Junk Love: I Shot an Arrow in the Air...

I think it probably started with Looney Tunes (as so many things in my life have done). I used to watch Bugs and his pals religiously every Saturday morning, and one day, I saw this short:

Soon afterward, my parents brought home this one:

And then came Errol Flynn (and who can blame a girl for having palpitations, even if she was eight and he wore those bright green tights?)...

But then I got a book for Christmas, a Great Illustrated Classics version of Robin Hood, and I was hooked. In fact, I became a little obsessed, especially after I actually read the book. It was shockingly heartbreaking (spoiler alert: Robin Hood dies), and I was so distraught afterward that I had to crawl in my father's lap for a good hug and snuggle, just to remind myself that life would be okay again someday. To make me feel better, he started telling me about all of the different movie versions of the story, and at that point, I was addicted. We watched everything that we could get our hands on, including the 1922 version (Douglas Fairbanks!) and the 1991 movie with Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman. Of course, I was in the theatre for the Kevin Costner version the same year. And Mel Brooks is my homeboy, so Robin Hood: Men in Tights is still one of my secret joys in life.

I soaked up Robin Hood on the large and small screen, loving the fact that there were so many different versions (and if you can make alternate stories, you can make sure Robin Hood doesn't always die, right?). Then, when I was in middle school, I discovered that there were multiple book versions also. The ending may still be sad, but the illustrations are different, and if you accumulate enough different editions, you can see more and more of your favorite parts in these colorful interpretations. And so, the Robin Hood collection was born.

 

 

I don't have as many different versions of Robin's story as I do of others, but I still adore this collection. And, if I'm being honest, he is a part of the reason that I took archery my freshman year of college. (I love the thwack of an arrow striking its target.) And I don't read the books anymore, because I've created a hybrid version in my mind, cobbled together from the different editions, in which Robin Hood is masculine, dashing, sensitive, intelligent, witty, seductive...and he never dies. Or, maybe I just need a time machine and Errol Flynn, who is the best human Robin Hood. (Shhh! Don't tell, but if I could, I would marry the Disney Robin Hood, 'cause he's the best ever).

Junk Love: Lost in Translation

We love vintage advertising, especially if it is very graphic and colorful. But, sometimes we find ads that are real head-scratchers. Sometimes, they are just plain creepy....

Like this little girl. Who does she want to kill? Maybe it's the sandwich, but maybe it's...you.

Or, the weird bald girl selling hairdryers....

Or, we could have the pig who butchers himself. Mmmmm...tasty!

Or the lobsters dining on fresh...lobster.

In all honestly, I kind of like the lobsters. And that pig has a contagious grin. It makes me want bacon. This, however, makes me never want to eat bacon again:

Also, I realize that there was a reason for the propaganda,  but vintage WWII-era ads give me the heebie-jeebies.

I do kind of like the illustrative style, though, and I think that scary propaganda ads would actually be a cool collection. Like the lobsters eating lobster--I kind of want to start collecting masochistic/cannibalistic animal illustrations now. (Note that I said "kind of"....)

But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is as creepy as this ad (I will leave you to judge the reason for yourself):

The Skinny: Margaret Brundage

A Chicago native, Margaret Johnson attended high school and art school as a classmate of Walt Disney. He went on to make the most famous mouse in history; she married Myron Brundage, an alcoholic (and former hobo), and sold magazine cover art for $90 a piece in order to take care of her family. She did divorce the husband, but spent the rest of her life in relative poverty.

She did have a heyday, though. From 1933-1938, she was a highly popular cover artist for two publications: Weird Tales, home to H.P. Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn, and Oriental Stories (later changed to The Magic Carpet). She also did fashion illustration work, although it is difficult to find.

Brundage created 66 covers for Weird Tales during her time with the magazine. From 1933-1936, she did 39 consecutive issues. Her specialty was beautiful women, usually mostly naked, in some sort of dangerous situation--surrounded by cobras, being whipped by a masked man, being stalked by the devil.

This art was dangerous, erotic, and highly popular, so much so that some of the magazine's contributing authors began writing certain scenes into their stories because they would make great Margaret Brundage cover art. There was some controversy eventually, because the women of Chicago and surrounding areas objected to such chauvinistic (and a little bit S&M) subject matter. But, as soon as the editor revealed that the artist behind these dramatic scenes was a woman, everybody was okay with it.

Then, the worst happened: Chicago tried to get morals. The mayor put certain "decency standards" into place, which meant that nude pulp fiction covers were no longer appropriate for newsstands and bookstores.  

Weird Tales relocated to New York City (just try to clean up those morals!), and Brundage was unable to move with them. Since she worked solely with pastels on illustration board, which couldn't survive being shipped from Chicago to New York, she and the magazine had to part ways. They found local New York illustrators, and she was pretty much out of a job. She did sporadic freelance work, and a few sci-fi conventions and art shows (where several of her originals were stolen), but in the world of illustration, she was expendable.

*All information from Wikipedia