"Compulsion on the Range" ---
Page 88 from Jungle Book (1959)
6.75" wide x 12.5" high
Pen & ink, brush and wash on blue-ruled
Bristol board glued to a second sheet.
This page from Harvey Kurtzman's western parody,
"Compulsion on the Range," in Jungle Book, depicts
Sergeant Garcia from Zorro peacefully confronting ruthless
gunfighter Johnny Ringding (Ringo) at a bar. This is page 88
from the 1986 Kitchen Sink Press book [Out of print, but available
on this site ---Steve.] A tape stain along the top, registration
marks and a printer's notations (all outside the image area)
are the only "flaws." The image itself is excellent
and unscathed. Comes with a masking overlay on clear acetate,
not pictured here. Masterful ink and wash work by one of the
medium's most celebrated and respected creators.
Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book, created
in 1959, stands as a watershed moment in comics history. It was
the first paperback book of original comics material. It introduced
the character Goodman Beaver, who evolved, amazingly enough,
three years later into Playboy's Little Annie Fanny. Jungle
Book was an all-too-rare example of Kurtzman working without
collaborators. But most important, its four stories were flat-out
brilliant, inspiring, among others, the young generation of underground
cartoonists who emerged less than a decade later.
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