JIMMY! The Comic Art of James Swinnerton

The definitive collection of comics and illustration from 1892 to 1942 by James Swinnerton, one of the founding fathers of the American comic strip. Jimmy! includes an illustrated biography and essays by co-editor Michael Tisserand and Eddie Campbell. His sgnature strip Little Jimmy began by mixing satire of New York society with stories of rural America. He then took the characters on the road to South America, Mexico, and then settling for many years in Swinnerton’s beloved Southwest. Also included in this book are his early one-shots and series like the rakish Mr. Jack and the anthropomorphic Mt. Ararat, and his 1940s stylized comic of the modern West, Rocky Mason. Little Jimmy is about a little boy who often loses his groceries after being sent to a shop and getting distracted from the simplest tasks, often due to vagabonds and hooligans. In the 1930s, The Fleischer Brothers adapted Little Jimmy into an animated short, featuring Betty Boop. After 1920, his artistic interest shifted to the theme of American desert life. He started doing illustrations and developed his landscape painting. He also created Canyon Kids, a monthly page for Good Housekeeping magazine, which ran for 42 years and was also adapted into a series of animated cartoons by Warner Bros. Swinnerton painted until 1965, when his hands become too shaky. He died in 1974, at the respectable age of 98. James G. Swinnerton is one of the most creative, respected and prolific comic artists from the first half of the 20th century. Yet to the disappointment of classic comics lovers, his work has seen little reproduction -- until now. This sumptuous volume covers Swinnerton’s six-decade career in comics, from his beginnings as a sports/editorial cartoonist for William Randolph Hearst in San Francisco to his years in the America’s Southwest desert, where his love for the land and its people came through in his comics and illustration. Swinnerton is an excellent storyteller offering a cinematic style with humor that is both slapstick and sophisticated. At the forefront is his long-running Little Jimmy comic strip. Swinnerton was an influence on Oskar Andersson, Julius Stafford Baker II, Gene Carr (his Bearville was obviously inspired by The Little Bears), George Herriman, Guido Moroni-Celsi and Ralph Yardley. A celebrity fan of Swinnerton's Little Jimmy was Pablo Picasso. The comic strips in this volume are carefully restored to their original colors and printed at near-full size. Swinnerton lovers will be delighted by the richness and variety of the works seen here. Those new to this uniquely American artist will likely join the growing numbers who appreciate his important role in the history of the comics. Rush Service and International shipping could require an additional charge.