Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Craig Yoe and his helpers at the Yoe Studios have really done a fine job in producing this wonderful book about one the biggest stars of nine decade's past, the one and only....Barney Google. The image up there has changed a bit since it was first posted as this book's cover several months ago. The big Barney Google lettering has been moved left and toned down as it now can be found on the books spine to the left of the art. All of the washed-out whites have been replaced with soothing baby blues for the skies and cool greens that now fill in the grassy areas of the racetrack. Small but fine highlights of warm reds and orange tones are very attractive to the eye that is lucky enough to witness this art up close. The attention to detail that is shown here gives this volume the highest quality control rating.
Once you are inside the front cover, the comic treats just will not let up. Giant size reproductions of Billy DeBeck's art are packed into the pages of this book. Once you are over the shock (I'm not!) of seeing this art reproduced here in such great detail and of proper size for presentation, you might just relax enough to enjoy what is here. Barney, was one of the most popular guys of his time, and with his horse, Spark Plug thrown into the mix, they both became part of American Popular Culture, as big as Superman was in 1938 or Snoopy and Charlie Brown in 1966. This everyday guy of wild adventures was one of the reasons that comics evolved greatly, and became modernized from their stuffy Victorian beginings. Things would change on the funny pages of newspapers after Barney Google rattled ancient cages.
The first fifty-some pages of this book are devoted to the big life that Billy DeBeck led. The spotlight is on the artist, and the fame and glories of his later years after the tremendous success of Barney Google. Photographs of Billy playing golf with Dizzy Dean, trading punches with Jack Dempsey, backstage with Rudy Vallee and Sid Grauman. There are flappers and racehorses, big radio broadcasts to the backlot movie sets. Billy was riding the crest of a wave, after creating one of America's biggest heroes. So many unpublished drawings are featured that you feel like a little kid that dug up the treasure chest that pirates left on a sunny beach. These are wonderful riches!
At page 55 we really get down to business with selections from the daily strip of Barney Google that begin here in May of 1922 on through and ending on the day after Christmas of that very same year. These strips are full size reproductions (big!) and are as crisp and cleaner than any other ninety year old art you are going to come across in 2010. Barney Google, was one of the greatest of all comic strips ever published, and this book is the work of devoted fans of Barney and Billy DeBeck, this is of the highest quality.
Five Stars !!!
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