Thursday, January 15, 2009

Certainly Not Great American Novels

I was looking around on the Internets and found the covers of some old Born Loser books and in honor of the year anniversary of this site, I figured I'd post them and show you what TBL looked like in the late 1970s. The art was pretty reminiscent of the times but from what I saw, the humor was a bit more angry than it currently is. The first book is "Tarnation, Man, Assert Yourself!" which features Brutus walking Kewpie while Veeblefester watches, shouting the book's title. Kewpie is nearly as big as Brutus and nothing is drawn correctly. Brutus also has a massive gut which will kill him in just three short years. The next book we have is "The Adventures of the Born Loser" and Brutus breaking his own logo (I hate when that happens). The green cover is just awful and looks like someone vomited up pea soup or something. I am actually fonder of this art than I am of Chip's current take because the art is styled during the period it was created in and the "modern" take now doesn't fit the strip's profile. But I'm under the opinion that the strip should've ended when Art Sansom passed away. The next cover shows the whole Thornapple family and Hurricane Hattie. Yes the kid with the weird curly-cue things for hair is Wilberforce. Frightening, huh? I can't really tell what Brutus is doing but it looks like he has a mixing spoon in his mouth and Gladys looks confused, which I completely understand. Our last book has a great picture of Gladys (which more femininity than she has currently) making fun Brutus for not being able to properly work a rocking chair which is just really, really depressing. I'm hoping I can find more book covers and even older strips to show you all as we get into a year of "Losers Are Made, Not Born". I have already found some older strips that I will post throughout the week leading up to the big 1/18 entry marking the year exactly. Questions, concerns? Let me know.