Friday, May 7, 2021

A Sullivant Original I

 


Dr. Monk: Take a hundred and fifty of these pills with five gallons of hot lemonade before you go to bed tonight, and let me know how you feel in the morning.

This Illustration appeared in LIFE magazine On December 27, 1923. TS Sullivant passed away in 1926.
The image was also recently published on page 288 in the book A Cockeyed Menagerie, The Drawings of T.S. Sullivant.

I love the idea that the sick elephant is reaching for the prescription with his drippy trunk. Sullivant's search for perfection often led him to erase unwanted ink lines from the cardboard's surface, with a knife or a blade of some sort. Lines were erased under the elephant's trunk in order to set back the left arm.
He also redrew the monkey's hand with the prescription. 

So much personality in these three characters, if you count the skeleton image. (I wonder what animal that would be, a pig perhaps?).
Image size: 20 x 13 1/2 "


5 comments:

  1. Hi Andreas,
    Hope all is well! Did you know the following?
    Major Rupert Hughes wrote in the Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama) on October 8, 1918:
    "...The American cartoonist, T.S.Sullivant, who has drawn so much laughter from the readers of Life, lost the use of his right hand...He learned to draw with his left hand and his followers never knew the difference."
    Best regards, Wil.

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    Replies
    1. You know what? I read this somewhere and had forgotten about it. It blows my mind that he kept going with his other hand...

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  2. "...,lost the use of his right hand...He leaned to draw with his left hand and his followers never knew the difference." :O

    Thanks for this information! :)

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  3. "...Sulivan's search for perfection often led him erase unwanted ink lines from the card board's surface, with a knife or a blade of some sort..."
    I can empathize with him very well.
    ...One night I began to dream of pixels! :D

    Thanks for posting it! :)

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  4. Andreas, you are right.
    The skeleton is of a suidae.
    Pig, boar, warthog, babirusa, etc.
    If it depicts a suidae that have a tusk, it must be a female.

    But it must be a common pig.

    I've just found a blog with 30 pages of #26 Nemo magazine with a T.S.Sullivant article
    (E.S. Sullivant and his comic Zoo)
    and #10 Nemo Magazine with 5 pages about him.
    All in HD scans.
    I don't know your e-mail and I don't know if I can post the links here.
    Do you want them?

    Thanks.
    Paulo-Rio-Brazil

    ReplyDelete