Nize Baby - 32 报纸页面与条 - 1927/1928

Rare surviving episodes from various Sunday Comics sections of 'Nize Baby' by Milt Gross on full pages.

On the back:
Texas Slim
Reg'lar Fellers
Moon Mullins
Little Orphan Annie
Cicero Sapp
...

32 pages

Only some pages have been selected for being photographed.

Published in period 1927-1928 (18x1927, 14x1928)

Genius can manifest itself in two ways: the unfathomably complex, and the unfathomably simple. Milt Gross belongs to the latter category. He is one of the all-time great cartoonists because he makes the craft integral to the entire endeavor look so easy, even enjoyable. When I envision the word “cartooning” in the dictionary, the accompanying illustration is always a drawing by Gross: Nize Baby, Iggy, Count Screwloose, or any number of walk-on characters from his strips. These spirited drawings embody cartooning both as noun and verb. Gross is an elemental force, and his command of line and form convincingly argues for cartooning as the purest, the most natural, instinctive, and expressive—it’s tempting to say the only—way to draw.

Milt Gross must have been an attentive listener, judging by his exquisite ear for dialect, slang, turns of phrase, back-and-forth rhythms, the lyricism of the everyday. Life’s incongruities are a continual source of inspiration; true bedlam lies outside the asylum, and dreams are no more surreal than the “real” world. The gags are inventive in setup and payoff: the more complicated the conundrum, the nuttier the solution. The human tendency toward hypocrisy is punctured when least unexpected and by unlikely sources, but there is never a sense of contempt or scorn, only a deep empathy for our follies and foibles, an acceptance of absurdity as part and parcel of existence.

The pages are in good condition, although wrinkles, tears, flaking and missing pieces may occur.

Will be shipped with track&trace.

The lots in this auction can be shipped combined. This is taken into account up to a weight of 5 kg. If packages need to be split due to weight, an additional charge will apply. In this case, we will contact you.

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