By Craig Yoe
Publisher: IDW
ISBN: 987-1600105463
So who the Dickens is Milt Gross? I had absolutely no idea when I read a brief bit of blurb about this book, but what sold it to me was a tiny animated drawing used along side it and some positive praise from Robert Crumb and Matt Groening.
Milt Gross was an American cartoonist who began working in newspapers a century ago as an office boy. This put him in regular contact with the top cartoonists off the day including the creators of Krazy Kat, Mutt & Jeff and The Katzenjammer Kids. He was 20 when he was given a crack at his own strip called Phool Phan Phables about a bumbling sports fan. It was popular enough that by 1917 it was being turned into an animated series written and directed by Gross. He developed further strips, being granted a full page for his newspaper funnies, and won over his audience with a cartooning style that was excessively manic and fluid. In fact, at first glance his artwork looks amateurish and rushed, but the reality is that it's hugely competent, well framed, funny and exciting. To give you more of an idea of his writing talent, he even spent time writing in partnership with Charlie Chaplin who he also bears an uncanny resemblance to.
He was the pioneer of what we now recognise as the graphic novel, producing entire books (and even book reviews) of panel-by-panel storytelling without a single word (and no music) being used. He designed theatre sets, worked with Hollywood stars, and designed artwork and murals for the likes of Spike Jones whose equally manic style Gross perfectly reflects. In fact, if you own any Spike Jones albums, pop one on while you're reading Gross and it's like a soundtrack to the artwork. Then, despite all this success and adulation, he did something that was considered rather beneath him. He began producing comic books. Anyone familiar with the Beano, Whizzer & Chips, The Dandy etc will immediately appreciate the type of work Gross was producing, and it's entertaining stuff despite the passage of so many years.
The first segment of this book is a detailed biography of Milt Gross's life and times, while the bulk of the book (and it's a big and thick 'un) is turned over to reproductions of his comic book work. It's marvellous, mad and mind-boggling stuff, but always accessible and fun. I challenge you not to be one over by it.
And if you liked that: Try Peter Bagge…
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