Showing posts with label culture corner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture corner. Show all posts

Thursday, June 30, 2011

BASIL WOLVERTON'S "CULTURE CORNER"

I wish I knew more about this strip. Was it popular? Did kids like it? Me and my grade school friends would have gone nuts over it if we'd known about it. I would have saved it in a scrapbook.  


I'd be surprised if women liked it.  It's slapstick humor about deliberately ugly people. That means it was probably meant for guys. I wonder why girls don't like stuff like this? Maybe it's because they're so focused on looking good. We men, on the other hand, know we're ugly. We know we're the butt of a cosmic joke, so we decide to make the best of it and laugh.  


Wolverton drew in that "bigfoot" style that was as much influenced by black and white era gag animation as by print media. Wolverton gives it a big, thick line to make it more gritty. 


Being a true cartoonist, Wolverton instinctively knows that feet are funny.  They wouldn't be funny if they were covered with fur and had leathery bottoms. They make us laugh because they're so delicate and fru-fru, and yet we're forced to walk through the dirt with them. 

Many thanks to John Glenn Taylor, who put up these pictures on his "Easily Mused" blog.