history of dutch comics

Just discovered this great website of Dutch comics, http://www.lambiek.net/

And it sorta dawned on me.

For my money: there are cartoonists. and then there's cartoonists with issues. and THEN there's cartoonists that are Dutch.



click through the many sordid eras here.

the 40's war years cartoons are amazing.. the absurbist takes on hitler are at first jarring, then funny, then jarring again. Like this one with the caption reading:

"Uncle Brommy, with his funny hat and the wheel-of-adventure on his arm, puts his arm up between the mosquitos."


It's all pretty uniformly crazy stuff.... here's of the more famous ones, Professor Pi, deep in the morbidly sunshiney heart of the 60's, by Bob van den Dorn:

today is Caroline Wheeler's birthday!!

Let's go, let's go... One, Two, Three, Four....

ESTER!
Burke and Hare!
ESTER, I'm coming for you, ESTER, ESTER.
SAUSAGES! SAUSAGES! ESTER! ESTER! SAUSAGES!
We're gonna tell you something really big (ESTER!)
Like the Alice Cooper Group.
ESTER! Alice Cooper, baby! Alice Cooper!
Uh-uhrrrmm... Like the Alice Cooper Group.
Do you wanna touch me? DEAD BABIES!
See, there's been some big, big things, and some are bigger than others,
And when one might get up and go out of the room, he gets replaced with another.
Now some of these are monsters, the kind that live in the lakes (WHEURRRR!)
And other kinds are like Metal Men, and other kinds are BIG SNAKES.
But they don't look like nothing, they don't look like nothing at all.

They don't look like nothing when you put them up against Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present.
That's: CAROLINE WHEELER'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT.
Did ya get that, Joe? (CRAZY!) ESTER, I'M WAITING...
Ner! Ner! Ner!
SAUSAGES! Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present was made entirely from the skins of dead Jim Morrisons (Scattered over dawn's bleeding highway, I suppose...):

that's why it smelled so bad.
Caroline Wheeler checked into the lobby of the Bruce Grobelaar Leisure Centre
( Liverpool and Zimbabwe goalkeeper of the 1980's )
(they check in, but they don't check out) - she was looking for a room where she could sit down and get herself back in order (ORDER!)...
SHEESH!, thought Caroline, What the HELL was that? (Edgar Wallace!)
So she goes to the elevator, she thinks "Well, that'll be pretty straightforward" (Yes, STRAIGHT UP, Caroline...) You know what she finds?
The elevator breaks down with Caroline and the fish in it.
(Fish?) (Uh-oh...)
Do you know what happens if you leave a fish too long in an elevator?
You don't?

Well, here's a clue: fish is biodegradable. (THAT MEANS IT ROTS.)
Ner! Ner! Ner!

Well, there's some big, big things and they travel in big, big cars:
Cars like a Mercedes with a big tow-bar (WHERE'S ESTER?)
But there ain't no vehicle big enough,
They just ain't built the vehicle big enough yet to hold the thing that men call Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present (caroline wheeler's birthday present)
That's: CAROLINE WHEELER'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT.
(Heck! Here comes the hell drivers!)

(apologies to Pat Fish and the Jazz Butcher)

question

why does snoop dogg (fig. 1)

carry an umbrella (fig. 2)?

it's Scopitones Sunday!

these are all from the Scopitones site

First, a funny Italian Scopitone about un uomo molto triste.
"Petronio"
Mario Marini-Petronio.mov


Next, Sado Mado a French Scopitone about err.. sado mado! don't worry it's 60's. How kinky can it be?! Well, I don't speak French so who knows? C'est très romantique!
"Sado Maso"
De Giafferi-Sado Maso.mov


Lastly, this one almost proves that French pop music, famously bad and awful, can almost be bad and awful in a really cute Japanese kind of way? Très de fromage!
"La Cloche"
La Cloche-France Gall