Yoe Books

Whenever I see Craig Yoe, he always has a new book out, sometimes he even gives copies to me. Recently, he gave me a copy of his latest, JETTA, the first in a series for IDW. It's sort of an Archie imitation set in the future. There are parallels to all the characters you're familiar with (Jetta=Betty, Arky=Archie, Neutron High=Riverdale, etc.)It's something Dan DeCarlo created in the 50s before perfecting the template for Archie and pre-dating The Jetsons by several years. It compiles all three issues plus a cover for the aborted 4th issue (#8) and several pinups by artists like Colleen Coover, Danny Hellman, Jay Stephens, Robert Ullman, and a few I hadn't heard of before.

I've mentioned The Complete Milt Gross before but these two books are a few of many he's been doing. I'm glad Craig and his wife Clizia have been putting these old comics back in print, particularly things I'd want, some of which would cost thousands of dollars to get, if you found them at all. He's been collecting all this stuff for years and now has an opportunity to share it all with the world. I hear he's even doing a FRITZI RITZ book next, featuring some stories I won't be posting here.

The Complete Milt Gross

There are a few artists I won't post here because other blogs and books do a fine job of annotating them without my help. The Complete Milt Gross Stories is one such book in existence that makes anything I might have to say unnecessary. You're probably aware of it, especially if you've seen the other links on the right, but it would be remiss of me not to mention it anyway. Craig Yoe seems to have done a great job of accumulating his entire comic book output as well as some articles and original art. I say "seems to" only because I don't yet own a copy as of this minute, and I don't want to risk the .00000000000000000001% chance of disappointment. But as soon as I have some extra dough, I'm getting one. I've been waiting for this book for about a year above all others. I was willing to wait for the paperback of Crumb's Genesis if I didn't get it for Christmas.

Moronica

Milt Gross was pretty much everywhere in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and he was one of the first people to introduce Yiddish dialect into the mainstream. He also did a lot of fillers for American Comics Group in the 1940s as well as his own series for them. This is one of the few work-for-hire jobs that I know of. He usually would do "Count Screwloose" or "That's My Pop!" or something else he created long before working for them. ACG also had a lot of "dizzy dames" back-ups in many of their teen and humor titles and he seems to have done a few with characters they created, like this one from THE KILROYS #10