Harvey Kurtzman's Little Annie Fanny

Little Annie Fanny

by Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder & Others

(Collected Vols 1 & 2 avaliable from Dark Horse Comics)

DAVE SIM:
(from a comment on AMOC, 10 December 2016)

...I think much hinges upon your innermost intention with the material which I think, in the case of Kurtzman and Elder on LITTLE ANNIE FANNY was a) to be entertaining b) to be funny and c) to have steady work. PLAYBOY was a lot more exploitive of women than I perceived it to be at the time (or, at least, I perceive it that way now) and I did get rid of my PLAYBOYs because they seemed unhealthy in that sense.

SOME of the cartoons are an exception to that. I can't pretend that I don't find Gahan Wilson really, really funny because of the context his cartoons appeared in. Likewise Jules Feiffer. Likewise Sokol (although that's more because of his brilliant painting).

That was the same reason that I bought Dark Horse's LITTLE ANNIE FANNY volume one. It's "mannered" humour but it's brilliantly executed. The Annie Fanny bodies that Frazetta painted are among the best pieces of art I can think of.

And, in the case of our present subject, Will Elder's comedic painting of Kurtzman's visual humour. PAINTING humour is on a whole other plateau from DRAWING humour and Elder made it look easy.

I would always hang onto my LAF collection and PLAYBOY CARTOON collections for that reason. The subject matter, to me, is a very minor part of what it IS.

I'll find out on Judgement Day if God thinks that way as well.

Kurtzman Speaks!

Harvey Kurtzman (2012)

Portrait by Drew Friedman

DAVE SIM:
(from Following Cerebus #3, 2005)

There are snapshot moments in my mind, associated with each of the interviews I did for the Now & Then Times and for Comic Art News & Reviews (CANAR). In the case of Harvey Kurtzman, the man most responsible for the introduction of parody into the comic book field, it was a common room some distance from the one-day Fancons that Marty Herzog was staging at the time at Toronto's York University (whose Winters College had already been the site of larger three-day Cosmicons). Adding to the physical distance was the turn-out of many York students for Kurtzman's talk. I really wondered how he would do, what the mainstream audience reaction would be to a cartoonist who wasn't exactly a household name. I had my tape recorder ready to go and was seated against the wall to Kurtzman's left as he began...

Kurtzman Speaks

Comic Art News & Reviews #25, September 1974, edited by John Balge

(Click image to enlarge)

After a nice round of applause, Kurtzman was guided out of the common room to a place in the hall that had been set aside for him to sign autographs. Somewhere along the line, I had already asked if I could interview him, and he said sure. When he got to his table, he informed me that he would be doing an interview for the York University student newspaper first, which was conducted by a young female student. It was an interesting experience sitting and watching him sign autographs and do quick sketches of Little Annie Fanny for fans and students waiting in line. I would say that only Sergio Aragones could match him for quickness and the variety of his sketches.

Anyway, the student who was interviewing him had only a pad and pencil with her and wrote sporadic notes as Kurtzman answered what I remembered being largely political questions of the sort that you would expect from a student in the mid-seventies, with many digressions and (not unexpectedly) an undercurrent of flirtation. I began to despair of getting to do my interview, as Kurtzman's answers got longer and longer, and the student had long since stopped writing anything down. Finally, as he signed the last few autographs and did the last few sketches, it was my turn. At that point, between the talk and the student interview, he was pretty well "talked out", as you can see from his first few answers. He opened up a little bit as we went along, but, at one point when I attempted to ask a follow-up, he stabbed my list of prepared questions with his forefinger very emphatically and indicated that I stick to those. This I dutifully proceeded to do.

Harvey Kurtzman Interview

Comic Art News & Reviews #25, September 1974, edited by John Balge

(Click images to enlarge)

I think he was pleasantly surprised when he finally saw the special Kurtzman issue of Comic Art News & Reviews. He sent a short note to John Balge printed in the next issue:

Dear John Balge, Where has CANAR been all my life? I especially enjoyed the Andy Capp inteview. Smythe must be quite a guy.

...Three years before I began work on the first issue of Cerebus, I was already beginning to assess what would and wouldn't work in a humour comic book. I was pretty sure that the Kurtzman and Elder approach had been milked dry, and I suspected that the key was in balancing the writing and the art and making both as funny as possible.

I wonder if the interview conducted by the university student ever saw print.

The Kurtzman Magic

Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad & Revolutionized Humor In America

by Bill Schelly

(Fantagraphics Books, 2015)

The recent release of a major new biography of comics-legend Harvey Kurtzman provides a great opportunity to feature a young Dave Sim's appreciation originally printed in Comic Art News & Reviews #25 (September 1974, edited by John Balge), together with Dave's cover-parody of MAD #1 for that issue.

(Click images to enlarge)