SCREWBALL! the Cartoonists Who Made the Funnies Funny

Before "screwball" became a movie genre, it was a staple of other forms of American culture, including newspaper comic strips. Emerging from the pressures of a rapidly accelerating technological and information-drenched society, screwball comics offered a healthy dose of laughter and perspective. The disruptive, manic, and surreal verbal-visual comedy of these "funnies" fostered an absurdist sensibility embraced by The Marx Brothers (who took their names from a popular comic strip), W. C. Fields, Tex Avery, Spike Jones, Ernie Kovacs, and Mad magazine. Comics scholar Paul C. Tumey traces the development of screwball as a genre in magazine cartoons and newspaper comics, presenting the lives and work of around two dozen cartoonists, with an art-stuffed chapter on each. The book offers a wealth of previously un-reprinted comics unleashing fresh views of some of America's greatest and most-loved cartoonists, including George Herriman ( Krazy Kat ), E.C. Segar (creator of Popeye), Winsor McCay ( Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend ), Rube Goldberg ( The Inventions of Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K. ) and Bill Holman ( Smokey Stover ). In addition, readers will be delighted to discover previously "lost" screwball masters including Gene Ahern ( The Squirrel Cage ), Gus Mager ( Sherlocko the Monk ), Milt Gross ( Count Screwloose ), George Swanson ( $alesman $am ) and many others.