Friday, February 24, 2012

Harvey Kurtzman
1924 ~ 1993
Pinocchio ~ circa 1960's
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6 comments:

Pat Rock said...

Mr. Door Tree,

Thank you so much for all your hard work bringing these kinds of rarities to our attention. I can't tell you how much I look forward to seeing what you've got each day. It never fails to excite me or make me curious to learn more.

Cheers!

12:36 PM
vollsticks said...

THANK YOU!!!! Never seen this before and it's great to see "pure" Kurtzman working with his own dynamic layouts...wow that drawing! Amazing grey wash and lettering, too.
Thanks again!!!

5:36 PM
Eddie Campbell said...

I have that in my files (from a publication titled Graphic Gallery if I remember correctly). I've always wondered why it never pops up in books about Kurtzman. And where it first appeared. Kurtzman at his best.

6:18 PM
Rodrigo Baeza said...

It first appeared in a 1960 issue of Pageant. Great story, it reads like lost chapter of Kurtzman's Jungle Book.

1:50 PM
Frank M. Young said...

I've wondered if this was an outtake from JUNGLE BOOK--it's certainly of high enough quality that it couldn't have been a reject. Maybe HK did more material than a standard paperback would accommodate (or that Ballantine Books was willing to publish)...

3:34 PM
Denis Kitchen said...

To answer Frank, "Pinocchio" is not an outtake from Kurtzman's 1959 JUNGLE BOOK, but it looks so similar because it's the same technique and drawn the very next year for PAGEANT magazine, as Rodrigo notes. While many fans love HK's solo ink & wash style, he concluded that it was non-commercial (after JUNGLE BOOK flopped) and all-too-few HK creations were published after this early 60s period. To answer Eddie, it hasn't popped up in reprint collections because, unlike JUNGLE BOOK, where HK saved his originals and we could reproduce properly, the estate does not have the "Pinocchio" originals. Reproductions from the pulpy magazine, while adequate for a web site, would be fairly muddy in a book. I'd love to find out who has the originals to scan--- if anyone reading this has a clue, please contact me. That said, I'm hoping to augment THE ART OF HARVEY KURTZMAN at some point with many HK goodies that just couldn't make the cut on that career overview. If "Pinocchio" at that point has to be on the muddy side we'd err on the side of inclusion than perfection. ---DK

1:26 PM

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