THE ART OF MILT GROSS Volume 1 Mastering Cartoon Pantomime-Judge 1923-24

Step back into the roaring '20s and rediscover one of American comics’ lost geniuses. For the first time, this volume gathers his complete Judge magazine work from 1923–24, with annotations and a deep-dive illustrated essay by comics historian Paul C. Tumey (Screwball! The Cartoonists Who Made the Funnies Funny). In 1923, when he was working hard to re-establish himself in the newspaper cartooning industry with a full-time job at The New York World, Gross also broke into the slick, weekly humor magazine market and provided Judge with dozens of superb, dense, funny pages of comics. Not only that, but Gross also challenged himself to master a very difficult form: the pantomime comic. Before Nize Baby, before Count Screwloose, Milt Gross was quietly revolutionizing humor on the printed page. In fact, as this book shows, he first developed some of his funniest comics in his Judge work and later remade them for his newspaper strip. Gross published what many consider his masterpiece, the wordless graphic novel He Done Her Wrong: The Great American Novel and Not a Word in It — No Music, Too. Minus words, this "novel" is composed entirely of pen-and-ink cartoons, nearly 300 pages long, and is comparable to such silent films serials as The Perils of Pauline. It resembled (and parodied) Lynd Ward's Gods' Man, the first American wordless novel, published the previous year. It has been reprinted several times, including an abridged version in 1983 (retitled Hearts of Gold) and in 2005 by Fantagraphics, under its original title. These early comics reveal the birth of his unmistakable style: big-hearted, kinetic, and wildly inventive while also being intriguingly tighter and less wild than his mature work. With a foreword by Drew Lerman (Snake Creek), and a specially colored Milt Gross strip by Noah Van Sciver, this book is both a feast for fans and a vital addition to comics history. Includes an extensive 60-page-plus Supplements section that provides additional essays, excerpts, scholarly material, and a continuity of rare strips from the hilarious, forgotten newspaper comic strip Gross wrote and drew at the same time in 1923. Whether you're a comics scholar, vintage art lover, or just someone who enjoys a good laugh — this is the Gross you didn’t know you were missing.