Broken Frontier

Craig Yoe loves comics, and he loves books. Don't believe me? Check out his incredibly entertaining blog.  It’s why his books about comics are each a work of art. The most recent of his creations, Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings, is a beauty bound to quicken the pulse of any bibliophile, whether it is the attractive softcover edition or the exquisite limited edition hardcover. You can check it out here.

I bought a signed limited edition copy for my father for Christmas. I knew he’d give it that look that only a bookman would bestow on an elegant volume at the moment of discovery. It’s a look not unlike some of the looks found in the pages of Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings, for example on pages 19, 50, and my favorite, 83.

When we chatted recently about the book, my father echoed something from R. Crumb’s introduction. Most of these drawings aren’t really all that dirty. But they certainly are revealing. My father recognized about three-quarters of the artists, he said, and remembers well the buttoned-down atmosphere in which they worked. He reminded me that the stars of these cartoonists’ strips were always "clean." You’d never hear Steve Canyon say, "Oh, shit!" You’d never see Brenda Starr wake up in bed with her boyfriend sleeping next to her.

It’s nice, he said, to see that not only were these cartoonists capable of really great art, but they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.

To understand this wonderful book a little better, Broken Frontier sat down with Craig Yoe for a short and pleasurable chat.

BF: There are so many examples of dirty drawings in this book. I’m guessing roughly 200, not counting the special limited edition extras. And you are promising a second volume! Give us some perspective. Were cartoonists producing reams of dirty drawings, of which a small sample survives, or are these dirty drawings rare glimpses into another side of working cartoonists?

Craig Yoe: Every cartoonist has a different story. I had the pleasure of getting to know Charles Schulz a wee bit when I worked with him on a project, and at another time I visited his studio to interview him on his religious beliefs for a magazine. So I was pretty surprised to find he did a nude self-portrait, but it was his only "dirty" drawing as far as I can tell. And when you look at it in the book his "completely nude" self-portrait doesn't even have a small suggestion of "naughty bits," so I get the idea he was pretty uncomfortable with the idea.

On the other hand Dr. Seuss did quite a few cartoons with nudes, including a book of The Seven Ladies of Godiva. And then there's somebody like Virgil Partch who enjoyed putting together limited edition books of real raunchy stuff. I've found some extremely hard-core material by him that will be in the next volume, Dirty Drawings by Clean Cartoonists.  But my guess is that every cartoonist at one time or another – just because he or she could – has done some "blue" material. Some of that was for the cartoonist's eyes only and immediately hit the waste basket, some of that got passed around to fellow cartoonists then maybe filed away in a dusty box, and some of it actually got published in very limited circulation cartoonist's industry newsletters.

There was another source for erotic cartoons by "name" cartoonists: cartoonists on their way up or cartoonists on their way down that needed the bread and were willing to work for the market of "men's cartoons" magazines. I culled from a lot of different sources that I started collecting years ago when this material was considered a lot "dirtier."

BF: Were these dirty drawings the main extracurricular activity of cartoonists, or were there other favorite subjects of after-hours art?

CY: Well, these nudes were certainly a fun rebellious release for the ink-slingers but, sure, many cartoonists got involved in other "after hours" subjects. For instance Chuck Jones (who's in the book), visited my home when he did art for my book The Art of Barbie. He was surprised and delighted that I pulled out old copies of a square dancing magazine that he did wonderful illustrations for. He and his first wife were really into square dancing and I'm sure he did the illustrations more for love than money. Though isn't dancing a vertical expression of a horizontal desire? [Laughing]

BF: What are some of the reasons for these drawings? Do you imagine some of these artists saying, "If they only knew the real me." Could these cartoons have worked as therapy in some cases?

CY: I think for most of the old breed of cartoonists it was all about entertainment. Crumb makes the interesting point in his introduction that his own dirty drawings were much more personal, exploring his own sexual obsessions. Crumb was an incredible pioneer and was the first to do such personal expression sexual or otherwise. The drawings that make up the majority of the work in Clean Cartoonists' Dirty Drawings were made to titillate a bit and to elicit laughs, ribald laughter, maybe, but they were really just for laughs, Beth. These were old-skool cartoonists who saw their job as entertainers, nothing more, even when they were doing risqué stuff. Entertainment was the operative word. For the most part they weren't about soul searching or art therapy or creating masturbatory matter. Not that there's not a time and place for that!

BF: From my point of view, it certainly seems that the atmosphere now is more liberal or accepting of a little bawdy humor, or as Crumb said, these cartoons don’t seem all that dirty. How do you account for this general loosening up? Why aren’t we so uptight anymore? When did we say, aw, the heck with it?

CY: Actually, I was talking to my friend Glenn Head, editor of the great anthology Hotwire, about this just the other day. We were both scratching our heads as to why more contemporary cartoonists don't do blue material. What's up with that? Legally they can probably get away with it but most don't explore that side of human experience. Glenn feels that they think it's not a good "career move." Dammit, these clean cartoonists need to do more dirty pictures!

BF: Your own work (recent examples in Hotwire and Arf) is pretty explicit, and has a certain gleeful joy. Do you have your own story of transformation that could parallel, or shed light on the changes in the general culture?

CY: It comes back to Crumb. When I discovered his work in the 1960s I published some of it in a hippie underground newspaper I was publishing and editing in Akron. I called him on the phone to okay that and he said sure, but asked if I was a cartoonist myself. I replied in the affirmative and he encouraged me not only to reprint his stuff but to draw and publish my own comics, too. Crumb was always very evangelical about doing comics and very encouraging to young cartoonists. I mean here he was encouraging me to draw and put my own comics out and he hadn't even seen my work! Years later I did meet him at the Angoulême, France comics festival. I showed him my art then, very surreal type work that I was doing. He said he really liked it but said I should put more sex into it! Not just because the great Crumb said it, but because it sounded right, from that day on I let that become part of my surrealistic comics. I like doing comics where everything, the lines, the shapes, the colors give the viewer a strong jolt – and having some eroticism as part of that certainly adds to that experience.

BF: One last question: legs or breasts?

CY: Neither. Well, not neither, but I now feel that that’s a very American point of view. Since meeting my head-to-toe beautiful Italian wife at the Lucca, Italy comics festival I’m going to have to focus on a wonderful European discovery, and most enthusiastically answer: BUTTS!