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The
Phunny Phellow, published from 1859 to 1876, was one of the cheapest
looking humor magazines in America.
The paper was of poor quality, the typography and layout were
sloppy, and a good deal of the prose was lifted without credit from
other periodicals.
But,
as a rule, its cartoons were great.
This is because Phunny Phellow was Thomas Nast's graphic
playground. In the New
York Illustrated News (1860-1862) and in Harper's Weekly (1862 on),
Nast presented himself as a serious artist/illustrator.
Even the cartoons that he contributed to those weeklies had a
restraint about them befitting their surroundings.
But in the cartoons he drew for Phunny Phellow (and he drew
most of the cartoons that appeared in the magazine during the Civil
War), he cut loose, reveling in its low-rent atmosphere.
Oddly enough, the cartoons were made even more vital, more
immediate, because the engraver that Phunny Phellow employed to
convert Nast's drawings to wood was bad at his job --heavy-handed and
sometimes even artless. This
poor translation seemed to make Nast's big headed and ugly Lincoln all
the more endearing and his sinister Davis all the more evil.
Phunny
Phellow was decidedly Unionist in its sympathies. Nast wouldn't have worked for it had it been anything else.
But it is interesting to note that while Nast the cartoonist
pushed the limit of his craft in Phunny Phellow, Nast the commentator
did not. Nast's Harper's
Weekly contributions are far more fervent in their support for Lincoln
and the Union than are his Phunny Phellow cartoons.
In Phunny Phellow, after the disaster of Fredericksburg, he
drew Lincoln taking a snooze. And
he frequently egged on Lincoln to be tougher.
But, more often than not, Nast seemed content to have fun with
his caricatures and leave the heavy commentary out.
Nast
closed out the war in Phunny Phellow by drawing a series of full-page
caricatures of Civil War personalities.
They are bold and beautiful, deserving to be ranked with his
best caricatures.
By
Richard S. West
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