The Ephemerist

Otto Soglow was a genius who mastered the art of capturing the essence of man in only a few lines. In his last Little King cartoon for the New Yorker, he has the people riot. Only Soglow would be able to have his hero do what is most feasible : riot along, and sift along with the sands of time. And it would seem that this was wat Soglow was after himself, as he stated in his own profile (below)…

These scans come courtesy Ernesto of the WPW posse. Thanks. The Little King is © King Features Syndicate.

I was cleaning up my clogged mailbox today, and noticed this mail from Jeffrey Meyer, pointing me towards a post on his blog, GoofButton.com, featuring cartoons by one of my favorites : Otto Soglow (1900-1975) . Soglow is probably most well known for his Little King (above), but Goofbutton also presents illustrations and cartoons from two other Soglow titles : “It’s Against The Law” (1971), a book about crazy, silly and antiquated laws, written by Dick Hyman and illustrated by Soglow, and “Carnival Crossroads” (1960), which tells the history of Times Square.

I particularly liked the illustrations from the former book, because they are sparcer, more true Soglow, than the ones from “Carnival Crossroads”, which, although very nice, contain a bit too much fluff to my taste.

Still, a golden post ! More ! I say, more !