Better Letters Magazine - ¡Ay, Caramba! It's Cartoon Time

¡Ay, Caramba! It's Cartoon Time

By Better Letters • 15 Aug 2024

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Lisa Simpson looking at a sign that says "keep out" above another that says "or enter. I'm a sign, not a cop".

Lisa receiving mixed message in The Simpsons, S20 E13.

The forthcoming European premiere of Married to Comics prompted me to go through my digital scrapbook of sign painting and lettering cartoons. And to seek out some new material.

So, with a nod to what is sometimes called the 'silly season', I hope that some of these provoke a smile and a chuckle as you browse through them.

Man at an easel painting. It can be seen that the piece he's working on is a comic and the words 'Binky Brown' are visible in bouncy white lettering.

Justin Green at work. Green created the Sign Game series for Signs of the Times (see below) and, alongside Carola Tyler, is profiled in the feature-length documentary, Married to Comics.

If you're in/near London on Bank Holiday Monday, 26 August, then join us at the Rio Cinema in Dalston for a screening of Married to Comics. (Check the film's Facebook page for other screening dates and locations.)

Get Tickets Here

Prehistoric Painting

We all know that sign painting is the second oldest profession in the world, no doubt because it satisfies our inate desire to make a mark on the world.

Cartoon of a caveman looking out of a cave at another caveman hunting a deer while painting the scene on the wall of the cave.

Clive Goddard shows how cave paintings were able to catch live action in this cartoon for Private Eye Magazine.

And this is an insight into the lettering that lies beneath the stones.

Two people are talking among an array of standing stones, like those at Stonehenge. The caption reads "With careful excavation, I think these ancient stones would tell a fascinating story". The picture then shows the stones extending underground where, in their entirety, they spell 'Bollocks'.

'Bollocks' by Ed McLachlan. Courtesy of Chris Beetles Gallery, St James's, London.

A Sign of No Business

It was many years later that these painterly efforts were put to commercial use, and the vocation of sign painter came into being. The cartoonist E.C. Segar, of Popeye fame, explored the commercial imperative for signs in this 1922 Thimble Theater sketch.

Comic strip with title 'Thimble Theater—Now Showing—It Is Hard To Understand. Monday—The Insult. Frame 1: Man painting letters on an easel while saying "Gee. I'm a bear on making letters—I'm going into the sign painting business". Frame 2: No longer painting, but stood among the easels, "Now all I need is some customers". Frame 3: Sitting on a stone and looking forlorn, "Gee whiz! I've been in business two weeks and not one customer". Frame 4: Showing frustration as he walks, "I've got a big sign in front of my shop but no one will give me a job!". Frame 5: Standing in the doorway to his shop he says "Darned if I can figure it out". You can then see the sign he has painted for himself which has numerous back to front letters, an arrow pointing the wrong way, and reads 'Sine painting dun here. Hamgravy'.

'It is Hard to Understand' (1922) in Thimble Theater by E.C. Segar.

And beware the "nephew who is a hippie artist": buy cheap, buy twice.

Sketch titled 'Nephew Art' with the following handwritten text: Nephew Art is like this: Harry is in the plumbing business and owns a truck. One day, over a beer, he says to his friend Fred, "Fred, I figured it would be real nice to have a sign painted on the side of my truck... maybe a happy plumber or some tools, or like that, but I went to a sign painter and he wanted four hundred dollars, which is too much for me!" So Fred says, "Don't worry about it. I got a nephew who is a hippie artist and he will do it for twenty dollars. I'll call him up right away!" So the nephew comes over and paints the sign, and it is Nephew Art, and looks like this: [There is an illustration of a badly done sign showing a plumber holding a toilet and a spanner with lettering that is a mixture of upper- and lower-case with dripping paint, and a line of hippie flowers along the bottom.] The text continues: Nephew Art is not limited to sign painting, nor does the nephew have to be male (or even a nephew) but the effect is the same, and can be seen in many areas of our lives—carpentry, music, advertising, poetry, etc. In fact, two of America's biggest businesses, television and politics, are heavily dependent on nephews of one kind or another.

'Nephew Art' by B. Kilban, likely from the early 1980s. Also available in colour.

The importance of signs to business was also the topic of a 1925 Signs of the Times article, 'Signs: The Untiring Force Which Keeps the Wheels of Progress Turning', accompanied by this illustration.

Sketch showing a road junction, in the centre of which is a car being driven by a man with an enormous circular head smoking a cigar. All around is an urban scene dominated by signs of all kinds, the majority of which are labelled with descriptions of what they are, including an aeroplane writing signs in the sky: wall signs; electric roof signs; wire mesh signs; poster panels; swinging signs; hanging signs; campaign signs; truck lettering; highway route signs; etc etc. A municipal signs reads 'City of Signs. A Sign of Prosperity. Signs of the Times' while a winged panel in the bottom left says 'Tell the world with signs'.

"Concerns which fail to make use of signs confess to the world that the seed of progress is not in them and cobwebs o'erhang the door." — Thomas Elwyn in Signs of the Times, November 1925.

That image of signs of all kinds in every imaginable position was foretold by Winsor McCay.

A subway scene with people going about their business and various vendors selling their wares. The outline drawing is characterised by every single available surface being used for advertising of one kind or another, from the backs of seating below to myriad horizontal banners up high. Umbrellas and suitcases have advertising on them, as well as signs mounted to people's backs, and placards being carried by others at the same time as making pronouncements through megaphones. The overall effect is that no individual advertisement stands out in the cacophony that the various texts create..

'Subway Advertising in 1907 (1904) by Winsor McCay.

Hot Off the Press

Cartoons have been a mainstay of the sign painting press, and these are just a couple from The Journal of Decorative Art, published by the National Association of Master House Painters of England and Wales.

'External Decoration' (1904) and 'The Sign-writer a la Mode' (1906) from The Journal of Decorative Art.

Across the pond, H.F. Voorhees contributed to Signs of the Times between 1920–1934, which included his Shop Talk strip.

Sketch showing six men in a sign painting shop, five of which are smartly dressed while the other has outdoor clothing and various pieces of equipment for working on walls. They take it in turns to speak, starting with two of the sign painters saying "Say!! Aint any o'you wall dogs got brains enough to close a door = where d'ya thing ya are, at an ice cream social?" and "You look like a late spring to me". The Walldog replies with "What the — who the = hownell could I with my mitts full a cans. D'ya think I could *wish* it closed = You hot-stove pencil pushers gimme a pain in the neck. The only time you birds wanta work outside is when there's a ball ground or bathing-beach job to do." The regular sign painters continue with "Atta boy steak-face don't let em step on your guy line" and "He's liable to take one of those hooks and slap the taste out of their mouthes" and, finally, "Didya ever see one of um lay gold leaf? You'd think it was tar paper".

H.F. Voorhees depicts a walldog being put in his place in this 1922 sketch for Signs of the Times.

From 1987, Signs of the Times ran Justin Green's Sign Game, and a collection of these was later published in a book.

Cartoon consisting of a series of panels and titled 'Justin Green's Sign Game: Expressive Markings' and beside this a music conductor saying "Sometimes you gotta 'hear' the letters before you can produce the sign!". Each of the 16 panels consists of an italian phrase/adjective/adverb lettered in a style that is aligned with its meaning. There is a simple English translation accompanying each panel. The play is on Italian words like staccato, used to describe how music is to be played, being applied to lettering styles. Examples include 'volante' (flying), produced with what look like bits of paper floating in the wind like kites, and 'con fuoco' (with fire) with the letters set within the balls of musical notes being scorched by a fire behind.

'Expressive Markings' by Justin Green.

Green's other sign-painterly series was Signscape.

Cartoon titled 'Signscape' that shows a lion sitting at a table beside which there's a sign that says 'Fur Sale'. Behind them is a clothes line with the skins of various animals hanging on it.

'Fur Sale' by Justin Green.

And, in SignCraft, the two mainstays of the publication's cartoons were Duwayne Rickerd and Bob Parsons.

Two of Duwayne Rickerd's cartoons from the September/October 1986 issue of SignCraft.

Bob Parsons' work was later published as a book, with ten years of SignCraft cartoons inside.

Cartoon shows a sign painter setting out horizontal lines on a job and there's a wobble on the ledge of the easel that he's using to make these straight. This then appears on the sign he's working on, and can be seen on the lettering of other finished jobs that are lying around. There is a comment below from the cartoonist that says "I've never seen a perfect set of sign jacks yet. This 'toon became a lot funnier when we added the boards on the side. Anytime you can show what is happening, what has happened, and what is going to happen, you'll have humor".

The cartoon on page 82 of Bob Parsons: 10 years of SignCraft cartoons.

The Winter 1983 issue of SignCraft carried a piece profiling Duwayne Rickerd and Bob Parsons. Editor Tom McIltrot has kindly allowed me to share it here as a PDF, which of course contains more of these men's work.

Signcraft's Cartoonists

Duwayne Rickerd and Bob Parsons profiled in the Winter 1983 issue of SignCraft.

1983-Signcrafts-Cartoonists.pdf • 798 KB

Also in book form, and filled with sign painting humour, there's Magnus and the Roman Letters by David Kynaston (featured in BLAG 02) and the various illustrated interpretations of The Legend of Slappy Hooper.

Hot sign painting from The Legend of Slappy Hooper by Aaron Shepard and Tony Goffe, and a piece of history in the making from David Kynaston's Magnus and the Roman Letters.

And, of course, there are cartoons in BLAG; here are a couple from the first two issues.

Four-panel comic strip. Panel 1: Person sweating with a little devil on their shoulder squeezing their ear and saying "must be absolutely perfect". Panel 2: An angel reclining on the other shoulder saying "I.O.A.F.S." while the main character is revealed to be holding a mahl stick. Panel 3: Close-up of the sweating character. Panel 4: The sign painter finishing up the word 'Open' on a window sign.

'I.O.A.F.S.' by Emma Rowland for BLAG 01.

Cartoon strip titled 'At the Sign Shop'. Panel 1: Boss saying to junior, "I've got a job for you. An art dealer is calling today about a sign for his shop. You can take the details!". The junior hesitantly replies, "OK...". Panel 2: A split shows two sides of a phone conversation with the art dealer saying "So, yah—the sign has to be 2 x 8 meters in size, got that?" with the junior replying, "Sure... Got that...". Panel 3, captioned '2 weeks later... install day...': The junior is shown carrying the sign board away from a cart marked 'Tools'. Panel 4: The vertical sign is installed and protruding from the building, but there is an obvious place for a fascia sign on the building. The art dealer is holding their head in shock, proclaiming "I meant landscape, not portrait, you idiot!" with the junior depicted beside them with a question mark and exclamation mark above their head.

'At the Sign Shop' by Hana Sunny Whaler for BLAG 02.

Solid as a Rock(well)

The American artist Norman Rockwell was prolific in his editorial work, and these pieces sometimes featured sign painterly subjects.

'Pipe & Bowl' (left) was painted by Norman Rockwell in 1926. The other piece featured on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on 9th February 1935.

The Far Side

Gary Larson's work regularly contains sign and sign painting themes, but the licensing department is currently closed. Here are links to three that I particularly like:

Tools of the Trade

A good worker never blames their tools, but they can be the butt of jokes. Or the focus of profound insight.

Brushes in Peril

'Brush Stroke' by John Bell, and an interrogation by William Krupinski for Mack Brush in 2002.

Colours in Conflict

Wise Words

A crayon saying "I'm not sharp enough" and a pencil saying "I'm not colourful enough" with the caption "Comparison kills creativity".

'Comparison kills creativity". Creator unknown.

You Spelled It Wrong!

It's a cliché, but it does happen!

'R & J Trucking' by Wizard in A Magazine About Letterheads, 1997.

Word play can also extend to entire slogans.

Three-panel cartoon strip. Panel 1: A person is spraying a wall in red paint that says "Just do nothing". Panel 2: Another wall is being sprayed in red with "It is impossible". The third panel reveals that the two walls meet at a corner which, when viewed together, show the graffiti saying "Just do it. Nothing is impossible."

'Just do Nothing' by Tang Yau Hoong.

And then there's the profanity and political incorrectness that was Mr Tourette — Master Signwriter, from Modern Toss.

Cartoon titled 'Mr Tourette: Master Signwriter". At the top is a picture of a person and a sign painter standing in front of a house. The person is saying "Ahh, Mr Tourette could you paint a For Sale sign for my house", to which he replies, "of course". Below this is the same scene, but now with a red sign with white writing that says 'Whore'. The customer says, "Oh my God, this is not what I wanted", with the sign painter replying, "what are you some sort of cunt? I still want paying".

Mr Tourette — Master Signwriter from Modern Toss.

Many of the cartoons were also animated into short sketches for the television series.

Mr Tourette — Episode Two on YouTube.

Just My Type

And, for a little detour from the main theme, here are some sketches with more typographic leanings.

An optician is giving someone an eye test with the letters on the board written in a variety of different fonts. The customer is saying "Courier New, Gill Sans, Luminari, Adobe Caslon, Trebuchet, Times New Roman, Futura".

'Eye Test' by Jeremy Nguyen.

Cartoon titled 'Fontains' that shows different fountains taking on the character of various fonts, eg Future features a spaceship, Gotham is in the shape of the Batman symbol, Courier has packages piled up, Impact is broken, Comic Sans is a clown's water-squirting flower.

'Fontains' (2024) by John Atkinson, Wrong Hands.

Strip titles 'Apostrophe Man'. It shows a superhero character in the opening frame saying, "My super-sense is tingling! Somebody needs my help!". He's then shown running and then arriving at the scene which is a library burning in the background. He exclaims "My God!" while reading a sign that reads 'St. Peters Library of Rare Books & Manuscripts'. Two frames then show him using his hands and magic powers to blast something at the sign. The final frame shows the library almost burnt to the ground as Apostrophe Man says "Much better" while looking at the sign that now reads 'St. Peter's Library of Rare Books & Manuscripts'

'Apostrophe Man' by Tom Gauld.

Four-panel strip. Panel 1: An angry man is holding up a piece of paper with text on it while shouting "JENKINS! How many times do I have to tell you we don't left-align text!". Panel 2: The other person replies "That's a stupid rule." to which the man exclaims, "'stupid'? WHAT!? You better apologize!". The last two panels then show the repentant man at a typewriter with words above showing what he's writing, which is "Dear boss, I'm sorry. My words were unjustified" in justified text.

'My words were unjustified' from The Jenkins Comic.

Cartoon with caption below reading "If you really hate someone, teach them to recognize bad kerning". The picture then shows two stick men looking at a sign on a wall that says 'City Offices' with a number of obvious kerning errors. One is exclaiming "Argh!" while the other says "What?"

'Kerning' by xkcd.

Writing It Off

Calligraphy is another discipline ripe for the cartoonist's pen.

A monk entering a vestry where another is writing at a standing station a third is holding a quill in front of an open book while welcoming the original monk with "Come in — make yourself a tome".

'Tome' (2021) by Vilnissimo.

A hand is writing in blackletter while a speech bubble comes in from out of view saying "Nice fence!". The next panel shows that it's a dinosaur writing at a drawing board, who replies to another dinosaur that "This is not a fence. I'm doing calligraphy". The other dinosaur asks, "So what does is say?" to which the writing one turns and asks, "Isn't it clear?". The final panel shows a sequence of vertical blackletter strokes with the writing dinosaur's speech saying "It says 'minimum'".

'Minimum' by Fossil Fools Comics.

Family dinner scene with the characters obviously belonging to an ancient civilisation. The mother is serving soup into bowls with one of the delighted children exclaiming, "Oh goody... Cuneiform soup!"

'Cuneiform Soup', artist unidentified.

The Last Signwriter

Here's a prophecy that only partially came true. To create 'The Last Signwriter', Steven Jackson added the branding of the early Gerber vinyl cutting machine to the original illustration by Virgil Finlay.

Black and white science fiction illustration of a robot laying a dead body to rest in a grave. The robot's chest shows the Gerber logotype.

The original illustration, from 1953, accompanied Robert Sheckley’s ‘Beside Still Waters’ story in Amazing Stories, Vol.1, No.2.

Time Out

After all that smiling / chuckling / laughing, you're probably in need of a rest like this sign painter on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.

Magazine cover dominated by an illustration of a sign painter taking a nap in his shop. He is surrounded by various tools and material and various signs painted for use on roadworks sites, eg 'Slow, men working', 'stop', 'go slow', etc. There is one that he was evidently working on before taking his nap, with the lettering for 'Men working' unfinished.

Stevan Dohanos for The Saturday Evening Post, 12 April 1947.

That's All Folks!

And remember, I.O.A.F.S.

A paella dish with a take on the Loony Toons closing screen that shows Porky Pig holding a mahl stick and sign painting brush. The lettering above reads 'I.O.A.F.S. Folks!' and below 'Joby's Signwriting Festival'.

Dan Luckin's paella dish from the 2022 Signwriting Festival.

Thank you to all the artists, galleries and publications that gave permission for their work to be reproduced in this feature. I'd love to make this a 'living' post so feel free to send me more humourous cartoons and comics in the realms of sign painting, lettering, typography, and calligraphy.

More Sign Game

Justin Green’s Sign Game Cartoons

Cartoons packed with sign painting and sign painter humour.

BLAG Magazine: Adventures in Sign Painting Craft, Community & Culture •Better Letters

Better Letters Magazine - ¡Ay, Caramba! It's Cartoon Time

Prehistoric Painting

A Sign of No Business

Hot Off the Press

Solid as a Rock(well)

The Far Side

Tools of the Trade

Brushes in Peril

Colours in Conflict

Wise Words

You Spelled It Wrong!

Just My Type

Writing It Off

The Last Signwriter

Time Out

That's All Folks!

More Sign Game

Older messages

Retrospectiva Recalls the Brands and Businesses of the Past

The Inn Signs Exhibition of 1936

Married to Comics, Sign Shows, and More Worldwide Events

"A Piece of Urban Theatre": J.J. of LA

The BLAG 05 Digital Companion

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