That time Dave, John L. and I almost got kicked out of the Norman Rockwell Museum...

Hi, Everybody!

The Silver Cerebus

And Friend to the Blog, Greg Hyland is running the next volume of The Monster Atlas on Kickstarter. And he says:

Also, I got confirmation today that Gerhard is going to contribute new art to the book! We'll include him if we reach our $4000 Stretch Goal. So share the Monster Atlas word and help make sure we meet that goal! As soon as I have something to show you. I'll send you a preview.

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So, from the depths of the AMOChive ("Jeez Matt, how much shit is in there?" LOTS!), I bring you:

An envelope... with Dave's signature on it?

"Wow, neat? I guess? (what the $#!*...)" you say, just wait.

And what was in the envelope? An invitation to the opening of the Lit Graphic art show at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge Massachusetts:

that has a comic strip by Lauren Weinstein

Dave gave all the members of the Cerebus Yahoo Group that showed up for the show, an invitation, in the hopes that we wouldn't have to pay to get in. (It worked too if I remember right...)

Anyway, back to the lede, so at the show I took the Museum tour with Dave, and the guide pointed out in the painting Shuffleton's Barber Shop that Rockwell put in awesome detail like magazine covers. 

After the tour, Dave approached her and corrected that they were actually comic books. And...well, I'll let the late great John Lougher (R.I.P.) tell it:

Eventually Dave and L nny join us for some more yucks and then we head
upstairs for the opening. Yeah, the joint is jumpin'. Babes with trays
of Hors d'oeuvres keep offering us stuff, little butternut squash
quesedillas and avocado&pepper toast treats(I shit you not), and on
the buffet there are all these word balloons and comics-type pics for
all the eats. The swankiest appointment of oreos I've ever seen in a
tall glass vase. Pop is served in wine glasses. Matt Dow says, "We
don't belong here." Nope. We are definitely crashing the party. 

Eventually after the swells have eaten their fill we all find seats
for the opening speeches. Peter Kuper does the talking for the artists
and relates a great story about meeting Norman Rockwell at around the
age of nine. Seems Rockwell took a look at some of Pete's drawings
and advised him to 'always draw from life'. Those familiar with Mr.
Kuper's art make of that what you will. Now it's time to mill around
and buttonhole artists. I seek out Terry Moore and he graciously
signs my copy of SIP#7, the first one I ever bought. I start gushing
about the amazing range of expressions that he can draw so expertly
and he says, "One of the reasons I'm here for this is that I get my
expressions from studying Norman Rockwell." Boing! You could have
knocked me over with a feather. Then he tells me he wants to seek out
the man who obscured the logos on the comics in the painting
Shuffleton's Barber Shop and beat him up. His wife starts laughing and
says the guy must be at least 85 now, you might be able to take him
and that cracks everybody up. What guy who obscured a Norman Rockwell
painting, you ask? 

Okay, back about half and hour. Matt Dow grabs me and asks if I've
looked at the painting Shuffleton's Barber Shop, finished in April of
1950 for a Saturday Evening Post cover and defaced shortly thereafter
by some schmoe in the art department of said magazine. I've missed it
somehow. He drags me to the painting and directs my attention to the
lower left corner. There's a news rack in the painting. There are
comics on the news rack. Matt says, "The one on the top is a copy of
Crime Does Not Pay and Rockwell has painted over some of the letters
on the cover and it no longer says CRIME at the top, but something
more like RIHE now. And then Matt notices that you can make out the
faint "C" under the red paint. Now, Dave had talked about this very
painting the day before, but he was talking about the crack in the
glass front window in the lower right corner of the painting and how
that crack was probably actually in the real Shuffleton's front
window, and how Rockwell had masterfully rendered that crack in
typical Rockwell efficiency with a couple of simple brushstrokes, yet
it was unmistakably a crack in the glass when you look at it, an
incredibly realistic crack. And here are Matt and I dissecting the
other corner in true comic book geek fashion. A curator comes running
up yelling "Stop! Don't touch the painting!" Matt and I are giggling
because we are really close to it, but not touching it. The guy
stands there eyeing us and we pay him no mind and go on with our
business. Matt thinks that it's not just a pastiche of a comic -
Rockwell didn't work that way. Somebody went and told Dave what we
were looking at and he comes up and spots a Donald Duck cover
underneath the Crime comic. We argue a bit about whether it's Walt
Disney's Comics & Stories or a copy of Donald Duck Comics, and I
remark either way, it's a classic Barks cover. We've drawn a small
crowd. Tundis is checking it out. I tentatively identify a partial
cover underneath the Crime comic as a copy of Gaby Hayes Western. We
entertain theories as to why the logos were obscured. The logo on the
Donald Duck cover is a shapeless blob of blue paint. Nothing had to
be done to the Gabby Hayes comic since only a small part of it is
sticking out. I blame the anti-comics hysteria of the late
forties/early fifties. Dave thinks it's a copyright issue. At this
point we're introduced to the director of the museum who wants to know
what the commotion is about. Dave tells her what we've found, and she
says the museum was unaware of any of this. She shakes Matt's and my
hand for contributing what we've found. Again, kinda mind blowing.
The director is pretty sure that an alteration like that was done by
somebody in the art department at the Post and that Dave is right, for
copyright reasons. It wasn't enough for Rockwell to just SUGGEST
comics with his painting, they had to be ACTUAL covers of actual
comics in the painting. And Dave said, to the Post, it's not art,
it's just business. Unbelievable. Later, I got a chance to talk with
Martin, the litgraphic curator, and he says the painting is on loan
from another museum and that he had it brought in because of the
comics in the painting, but nobody noticed that they were actual
comics before, so good eyes, Matt! They brought out the museum's
photographer to get pictures of the painting and people pointing out
the comics. Good times! 

We said our goodbyes and were out of the building when the
photographer came running out and dragged us back in. He wanted a
group shot of Dave and his gang of stooges, so we rounded up everyone
and marched back to the room with Dave's art and took group shots.
Then we all got the bum's rush so's they could close the museum. I and
the family took off for Albany. 

Sunday morning I researched the covers with GCD and sure enough, those
are actual covers of comics in the painting: Crime Does Not Pay #82,
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #111, and Gabby Hayes Western #14.
There's a fourth comic in the painting and I have no idea what it is,
so any help out there? I nailed the partially covered comic as a
Gabby Hayes. Dave was right about the WDS&S and it not being a Donald
Duck. And Matt was right about Crime Does Not Pay. And he started the
whole thing with an amazing catch. Kudos, Matt. I Take everything
back about the Sundaes. And thanks for your gramma's book. Oh, and
the 'classic Barks cover'? It was done by Walt Kelly. So sue me. 

John L (Oh yeah, I caught the museum photographer taking a pic of
Terry Moore smiling and pointing at a Rockwell painting of a bunch of
gossipers in sequence. if you know the painting, you'll know that he
wasn't kidding about getting expressions from the master, Rockwell.
It's all connected, baby)

Left hand side

If you click here, there's a video that has the Crime Does Not Pay cover at the 20 second mark.

Thanks John L., wherever you are!

Next Time: What else is in the AMOChive?