — what? you don't have BLAZING COMBAT? You will soon…
Days like today make me crush out on my job all over again.