Comic book series : Arf

Art Spiegelman to Coop! Pablo Picasso to Charles Addams! Dan DeCarlo to Hugh Hefner — and Bettie Page and King Kong! Tattoos in cartoons! This raucous anthology explores the roots of low brow art where fine art meets comics. Featured in this volume: Ten unpublished early 20th century paintings of "the Yellow Kid" by his creator, Richard Felton Outcault; Pablo Picasso's secret cartoon past is revealed; 1950s girlie cartoonist Reamer Keller's never-before-seen banned cartoons; the Gasoline Alley gang, Barney Google, Polly and Her Pals, The Addams Family and Nancy take a trip to the art museum; "Kink Kong," a section spotlighting ape figures and damsels in distress, from World War I propaganda to the 1933 King Kong movie to "jungle" comic books of the 1940s to present day; contemporary art rebel Coop introduces a section of devilish cartoons by Art Young, the 1920's Commie cartoonist tried for treason; an examination of Rube Goldberg's foray into modern art via his drawings of modernist sculptures that playfully lambaste the beginnings of Modern Art; and a rare and hilarious Goldberg essay from the 1930s, titled "I Am Now A Modern Artist."

"...there's something here to tickle nearly everyone's fancy." – Booklist

"Craig Yoe's Arf books are strange creatures, more artifact and found object than comic book, but this one achieves a peculiar beauty, an almost hallucinogenic synthesis." – Comic Book Resources

"Eye-popping revelations!" – The Boston Globe