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George Leonard Carlson (1887 - September 26, 1962) was an illustrator and artist with numerous completed works, perhaps the most famous being the dust jacket for Gone with the Wind.[1] He is cited by Harlan Ellison as a "cartoonist of the absurd, on a par with Winsor McCay, Geo. McManus, Rube Goldberg or Bill Holman."[2] Comic book scholar Michael Barrier called him "a kind of George Herriman for little children".[3] In the Harlan Ellison Hornbook preface to his essay on Carlson, Ellison relates how he contacted Carlson's daughters and attempted to get the material they sent him preserved in a museum or archive, to no avail.[2] According to Paul Tumey of Fantagraphics, Carlson's book Draw Comics! Here's How - A Complete Book on Cartooning (Whitman, 1933) was included in an exhibit on Art Spiegelman in the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit in 2009.[4]
Two episodes of "The Pie-Face Prince of Old Pretzelburg" (from Jingle Jangle Comics 5 and 24) are included in A Smithsonian Book of Comic-book Comics ed. by J. Michael Barrier and Martin T. Williams.[3] Another "Pie-Face Prince" episode is reprinted in The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, ed. by Art Spiegelman.[5] "The Zheckered Zultan and His Three Little Zulteens" appears in The Golden Collection of Klassic Krazy Kool Kids Komics, ed. by historian Craig Yoe.[6]
In October 2013, a two-part article on Carlson's career appeared in The Comics Journal.[4] Calling Carlson "an under-appreciated, largely overlooked cartoonist, illustrator, game designer, and graphic artist extraordinaire" with a "playful, surreal world", writer Paul Tumey examined Carlson's life and work and announced the publication of Perfect Nonsense: The Chaotic Comics and Goofy Games of George Carlson by Daniel Yezbick (Fantagraphics, December 2013).[7] The article references Ellison's essay and another he wrote for a 1990 Carlson tribute comic book published by Innovation, Mangle Tangle Tales #1. It also includes an extensive bibliography of Carlson's work.
A more scholarly analysis appears in Daniel Yezbick's 2007 "Riddles of Engagement: Narrative Play in the Children's Media and Comic Art of George Carlson".[8]
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- 1917 - Illustrates The Magic Stone: Rainbow Fairy Stories with paintings
- 1917 - Cover illustration for Judge Magazine, July 14, 1917
- 1920 - Illustrates Swiss Fairy Tales by William Elliot Griffis
- 1920 - Illustrates Jane and the Owl by Gene Stone
- 1921 - Illustrates Adventures of Jane by Gene Stone
- 1928 - Illustrates The Adventures of Toby Spaniel
- 1929 - Creates a dust jacket for The Whirlwind
- 1931 - Provides black and white ink drawings and full color frontis for Fact and Story Reader - book eight
- 1933 - Authored Draw Comics! - Here's How - A Complete Book on Cartooning
- 1936 - Illustrated the original yellow dust jacket for Gone with the Wind
- 1937 - Writes and Illustrates Fun-Time Games, Puzzles, Stunts, Drawings, also Fun For Juniors, and also Points on Cartooning.
- 1939 - Illustrates "Uncle Wiggily and His Friends" by Howard R. Garis
- 1940 - Cover illustration for "Treasure Chest of Stephen Foster Songs"
- 1942 - Begins work with Jingle Jangle Comics at its birth, creating covers and contributing comic strips such as "The Pie-Face Prince of Old Pretzelburg", contributed for 8 years every other month, two strips per contributed issue.
- 1949 - Creates 1001 Riddles for Children
- 1953 - Creates book I Can Draw for young artists
- 1955 - Creates Funtime Crossword Puzzles for juniors
- 1959 - Creates book Jokes & Riddles for young children
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