700 Things: (Bunnies) #253 Bugsy Siegal

Here’s my contribution to the 700 Bunnies project from the larger 700 Things project.

Bunny #253: Bugsy Siegal.

Getting his start selling fermented carrot juice during prohibition, Bugsy Siegal’s activities soon spread out to other illegal ventures. The garden heists were bad enough, but it was his entry into the lucky rabbit foot trade that got him into serious trouble. With the law closing in on him, he high-tailed it out west, where, using his ill-gotten gains, he opened his casino, the Golden Carrot. It wasn’t long before his history caught up with him, though. He was found dead in his penthutch in 1949, strangled with his own ears.

Obscure Images: Daniel Clowes

This time around we’re focusing on cartoonist Dan Clowes, probably best known these days for his excellent graphic novel turned excellent movie Ghost World. Clowes is one of the funniest and most disturbing cartoonists around… he often gets compared to filmmaker/artist David Lynch, although his style is utterly different from Lynch’s.

His comic Eightball is unfortunately published pretty infrequently these days, but he seems to top himself with every issue that comes out. Eightball has been high-quality from the start, though… Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron is still one of my favorite things he’s done and its serialization started in the first issue of Eightball. If you haven’t read Clowes work, you are really missing out.

All of these obscure Daniel Clowes images were found at comicartfans.com. Click on the images to go to the full size versions on that site. Many more images by Clowes and other cartoonists can be found there as well… in these “obscure images” posts I’m focusing mostly on stuff that hasn’t been published to my knowledge.

Here’s a Clowes interpretation of Little Lulu.

Here’s the original art for an Eightball cover.

Here’s a Clowes interpretation of Wonder Woman. This is part of the wonderful and amazing Joel Thingvall collection of Wonder Woman art by hundreds of cartoonists we’ve been lucky enough to have partially displayed in the glass cases at FallCon in the Twin Cities for the last number of years (including this piece).

Dan Clowes portrait of musician Pet Droge. Apparently this one is currently for sale or trade, if you’re interested… follow the link on it for more info.

Crumbling Paper: Happy Hooligan (1903) by Frederick Opper (strip #6)

Here’s another example of Frederick Opper’s strip Happy Hooligan from 1903. Click the image to read the strip.

You can see more examples of Happy Hooligan (and many other classic comics) at Barnacle Press. Here are some other Opper strips at Barnacle Press.

Here are some other Happy Hooligan examples from Bugpowder.

Here are some other Opper strips from Coconino Classics.

Crumbling Paper: Happy Hooligan (1904) by Frederick Opper (strip #5)

Here’s another example of Frederick Opper’s strip Happy Hooligan from 1904. Click the image to read the strip.

You can see more examples of Happy Hooligan (and many other classic comics) at Barnacle Press. Here are some other Opper strips at Barnacle Press.

Here are some other Happy Hooligan examples from Bugpowder.

Here are some other Opper strips from Coconino Classics.

Obscure Images: Jim Woodring

I’m starting a new “obscure images” series on this blog taking a look at rare artwork by some of my favorite cartoonists on comicartfans.com (as well as some other places that show comic art online). Comicartfans.com is a site that lets users post their artwork they’ve collected into galleries, and there is a lot of awesome stuff collected there… let’s explore together, eh?

Note that this is just intended to provide an overview… searching comicartfans.com will get you some more results (unfortunately I can’t provide a link of the search from comicartfans.com, as there is no unique url provided for a search, but it is easy to type in yourself).

Today let’s see what they have by one of my favorite cartoonists, genius visionary Jim Woodring. Click any of the below images to view the full sized version at comicartfans.com.

Frank pops a jiva.

Painted panel of Frank, Pupshaw and Frank’s Faux Pa.

Whim and Frank and giant pie and ice cream.

A curious landscape.

A highly disturbing image of Frank and a jiva speaking! This is so wrong…

A image that Woodring created for a fan depicting their personal jiva… he used to do this for free. You can see another one here.

Behold the triceratoad!

Woodring’s tight pencils for the first page of his painted Frank story “Peeker.” You can see the rest of the penciled pages for it on comicartfans.com as well:

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