Ho-Zuntley!

[rain_gryphon]

from August of 1946

It may well be that the stories inside don't measure up to the cover, but the cover is something to behold. It's gentle, and affectionate. The artist likes the characters, and isn't just using them for the visual joke.

There's got to be a story behind that picture. The rabbit's on a crutch, and they're playing with what they've got - the rabbit's using a frying pan for a paddle, and the beaver his tail. They're both having such a good time, too.

This would have been a childhood favourite. Even if the stuff inside was a dud, I'd have kept it out where I could see the cover.

*****

It's easy to forget how sparse access to truly pleasing art used to be. I can download it faster than I can actually bother to look at it now. The world wasn't always like that. An image that somehow connected with you was a treasure at one point, and it wasn't that many years ago. It would have been saved, and pored over on long summer afternoons until you knew every line. I've still got some of mine.

That wasn't a media-starved age, either. There was art and advertising all around, television and bright magazines and product wrappers. It's just that most of it, then as now, wasn't really of more than passing interest.

The difference now is that most of what delights me is produced not for commercial purposes, but by people like myself, for amusement. There's actually a way to share it now with people who want to see it. When I was younger, there wasn't. That's made all the difference in the world.

*****

How different it must have been to live in the age before mass media. A picture would have been something rarely encountered, something to fill one's attention. The thought gives me some new appreciation for the Victorian passion for lithographic prints. The Victorians started in a world where you might see the same one or two paintings every week in church, and suddenly you could have these brilliantly coloured scenes in your own home, to admire at leisure.

*****

Obama and Hillary are having a slap-fight, I see.

Comments

[magnusdiridian.livejournal.com]

Now thats good tennis, LOL. Seriously though, I do like it.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The picture grows on me the more I look at it. They're really enjoying themselves, and it communicates well to the viewer. It's a very animated, dynamic picture.

[jedd-marten.livejournal.com]

Very nice! Somebody did a great job on that cover.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I love it! There's this whole sweep to the composition, from bottom right to top left, that leads your eye along the lines of action of the scene, the ball, and both characters. Everything in there works really nicely.