Buster Brown Dummy Board with Children

I don't know how these girls got their hands on a Buster Brown stand-up figure, but they didn't get his dog Tige.  Tige was a pitbull, and he is recognized as the first talking comic strip character, but he is missing.

There actually was a Buster Brown...a spoiled little brat just like this winking fellow here who shilled shoes to children from 1902 on.  The real Buster was on Granville Hamilton Fisher.  I don't know why Granville didn't play Buster on Broadway, but they found a PROFESSIONAL brat to do that, a 21 years old little person named Master Gabriel, AKA Gabriel Weigel. 

The four young women are identified on the reverse.  Buster is not.

Original snapshot, no date (1925?)  Collection Jim Linderman

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Some of the Free Acts at the Iowa Fairs 1925 At the Circus in Black and White series #32

At the Circus entry number 32 is "Some of the Free Acts Season 1925 Iowa Fairs.  A snapshot and a beauty.

Collection Jim Linderman

AT THE CIRCUS IN BLACK AND WHITE is a occasional feature on Dull Tool Dim Bulb. This is number 32 in the series.

Original Snapshot 192 Collection Jim Linderman

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Farmer John

 

REAL STORY ABOUT FARMER JOHN IS HERE

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Lorry on Mother's Day

ALL greeting cards should be homemade, and that goes for "e-cards" too...if you love someone enough to send them a card, love them enough to MAKE them one yourself.  Platitudes and stock phrases from card companies mean nothing.  Your own thoughts do.  

Handmade Mother's day card from Lorry.  No date.  Collection Jim Linderman

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Galvanized and Welded Bunnies!

A fine old pair of hippity hopping rabbits made from galvanized steel, two colors of paint and a welded base.  Circa 1940  Collection Jim Linderman

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Dr. Goss's Cornstock Band Handmade Folk Art Instruments RPPC

I am afraid I found nothing on Dr. Goss or his Cornstock Band, but if  you enlarge this to see the handmade musical instruments, let your eyes drive over to the gunboats the woman on the right has on her feet!  

Dr. Goss's Cornstock Band Real Photo Postcard No Date 1900?  Collection Jim Linderman

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The Skaggs say Pay 'n Takit Tuscon Arizona

I guess what we see here is the story of retail food and big business.  Pay 'n Takit in Tuscon, AZ was obviously Pay 'n Takit number 20 in the chain.  Safeway bought out Lorenzo Skaggs, the owner of Pay 'n Takit in 1928.  Another member of the Skaggs dynasty was one Pepper Oscar Skaggs.  How do you get the name Pepper Oscar Skaggs?

Pay 'n Takit food store  Buehman Photograph, Arizona  Circa 1920?  8 x 10 photo collection Jim Linderman

The Tawdry Origins of Glamour Photography Proto Porn the Book

During the 1950s, under the ruse of "Art Studies" and "Figure Studies" businessman skirted the law publishing hundreds of digest-sized primitive camera art photographs of nearly nude women. Seldom dated, by somewhat disreputable publishers, the digests featured burlesque dancers and models such as Bettie Page in makeshift studios, and were among the first books to challenge censorship and the conventions of the times as it related to photographs of the female form. The tawdry origins of Glamour Photography! The booklets are today scarce and seldom seen. Dubbed Proto-Porn, over 100 have been collected in book form by the first time by Jim Linderman. Proto-Porn details the publishers and addresses the conflicting notions of art and nudity of the Eisenhower years. Colorful, disreputable and quasi-legal, the books nonetheless pre-date modern-day fashion and nude photography. Tame by any standard today, the books have not been shown in over 50 years, and never before collected in a book.

The book PROTO-PORN : THE ART FIGURE STUDY SCAM OF THE 1950s is available as a $5.99 ebook download for iPad or Paperback HERE

Ladies and Gentlemen The New Book I'm With Dummy Vent Figures and Blockheads

I'm With Dummy Vent Figures and Blockheads Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection is the newest book from Dull Tool Dim Bulb.

Real Photo Postcards, Snapshots, Polaroids and more!  Amateurs and professionals, anonymous and not, the story here is the figure.  Vents!

78 pages and available as a paperback ($21.95) or Ebook for ipad ($5.99) only from Blurb.com.

FREE PREVIEW and ORDERING IS HERE!

An Auction Photograph worth Auctioning off. C.G.Bradley and C.C. ONeil Auction House Collection Jim Linderman

Now here is a fellow who knows how to open a business, or at least celebrate his new job.  It is C. G. Bradley, standing on the side proudly as every street urchin he could round up helps him announce the big auction!  I am surmising Bradley was a recent immigrant, hence the ultra-patriotic flag tableau.  Proud of his job and his place in America. The fourth of July was in a few weeks, so flags were in stock around town.  Chicago.  The photo is dated June 14, 1904.  C.G. identifies himself as "Auctioneer, Salesman and Advertising" on the reverse.  Some of the kids are identified as someone's daughters, and the chumps at the door are probably the mugs who hold up the things for sale and berate you into bidding.

Original Photograph 1904  Collection Jim Linderman

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Wood Man with Saw Sawn From Wood Folk Art

The last time I wrote about chainsaw carvers, I received hate mail from a chainsaw carver!  Now I didn't see those slasher and slicer movies, but I do NOT want to piss off anyone with a chainsaw this time.  So let's just say this is something for the contemporary chainsaw artist to aspire to.

Believe it or not, the chainsaw was invented back in 1785!  Jeepers!  That seems to be a long time to perfect the craft, and I will let others debate whether the craft IS an art this time.  This is a good carving, no matter how it was done.  I think it is art.

Real Photo Postcard, 1936.  Garden City Grange Fair Collection Jim Linderman

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Rhythm and Blues come Rock and Roll 1965 photograph collection Jim Linderman

For a century and then some, photographers and camera makers have lauded the ability to "capture movement" whatever that means.  To stop it?  To Freeze the action?  At least this one is perfectly framed. 

I just wish I was there, or that the photographer had captured the music as well.

Anonymous Snapshot, Untitled (1965)  Collection Jim Linderman  

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Basil Wolverton and Monte Wolverton Comedy Magazine Poems and More

I write about cheesecake gag cartoonists on the sister site Vintage Sleaze, but for a time the much admired (and, now, finally, much respected) Basil Wolverton had his work printed in the line of Humorama (Timely Features, the forerunner of Marvel comics) pinup gag digests I study.  Far from cheesecake or pinup girls, as you can see, Wolverton's work must have been included in the Humorama magazines not because it was titillating, but because it was pretty damn good. 

Wolverton made up as many words as the characters he drew.  One panel here contains fourteen sound effects, and there have been entire articles based on the words he created. 

Monte Wolverton, the artist's son, fell so close to the tree he climbed up it!  A successful editorial cartoonist, sculptor and fine artist Monte is just as interesting as Dad.  His work appears in no less than 850 publications weekly and he regularly shows work in galleries around the country.  The Monte Wolverton website is delightful.  In addition to an up-to-date display of his work, the site is a tribute to the work of his father.  See some of his colorful work below (and on his site)

Monte Wolverton Installation View Peculiarium Gallery Portland

Monte's site lists available publications on his father's work along with a good sample of Basil's work, including the extraordinary apocalyptic drawings Basil did for Plain Truth magazine.  One is shown here...quiver! 

Basil Wolverton Image from The Apocalypse

The index provided on Wolverton's site omits the works from Comedy in the bibliography, so I do not know if they have been included in any of the anthologies.  ALL were taken from ONE issue of Comedy Magazine, the January 1953 issue, and there was much more.  In addition to these poems, there were several short pieces of multi-panel work in the same single issue. They represent just a miniscule amount of the work he produced.  The Monte Wolverton and Basil Wolverton Website is here.  Spend some time.

MONTE WOLVERTON WEBSITE is HERE

Sock Doll Make-do Depression Doll

Make-do doll made long ago found today.

Sock Doll Circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

Magician The Great Virgil Wounds a Volunteer From the Audience Original Photograph Collection Jim Linderman

The Great Virgil was Virgil Harris Mulkey, born 1900 - Final disappearing act 1989.

Quite a magician and quite a show, one which could afford to have three buffoons stand around in clown heads.  Virgil's greatest trick, however, was marrying the lovely Julie Capriotti.  In 1929, the magician asked for a volunteer from the audience and young Julie stepped up.  The Great Virgil injured her on stage!  While visiting her in the hospital, they fell in love and married two years later.
 

They look happy here, don't they?  They were.  They were married 58 years...and THAT is no trick.

The Great Virgil Publicity Photograph, circa 1940  Collection Jim Linderman

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Baby Adelina Cabinet Card by Frank Wendt Collection Jim Linderman

Baby Adelina Cabinet Card Photograph Collection Jim Linderman

Frank Wendt Carnival / Circus / Sideshow photograph of Baby Adelina, circa 1890  Cabinet Card Collection Jim Linderman


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Stunt with Chair RPPC Collection Jim Linderman

Real Photo Postcard circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman

New book on the way soon (!)  It's looking good, should be done in a few weeks.  Until then, current available titles are HERE.

A Large Oak Split Basket with Shaped Handles and Beautiful Form Folk Art

 

A Large handmade basket, thick Oak strips with shaped handles.  30" long at top, 20" long at base, with a taper.  Circa 1920?  Collection Jim Linderman

THREE Big Pauls Paul Bunyan, a Beatle and a Friend with a Gun Me and Paul

One of the three most famous and deserving "Pauls" in the world, the other two being Sir Paul of Beatle and just plain Paul who played drums and carried the gun for Willie Nelson for 50 years. (The club owners who hired Willie were often slow to produce the night's receipts...Paul was there to make sure they did.)  If you are interested in Paul, the song "Me and Paul" tells the story.  You already know Sir Paul's story, and if you don't know Paul Bunyan's tale, you can read it HERE from several years ago, and see a bunch of his big effigies.

The Paul here was built by Cyril M. Dickinson and Jim Payton, in 1936, in Bemidji MN.

Paul Bunyan Real Photo Postcard circa 1936 Collection Jim Linderman

Bud Stewart and his Crippled Critters Blood Red Wounded Fishing Lures

This is the true story of an unlikely gruesome genius, flesh hanging off hooks and people dredging a lake.

Bud Stewart has been called Michigan's Legendary Lure Maker (the title of a book as well) and Michigan is proud to claim him as their own. 

Michigan is a state surrounded by water, with even more dotting the interior, and for many fishing is art, skill, hobby and life.  As such, the state tends to bring out the best in carved fishing decoys and lures. 

Oscar Peterson was one carver, and his lovely ice fishing decoys from the 1920s and 1930s regularly sell for thousands of dollars. 

The other was Bud.

Bud's great invention, rather Bud's great concept, was the creation of the wounded lure.  That's right.  Wounded!  What attracts a predator to prey?  The weakest in the pack. The wounded. 

Bud's genius was to create the crippled lure.  His fishing lures were painted in places fish blood red, and often even WEIGHTED to appear wounded.  Bloody messes which would float on an angle, a seemingly easy gulp for a bigger fish.  Some, as this one, even had little plastic trails of blood. 

Bud Stewart's lures were literally killing machines.  Painted with deception in mind.  Trained to hunt.  They came out of the box ready to snare and snag any mouth (or finger) close enough to graze them.  It is said Bud's lures were the last factory made lures which were hand-painted.

Could fish see color? Apparently, although they haven't tested every species.  Do they sense the infirm among their brothers?  Who cares.  Fishing is a combination of superstition and luck.  If a crippled lure catches a fish, it will be used again. 

The lure above is more relic than art.  It was an earner...it provided many a fish dinner for a Michigan family.  Well-used and used well.  Amazingly, it has even been repaired!  Imagine repairing such a tiny, utilitarian object when so many efficient and modern replacements were so readily available.

Later in life, having been recognized by his peers and the collecting community, Stewart continued to make a few lures a year, but then for folk art aficionados as much as for fisherman.  They stayed on tiny pedestals rather than lines, and caught only the attention of other carvers.

Years ago, on a visit to Michigan, and having read about Bud, I went to the area he was best known and asked around to see if any were for sale.  Folks said nope.  I said maybe someone should dredge the lakes to see if any old ones were caught in the weeds.  Folks said they already had.



Bud Stewart Fishing Lure (Injured Minnow) Collection Jim Linderman