spooky doings

Perhaps the kid dropped his bag of trick-or-treat candy (and shed his costume) sprinting for safety. Illustration from introductory chapter of A Red Skel(e)ton in Your Closet, a 1965 anthology of "ghost stories gay and grim" selected for young readers by popular film & TV comedian Red Skelton. The book contains 21 interior illustrations which are uncredited, but Flora's trademarks are unmistakable. The artist was under contract to Harcourt, Brace at the time, and in all probability was prohibited from artist attribution for illustrations in children's books issued by other publishers (this volume was a Grosset & Dunlap title). The best of the Skel(e)ton illustrations were reproduced in our recent book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora.

Gene Krupa demo booklet (1941)

Dummy pages, Gene Krupa and his Columbia recording orchestra, demo booklet, 1941, part of a series of homemade samples prepared by Flora for the Columbia Records art department. Most pages from the booklets (which earned the artist a job at Columbia) were reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora; three of the above four pages were omitted due to space constraints. We posted another unpublished page from the series here and more Flora artistic impressions of the great jazz drummer Krupa here.

seaside setting

Detail (about two-thirds of the complete work) of an untitled, unpublished tempera on board, ca. mid-1960s. The collection contains a number of similarly composed maritime paintings from this period, though colors and figures vary. If you have our recent book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, compare this setting with Salt Pond—Block Island on page 54.

Reptet rides again

... this time to a distant galaxy. Or maybe just down the block to the Moon. The genre-surfing Seattle combo has once again (third time) licensed a Jim Flora illustration for a cover, their new 7" vinyl release Agendacide. The above element derives from the April 1963 cover of Computer Design magazine.

Previously the band's John Ewing licensed images for the Reptet's CDs Do This! and Chicken or Beef. This helps carry the Flora mid-20th album cover legacy into the 21st century, and we appreciate the torch-bearing efforts of Mr. Ewing and his cohorts. Their website is also adorned with details from other Flora works.

Bessie Smith and someone like Bessie Smith

Here are two tempera illustrations discovered in an early- to mid-1960s sketchpad in the Flora collection. The more refined of the two works has a title: Bessie Smith, presumably a vignette of the soulful, bawdy 1920s and '30s Empress of the Blues. The pianist (great hat!) is unidentified, and we can't vouch for the historical accuracy of Smith performing with her nipples exposed:

The second work, pages away in the same sketchpad, is untitled but appears to be an unfinished draft of the same scene:

It appears that Bessie gained quite a bit of weight between conception and refinement. Then again, Flora might not have had Smith in mind for the pencil and tempera draft. He often changed titles of near-identical works; many sketches were untitled, or assigned working titles which were altered for subsequent variations. A 1940s pencil sketch tagged "Boss Crump" evolved into a painting titled Self-Portrait. We'll never know at what point the artist decided that his resemblance to the legendary Tenneesse pol E. H. Crump was undeniable. A 1942 illustration for Columbia Records depicted conductor Fritz Reiner with four arms, three eyes, two noses and dueling mouths. The exact same figure was revisited in 1998—the similarity is unmistakable—but retitled Daniel Berenboim, another legendary conductor.

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.