The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo

The late Dan DeCarlo, creator of Josie & the Pussycats and the key artist for the Archie Comics Group for over 30 years, could really draw the ladies. His Betty & Veronica artwork lured young male comics fans (like myself) to check out the Archie books in our preteenage years – and his style influenced many aspiring cartoon artists (including Bruce Timm and Jamie Hernandez).In the 1950s, before his well known Archie stint, DeCarlo drew many a naughty cartoon for a group of men’s humor magazines, mainly for Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman. Goodman’s Humorama line contained a series of sleazy digest cartoon magazines with titles like JOKER, LAUGH RIOT, ZIP and FUN HOUSE. DeCarlo’s cartoons aren’t very funny, but his females are hot – and Fantagraphics Books has just published a nice selection of them in a new book, THE PIN-UP ART OF DAN DECARLO, which I just found yesterday at my comics shop and am happy to highly recommend. It’s such a pleasure to look through this book – it’s the best tribute to DeCarlo I’ve seen. Fantagraphics designed the book Taschen-style, printing in black, white and shades of orange (just like actual issues of JOKER). Editors Alex Chun and Jacob Covey selected the best images from both gag cartoons and spot illutrations to show off DeCarlo’s best work.To get more of an idea of the art reprinted in this book, check out Alex Chun’s great website, Pin-Up Cartoon Gallery.com.