Jim Flora 2010 calendars available

We've received no reports of malfunctioning 2009 calendars—every day has thus far been accounted for, in the correct sequence—so we're offering 2010 models, hot off Yee-Haw's industrial presses. The spunky hyperactive figures date from Flora's mid-1950s RCA Victor LP period. Each calendar is letterpress printed one color at a time on card stock, and accessorized with a 12-month tearaway calendar. Buy one ($12.50) or a set of three at the Little Shop of Flora's.

Lobster Pound (1962)

Taking a break from conjuring bonus-limbed mutants and bug-eyed boppers, Flora often sketched maritime culture in his extended backyard. The above untitled pen & ink of a seafood shack was discovered in a travel sketchbook that contained dozens of the artist's impressions of Italy and France, several dated 1962. Back on his "home surf," Flora filled another two dozen pages of the tablet with southern Connecticut shoreline vignettes and briny motifs.

5Qs 4 Eric Reynolds

Eric Reynolds has worked at Fantagraphics (our Flora books publisher) for 15 years, mostly as publicist. It's been our pleasure to conduct business with (and, in September 2007, meet) the affable Mr. Reynolds, an admitted Floraphile. He was recently booted upstairs by his bosses to the position of Associate Publisher. A large round of applause for that company move (though we'll miss Eric on the PR end).

Comic Book Galaxy's Trouble With Comics blog tendered "Five Questions for Eric Reynolds," which he graciously answered. Flora's name is dropped just once, but we don't begrudge Eric any perceived slight. Fantagraphics has a large artist roster and we're honored that Flora is part of it.

Above right: Eric at the Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora exhibit opening reception, September 22, 2007, Fantagraphics Bookstore/Gallery, Seattle.

odyssey of a drug

Feature illustration, "A Long-Playing Medicine"
LIFE magazine, June 10, 1957

Love Is Like Park Avenue

Flora rendered the above woodcut for the cover of a collection of short stories by Alvin Frederick Levin, published by Little Man Press in 1940. New Directions Books has just issued Love Is Like Park Avenue, Levin's "unfinished novel," which includes the "Little Alvin" vignettes and a reproduction of Flora's woodcut.

You've probably never heard of Alvin Levin. Neither had we. The intriguing rediscovery of Levin is chronicled by New Directions Senior Editor Declan Spring at The Front Table.

The wonderful Flora woodcut, like so many of the artist's early cuts, cannot be located.

rural electrification

Spot illo, "New Competition for G.E.," a brief 1953 article about Continental Electric Equipment Co. of Kentucky.

cordial claws

Anthropomorphic lobsters from sketchbook, pencil and crayon, early 1960s. Intended project unknown.

Miff Mole's Cat

Acrylic on canvas, 1992. Irving Milfred "Miff" Mole was a legendary American jazz trombonist who first came to prominence in 1920s hot jazz. Tommy Dorsey called him "the Babe Ruth of the trombone."

Amid the painting's colorful details, pay special attention to this great freakin' tree:

Celebrities

Celebrities, pen & ink, early 1990s, from sketchbook

Update: Issued as an open edition fine art print in 2010.

Washed

Our third series of Primer for Prophets screen prints are in production, and should be ready for market by early October. "W" is among the featured letters. For more information, click on the "Primer for Prophets" tag at the bottom to see previous posts. The series is being produced by our friends at Aesthetic Apparatus, of Minneapolis.

Series 1: Ate, Drove, Jived, and Smoked.

Series 2: Cooked, Groomed, Kissed, and Quaffed.

aspects (typography)

Flora loved experimenting with hand-typography throughout his career, from the 1930s to the 1990s. (Click on tag below to see previous examples.) He occasionally created anthropomorphic letters. The above detail derives from an undated 1990s-era painting entitled The Many Aspects of Love. The large-scale tempera is a lower-tier work reflecting Flora's libidinous streak with cartoonish figures, a recurring theme which usually makes us cringe. However, the lettering of each word in the tableau demonstrates Flora's playful approach to the alphabet. We'll publish the other words in subsequent posts.

Sweetly Diabolic: a review

Rave review for Sweetly Diabolic from Joe Bendel of J.B. Spins.

"Chusid and Economon once again prove to be wise stewards of the Flora archives. Sweetly Diabolic reveals many largely unknown aspects of his work, but also fruitfully revisits his classic Columbia-era work. Thanks to the quality of the reproductions and design of the book itself, the vitality of Flora’s art comes through on each page. An effective introduction to Flora’s art and a satisfying crowd-pleaser for his established fans, Diabolic is another richly entertaining treasury of Flora’s 'baroque and subversive' art."

Joe gave an equally glowing assessment of our previous book, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora.

If you discover other reviews of our new book, please drop us a note.

unfinished tableaus

Unfinished figures in tempera and pencil, photographed on sketchbook page. The undated work is probably from around 1960 because the contours resemble Big Evening, a tempera from that year.

cow chaos

Tempera overlay, The Day the Cow Sneezed, 1957, courtesy the Dr. Irvin Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota Children's Literature Research Center.

the old brawl game

The title and date of this 1960s commercial tempera illustration are unknown, as is the periodical for which it was assigned (possibly LIFE or LOOK magazine). The mise-en-scène depicts historic incidents and major league baseball players associated with Busch Stadium (a.k.a. Sportsman's Park), home of two St. Louis baseball teams: the luckless Browns (1902-53) and the perennially contending Cardinals (1920-66). The ballpark was replaced by Busch Memorial Stadium in 1966, an event which this illustration probably commemorates. (The Browns franchise moved east in 1954 to become the Baltimore Orioles.)

The detail above represents about one-third of the full 16-1/4" x 16-3/4" work, which is stored in the Flora family archives.

piano variations

A draft and a refinement of a common theme. This barrelhouse piano player was roughly rendered for a series of demo booklets the Cincinnati-based Flora crafted in 1941 as a job pitch:

"Columbia Records was reissuing old jazz records without much fanfare," the artist (and jazz aficionado) later wrote. "I had the temerity to make these small booklets to try to point out the error of their ways." His temerity paid off. In early 1942 Flora was hired by Columbia's art department, and he relocated to Connecticut with his wife Jane. Within a year, the record label promoted him to Art Director.

The refined version was a woodcut, untitled and undated:

The mannequin-like patrons are gone, but the mug on the piano lid abides. The original wood block for this work has not been located. The print belongs to the University of Virginia Library Special Collections as part of a quartet of impressions in a folio entitled James Flora Wood Cuts. The three other works in the folio exist in the Flora family collection and date from 1940-41.

The top image was reproduced along with the demo booklets in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora; the bottom work was reproduced in our just-published The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora.

Do you know your FGHIJKLs?

Get to know them — Flora-style! Individual letters culled from various works by the funky font master himself.

Ding Dong Daddy

Pen & ink sketch, early 1940s. The title likely derives from the song "I'm a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas," penned by Phil Baxter in the late 1920s. Dumas is a town in the northwest Texas Panhandle. The song was recorded by many country and jazz artists, including Louis Armstrong (in 1930), and was later a hit for singer-bandleader Phil Harris. Flora's take is typically idiosyncratic and perhaps references the titular "ding dong" in the bell-and-clapper motif of the figure's right leg. There's also evidence of some testicular bell-ringing.

The Tympani Five

We've come to a belated acceptance, and in some cases respect, for Flora's late-life work. We still prefer the bizarre jaggedness of his 1940s and 1950s illustrations and paintings, but occasionally the old Jim peeks through the new. The Tympani Five (referring to Louis Jordan's fun-loving jump band of the 1940s) isn't a top-tier work, but the spirit of Jordan synergizes with the spirit of Flora in this 1988 pen & ink with tempera on paper (owned by a private collector).

What's wrong with this picture? For one, Jordan spelled his group's name "Tympany." For another, the band was usually marqueed as "Louis Jordan & The Tympany Five," implying six members; Flora depicts a quintet. Moreover, "Five" was a name, not a number, because Jordan's outfit often included as many as nine players. But besides sharing a love of music, Flora and Jordan had mischievous natures, so we'll let facts take a holiday.

Although the 1980s were a tremendously productive period for Flora, this is only the second work from the decade we've posted. We're actually more fond of Flora's 1990s mojo.

arts & Kraft

In an art class called "Soft Sculpture" at the University of Washington (Seattle), students were instructed to transform a favorite painting into food sculpture. SunShine McWane adapted Flora's untitled 1950-51 tempera we casually refer to as "Gunfight on the Roof" (original work below). The resulting mixed-media delicacy, entitled "Cheese City," was completed in January 2009.

The materials—ingredients, actually—used by McWane include cheese (cheddar, Swiss, Colby, jalapeño jack), acrylic paint, plastic (GI Joe figures), one wire twist-tie, and a Gummi Bear. The work is currently in SunShine's apartment, at room temperature, preserved with spray fixative. Its lifespan is uncertain.

The original painting was reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora and released as a limited edition fine art print in 2008.

Thanks to Jillian Sutton for introducing McWane to Flora's work and for alerting us to the cheesy replica.