Milt Gross
Milt Gross | |
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Born | Bronx, New York, U.S. | March 4, 1895
Died | November 29, 1953 Pacific Ocean | (aged 58)
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Notable works |
Milt Gross (/ɡroʊs/; March 4, 1895 – November 29, 1953) was an American cartoonist and animator. His work is noted for its exaggerated cartoon style and Yiddish-inflected English dialogue. He originated the non-sequitur "Banana Oil!" as a phrase deflating pomposity and posing. His character Count Screwloose's admonition, "Iggy, keep an eye on me!", became a national catchphrase. The National Cartoonists Society fund to aid indigent cartoonists and their families, for many years was known as the Milt Gross Fund. In 2005, it was absorbed by the Society's Foundation, which continues the charitable work of the Fund.[1]
Comic strips and books
Gross was born in
Also in 1926, he published Hiawatta witt No Odder Poems, a 40-page parody of
In 1930, Gross published what many consider his masterpiece, the pantomime tale 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.[5][citation needed]. 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.[2][3]
Starting in 1931, Gross worked for the
In 1945, the year of his book Dear Dollink, he suffered a heart attack and went into semi-retirement. His last book was I Shouda Ate the Eclair (published 1946), in which one Mr. Figgits nearly starts World War III because he refuses to eat a chocolate éclair. In 1946–47, his work appeared in the short-lived comic book Picture News.[2][3] His final published work appeared in the pages of comic books published by American Comics Group, including two issues of Milt Gross Funnies. In 1950, two of his earlier books were combined as Hiawatta and De Night in De Front From Chreesmas.[2]
Animation
Gross made occasional animated films through the
In 1939, he returned to animation with two MGM cartoons, Jitterbug Follies and Wanted: No Master, featuring Count Screwloose (voiced by Mel Blanc) and J.R. The Wonderdog.[3] According to Bill Littlejohn, they were both extremely funny works. But Fred Quimby thought them to be too vulgar and had Gross fired.[6] Gross would also co-write the 1943 Screen Gems cartoon He Can't Make It Stick (directed by John Hubley and Paul Sommer), after he pitched the story to then-producer Dave Fleischer and writer Stephen Longstreet.[7]
Death
On November 29, 1953, Gross died of a heart attack aboard the
Legacy
In 2009 the New York University Press published Is Diss a System?: A Milt Gross Comic Reader,[8] which argues for Gross' importance as a link between the cartooning cultures of the first and second halves of the 20th century, especially as they related to Jewish culture.[9][10]
In August 1971, Dover Publications reprinted Nize Baby. In 2010, cartoon historian Craig Yoe edited The Complete Milt Gross Comic Books and Life Story, a complete collection of the Gross comic book stories from the 1940s with a lengthy illustrated biography by Yoe and an Al Jaffee introduction.
Bibliography
- Banana Oil! (1924) M.S. Publishing Co.
- Nize Baby (1926) George H. Dolan Company
- Hiawatta witt No Odder Poems (1926) George H. Doran Co.
- De Night in de Front from Chreesmas (1927) George H. Doran Co.
- Dunt Esk!! (1927) Grosset & Dunlap
- Famous Fimmales witt Odder Ewents from Heestory (1928) Doubleday, Doran & Co.
- He Done Her Wrong (1930) Doubleday, Doran & Co.
- What's This? (with Robert M. Low and Lou Wedemar) (1936) Simon and Schuster
- Pasha the Persian by Margaret Linden, illustrated by Milt Gross (1936) Claude Kendall, Inc.
- That's My Pop Goes Nuts for Fair: A Cartoon Tour of New York (1939) The Bystander Press. Reprinted 2015 as Milt Gross’ New York: A Lost Graphic Novel[11]
- Dear Dollink (1945) G.P. Putnam's Sons
- I Shoulda Ate the Eclair (1946) Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.
- Milt Gross Funnies #1 (August 1947) American Comics Group
- Milt Gross Funnies #2 (September 1947) American Comics Group
- Hiawatta and De Night in de Front from Chreesmas (1950) Doubleday
- The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (1977) Bill Blackbeard, ed., Smithsonian Institution Press/Harry Abrams
- He Done Her Wrong (Reprinted 2006) Fantagraphics ISBN 1-56097-694-2
- Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900–1969 (2006) Dan Nadel, ed., Abrams ISBN 0-8109-5838-4
- Is Diss a System?: A Milt Gross Comic Reader (2009) Ari Kelman, ed., NYU Press ISBN 0-8147-4823-6
- The Complete Milt Gross Comic Books and Life Story (2010) Craig Yoe, ed., IDW Publishing ISBN 1-60010-546-7
- Gross Exaggerations: The Meshuga Comic Strips of Milt Gross (2020) Peter Maresca, ed. ISBN 978-0-98355-048-8
References
- ^ "NCS" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-03. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
- ^ a b c d e f g Vadeboncoeur Jr. "Milt Gross". Bud Plant Illustrated Books. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
- ^ a b c d e f Markstein, Don. "Milt Gross". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Retrieved 2006-10-25.
- ^ a b Markstein, Don. "Milt Gross". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on April 15, 2012. Retrieved 2015-08-22.
- ISBN 978-1560976943.
- ^ Cohen (2004), p. 40
- ^ "MichaelBarrier.com -- Interviews: John Hubley". www.michaelbarrier.com. Retrieved 2023-08-12.
- ^ "Here's to You, Mrs. Feitlebaum" by J.W. Joselit New Republic 17 Feb. 2010
- ^ Leiter, Robert (April 1, 2010). "A Certain 'Patois'". The Jewish Exponent. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
- ^ Paul Buhle, "Grossed Out, Or Remembered At Last? A Genius of Comic Confusion", The Forward, April 9, 2010.
- ^ Heller, Steven (2 April 2015). "Rediscovering a Lost Predecessor to the Graphic Novel". The Atlantic. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
Sources
- Cohen, Karl F. (2004), "Censorship of Theatrical Animation", Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America, ISBN 978-0786420322
External links
- Milt Gross at IMDb