Number 1483: The Moon-Struck Unicorn by George Carlson

It’s been a long time since I showed anything by cartoonist/illustrator George Carlson, and it’s time to make amends with a couple more zany tales from the master. Carlson, as I’ve mentioned before in this blog, was an old-timer, a cartoonist like Ed Wheelan, drawing funny pictures many years before comic books were invented.

During the run of Jingle Jangle Comics Carlson usually contributed two stories per issue. In this issue, #13 (1945), he gives us a moon-struck unicorn with a worn-out shadow, and another short story of his Pie-Face Prince of Pretzleburg.

After you read the stories I have links to two other posts featuring Carlson.

**********

Click on the pictures for more Carlson craziness. These are from Jingle Jangle Comics #'s 7 and 13 respectively:

More about →

Number 869


Exquisite delirium


I love nonsense or I probably wouldn't be a comic book fan, where about 90% of everything is nonsense in one way or another. But George Carlson took nonsense to another level when he worked for Famous Funnies, doing pages for Jingle Jangle Comics.

No less a literary luminary than Harlan Ellison was the one who brought George Carlson to the attention of fans, with his essay in All In Color For A Dime. I posted another couple of stories by Carlson in Pappy's #740, where I explain more.

"Jingle Jangle Tales" and "The Pie-Face Prince of Pretzleburg" were Carlson's regular features, but he also did puzzle pages, as with the scrap paper page featuring the Pixies. There were other well-drawn strips in Jingle Jangle Comics, but you rarely see them, because no one can get past Carlson's wondrous, wacky work. These are from Jingle Jangle Comics #15, 1945.

Mykal Banta, in his Big Blog of Kids' Comics, has a couple of great Carlson Christmas stories here and here.

More about →

Number 740


Jingle Jangle Tales and The Pie-Face Prince


From his essay in All In Color For A Dime (1970), in an enthusiastic tribute to cartoonist George Carlson, Harlan Ellison wrote:

". . .the man known as George Carlson, the incredible artist who--for forty-two issues of Jingle Jangle Comics--scripted and drew and series of unparalleled contemporary fables called "Jingle Jangle Tales," no longer draws. Jingle Jangle Comics is long-since gone. It died in December 1949. At Christmastime. During a season of joy and colored lights and children's laughter, George Carlson went away, taking with him one of those rare and marvelous gifts we had been joyously allowed to savor from March of 1943 till that emptiest of Christmases. He went away, and he took the "Jingle Jangle Tales," and most of all he took "The Pie-Face Prince of Pretzleburg."

Carlson was an artist and cartoonist of many talents. Besides his foray into comic books, he was a book illustrator, a cartoonist, and an author. You can see some examples of his other work here, here, and here. He even drew the famous dust jacket for Gone With The Wind, for goshsakes.

Carlson died in 1962, at age 75. He had a long career. Comic book fans mostly know him for his "unparalleled contemporary fables." If he did any other comic book work I'm not aware of it. It looks like he really had a lot of fun at what comics he did, though.

From Jingle Jangle Comics #7, 1944:

More about →