B.KLIBAN

i think he's sort of a bridge, chronologically and stylistically, between mainstream postwar cartooning (new yorker, saturday evening post, whatever) and the whole comix scene. not to mention "the far side."

http://www.lucky8ball.com/graphics/edna.gif

we had all his books when i was a kid. he is such a huge influence on me. i always looked at the far side as a cross between kliban and jack zeigler's cartoons in the new yorker. (i never loved the far side as much as i love kliban and ziegler)

far side x-post

yeah my dad has i think all the kliban books. i must have read them thousands of times. and now i realize i don't own any of them, and i should.

http://mysite.verizon.net/jessehamm/cartoonist1.gif

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.coldbacon.com/pics/kliban/bkoldage.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.coldbacon.com/kliban2.html&h=333&w=545&sz=26&hl=en&start=55&um=1&tbnid=zSjkGt8_TAO7DM:&tbnh=81&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3Db.kliban%26start%3D40%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

whoops that was supposed to be this

http://www.coldbacon.com/pics/kliban/bkbridge.gif

http://www.coldbacon.com/pics/kliban/bktail.gif

http://www.coldbacon.com/pics/kliban/bkchapter1.gif

http://www.webpak.net/~heartctr/cats/meatloaf.gif

i do love his cats, but it's a little too bad they're the only thing he's known for anymore (to the extent he's known at all -- most of the books are out of print). i guess they made him some money though.

these look a lot like garry larson! he actually cited a playboy cartoonist as an influence, but it wasn't kliban.

i like larson, but kliban was a much better artist. larson's primitivism is actual (i.e. he can't really draw that well), kliban's is stylized.

http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Cats/KlibanCradle.jpg

oh, it was gahan wilson

xpost

http://www.movietreasures.com/Kliban/kliban_nov1.jpg

oh yeah, definitely a lot of gahan wilson in the far side. i like him too, just not as much as kliban.

"oh, it was gahan wilson"

one of my other gods growing up. i met him once!

um, i had a lot of strange gods as a child.

weird heroes

kliban >> wilson >>>> larson

wilson's people drawings are usually pretty gross.

these are the kliban ones we had growing up:

# Cat, 1975 (ISBN 1-56305-284-9)
# Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head and Other Drawings, 1976 (ISBN 0-911104-67-4)
# Whack Your Porcupine and Other Drawings, 1977 (ISBN 0-911104-92-5)
# Tiny Footprints, 1978 (ISBN 0-89480-031-0)
# Two Guys Fooling Around with the Moon, 1982 (ISBN 0-89480-198-8)

well, wilson was a natural progression for me from chas addams. i still love him. i was a HUGE nuts fan. i wish i still had my nuts collection.

http://www.coldbacon.com/pics/kliban/bkidea.jpg

on amazon there are used copies of a bunch of the books, for like $1.50 or $2 each. i think i'm gonna order some.

I love him, but Gahan Wilson is my favorite playboy cartoonist unless Jules Feiffer is.

I haven't looked at playboy in years (lolnetporn) - do they still have good cartoons?

Peter Arno remains my favorite cartoonist, if only for sentimental reasons, but I grew up on Kliban and I have been known to often mutter/sing "Love to eat them mousies..."

I had most of the Kliban books and cat sheets as a kid. Definite influence on my thinking.
I had a comp sub to playboy for a year; with the exception of dirty dan o'neill, the cartoons are for shit.

http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/BreakWind.jpg

Oh, oh, this was my favorite as a kid:
http://www.roystonrobertson.plus.com/k_fly.jpg

kliban is by far my favourite visual artist. such beautiful, profound and, most important of all, ridiculous work.

managed to complete my collection late last year, finally tracking down 'the biggest tongue in tunisia' and 'advanced cartooning' on ebay.

http://www.coldbacon.com/pics/kliban/bkgofuck.gif

another bit of kliban gold:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/guanoman/bksitonface-1.jpg

I loved B as a child. I had a problem with his last name, though: I couldn't get off the notion that he was B KILBAN.

Also, I thought his name was BKILBAN for awhile.

I used to recite the poem in the first cartoon on this thread.

Was thinking about Kliban the other day. Love Gahan Wilson too, and I'd in terms of childhood influence, he probably ranked ever higher. Second only to Shel Silverstein (and Maurice Sendak, and Erol Otus, and and and). Still sing the "Mousies" song to myself every once and a while, and even to others. It goes nicely to the tune of Tom Dooley.

I've always sung it as a sort of field holler, myself.

It never occurred to me that something on the printed page like that had a melody, hence it was better chanted than sung.

That's weird. I always want to put a tune to stuff like this -- Pooh's hums, for example.

BOSKO BALKLIBAN

pooh's hums definitely have implied melodies. I recently started reading them aloud to my baby daughter, and was surprised to discover that I clearly remembered the melodies I'd made up for them as a kid.

another bit of kliban poetry:

piggly
wiggly
birdbath
pie
cat hips
fish lips
POKE YOU IN THE EYE