Saturday, April 18, 2015
Delicious Black Humor by Charles Rodrigues
If you're a fan of Charles Addams, Ronald Searle, Gahan Wilson and so on, but unaware of the black humor brilliance of Charles Rodrigues, then today is your day. These 22 gags from over half a century ago originally appeared in the pages of men's magazines like Stag, Male, Men, For Men Only, and Rogue, but our scans here at AEET today are taken from the Fawcett Gold Medal Book "Spitting on the Sheriff and Other Diversions", from 1966. It's an awesome collection of his best stuff, and per our Halloween in April festivities I focused on the laughs featuring darker, deadlier subject material like funerals, murder, torture, graveyards etc... enjoy!
I got a kick out of the 14th pic where the former husband's head is mounted on the wall. It made me chuckle out loud for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI have the same reaction to "What? No wreath from the wine growers of California?", and the bulletproof jacket
ReplyDeleteWow, no I've never heard of this guy. These are great. I laughed out loud at good few of them, but my faves aren't even like that--rather than bothering with the crisp switch from expectation that is the usual for (especially one-panel) cartoons, they are allowed to rise and fall on just being really weird as heck. Like the one with the zealous cop arranging the cellar remains. Or the one where the guys chained to the wall are admitting that dungeon food is pretty good. Weird.
ReplyDeleteArt-wise, my fave is probably the sexton who has packed his lunch in a cooler-sized casket.
All great too... this is a seriously excellent collection, and what you see here is only a small sampling, the book probably has another 100+ gags, --essential!
ReplyDeleteI swear I saw art like this -- maybe by the same artist or maybe by somebody aping him -- in the humor mags of the day (mad, crazy, cracked, one of those.)
ReplyDeletemy fave is totally the teeny coffin lunch box! oh my god i love that!!!!!
ReplyDeleteim glad you mentioned the thing about the weird humor, mr. c. i really have a hard time with a lot of these old cartoon cause they just dont seem funny to me - so i guess it's just a style of humor that i dont get.
i love the images though :)
First saw his work 40+ years ago in the pages of National Lampoon. Sick and very funny.
ReplyDeleteIt's cool to hear he did other more commercial work than just men's mags, his art certainly deserves to be seen by everyone. Thank for the comments!
ReplyDelete