ALS signed “Bob Crumb,” nine pages on three sets of adjoining sheets, 5.5 x 8.5, July 22, 1959. Letter to his best friend, and future brother-in-law, Marty Pahls. In part: “Yes, I’d like very much to see the Peter Rabbit comic with reprints by Harrison Cady…Say, can you send me those Felix stories or don’t you want to clip them out of the comics?…Since I have the daily Rick O’Shays, I don’t have one on hand to send you now…Ferd Johnson did a strip called ‘Texas Slim’ before he took over Moon Mullins…Stan [Lynde] says that [Harold] Grey is really a valuable person to the syndicate and they don’t want to lose him! He also explained to me why Grey makes his characters with blank eyeballs. It helps the reader get more out of a strip like Orphan Annie, the adventure type, when he has to imagine part of it for himself, because he will imagine what he likes to imagine. And helps him enjoy the strip more…Grey never draws a dead body. He will show alot of people standing around looking at a corpse, but he never actually shows it. The reader imagines the corpse more terrible than could be drawn. This increases the mood of the story.”
On the last page of the letter, Crumb has done an ink sketch of a mustachioed potbellied Fred the Cat, wearing a business suit and hat. Also on one of the inside pages Crumb has drawn seven small panels picturing a hatted man’s head, the first in pencil, each one darker and darker with more ink. The sixth box is black except for the man’s eyeball. The seventh panel is captioned, “Oops! Too Much Shading!” The ink from the sixth panel has transferred onto page eight. Crumb has drawn a square around the transferred ink, captioning it, “Ink Blot Test.” In fine condition. An extremely early letter offering the desirable combination of marvelous content and original artwork. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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