1927 “Bughouse Fables.” 22 newspaper cartoons by Paul Fung and (Clarence “Billy”) De Beck. King Features Syndicate. From Wes Baldwin, Bartow, FL.
I learned in researching these cartoons that “bughouse” means “crazy.” Billy De Beck was the creator of Barney Google. This is a typical case of “fable” not referring to the sort of thing associated with the name of Aesop. Since I have come across them, I preserve them here. The basic movement of these cartoons is role reversal, as when a criminal asks a police officer where he can best sell a used car. In the simplest and last of these, a child in his crib smokes a cigar. Fun still 98 years later.
2006? "Beasts and Citizens" Forty Fables of La Fontaine." CD. Translated and red by Craig Hill. Recording by Point One Audio, Lincoln, MA. Concord, MA: Palm Press. Unknown source.
It is pleasant to hear the translator read his own work, work we have in several copies, including an advance copy provided to me so that I could offer a review. The complete fables edition was by Arcade Publishing in 2008. The CD jewel case includes a simple leaflet offering a T of C of the fables read and their place in La Fontaine's twelve books. It refers to illustrations; I wonder if something has been lost from the simple foldout. Craig Hill is not an excited reader. Rather, as he is a careful translator, he is a careful reader. I find his title telling, especially since, of the first fables that I read, FK is particularly well done – and particularly telling for us in the United States these days! The rhymes often fortify the sense well. I can find no references to this disc online, but reviews mention the illustrations in the published edition, and the references to illustration here may well be pointing there.
1984 B.C. “Bad Hare Day.” Johnny Hart. Creators Syndicate. Unknown venue. Unknown source.
Yet another play on the word “hare.” Part of the fun here is the way ants live in their below-ground home.
1981 One "USOPS Fables" First Day of Issue envelope featuring The "B" Stamp. Postmarked San Francisco, CA, March 15, 1981. Doris Gold Cachets. $1.43 from AAO, LLC, Indianapolis, IN, through eBay, Sept., '22.
This envelope fills a gap in this series. This image and presentation has fun with this stamp as the "B Sting." I still wonder how many envelopes and stamps there might be in all. For this one, the price was right!
"An Ivory Soap Fable (With apologies to Aesop and Geo. Ade)." Ivory Soap advertisement from The Literary Digest sometime apparently in 1908. Art by Clyde James Newman. 8½" x 11".
1920? "Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera." Card showing two boys on a raft. Librairie d'Education Natinale, Paris. $6 from Bertrand Cocq, Nov., '20.
The verso presents a story of Louis and Paul. One of them learns to raise his jacket as a signal to sailors of their need for help. La Fontaine, of course, quotes this saying as the last line of his fable on Hercules and the wagon-driver.
"Aessemblage" advertisement. 4" x 6". "Aesop's Fables Recycled by Artist Scott Rolfe." With message on the obverse, "Print will be mailed separately. Thanks so much. Scott Rolfe." One extra copy unsigned.
Newspaper advertisement for "Aesop's Tables," a restaurant in Wellfleet, MA. The advertisement is taken from page 134 of Cape Cod Guide for July 18, '86.
1995 "Aesop's Fables": "This is a Little Wooden Book." 054. Wooden book containing four fable character pairs. DS; TMCM; GA; and TH. Each piece signed "Anita." Unknown source and time of acquisition.
What delightful, exquisite work! The eight pieces fit perfectly into the little "book" with its pivoting cover. Exquisitely cut and painted. I am unsure whether I have correctly identified as the hare in TH the character who proclaims "Can't -- too busy."
1998? "Aesop's Fables" by Walter Crane. Illustrations and text for twenty of Crane's "tiles" from The Baby's' Own Aesop, Engraved and Printed in Colours by Edman Evans, 1887. 24" x 36". 15120. Rohnert Park, CA: Pomegranate Communications, Inc. Designed by Lisa Reid. Printed in Korea. $12.95 from Peder Berge at Puddy Sales, North Brunswick, NJ, through Ebay, May, '01. One extra copy at the same time from the same source.
The poster almost does justice to Crane's work, as my photograph certainly does not. The poster becomes somewhat overwhelming, but the individual tiles are lovely. Pomegranate did a set of boxed note cards at the same time.
1927 "Aesop's Fables" blotter featuring FG, compliments of The Ohio Valley Oxygen Company, Cincinnati. Besides a semi-circular illustration and a lively moral, there is some advertising information and a calendar of October, 1927. $9.99 from Matthew Johnson, Middletown, OH, through Ebay, Feb., '01.
This blotter, about 3 7/8" x 9", shows the evidence of some use on its back. The moral here is "He who waits for a windfall usually gets a crop of overripe fruit." The company offers oxygen, hydrogen, acetylene, welding and cutting apparatus, and supplies. Would there have been a set of twelve fable blotters?
Postcard from Anchor graphics addressed to Thomas Joyce advertising "Aesop's Fables: An Exhibition of Prints by Joel Feldman" with an opening on Friday, November 20, 1998. Pictured on the card is "The Sheep and the Crow."
2000? "Aesop's Fables -- The Fox and the Grapes" ring dish. 3½" in diameter. Pairipoint Glass Company, Sagamore, MA. One extra copy. $15. Source unknown.
I spent a great deal of time trying to photograph this exquisite little plate appropriately. My best efforts only approached revealing the deft image of the dapper fox walking under grapes. As I tried to ascertain where I got either exemplar, I searched on Ebay and found a far better image. It is the one you see here.
1930? One pinback 15/16" in diameter, labelled "Aesop's Fables - Waffles - 22." $2 from Connie Amos, Flushing, OH, through Ebay, March, '00.
Against a white background we find "Aesop's Fables" at the top," Waffles" at the bottom, and "22" on the right side. In the center is a dancing animal. Printed around the rim of the back: "Western Theater Premium Co., 1956 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, Cal." I presume these pinbacks were theater give-aways. Again, I got lucky on the price!
1930? One pinback 15/16" in diameter, labelled "Aesop's Fables - Mike - 18." $2 from Connie Amos, Flushing, OH, through Ebay, March, '00.
Against a white background we find "Aesop's Fables" at the top, "Mike" at the bottom, and "18" on the right side. In the center is a dancing mouse. Printed around the rim of the back: "Western Theater Premium Co., 1956 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, Cal." I presume these pinbacks were theater give-aways. Again, I got lucky on the price!
1930? A pinback 15/16" in diameter, labelled "Aesop's Fables - Don - 19." $5 from Mark's Gallery, Savanna, IL, through Ebay, August, '99.
Against a white background we find "Aesop's Fables" at the top, "Don" at the bottom, and "19" on the right side. In the center is figured a walking male. This is no doubt Don the Dog from the Aesop's Fables movie cartoons that were popular at the time. This button helps me to make sense of the "Countess" button found earlier.
1930? A pinback 15/16" in diameter, labelled "Aesop's Fables - Countess - 23." $1 from James Lennon, Naples, NY, through Ebay, June, '99.
Against a white background we find "Aesop's Fables" at the top, "Countess at the bottom, and "23" on the right side. In the cneter is figured a dancing female mouse. I suspect the pin has something to do with the Aesop's Fables movie cartoons that were popular at the time. My, what one does not find! In this case, the price was certainly right!
2008 Speed Bump. “Aesop Today.” David Coverly. Arizona Daily Star, August 15, 2008. Speedbump.com 8-15. Unknown source.
Here is the postmodern approach to fables’ morals.
1978 One "USOPS Fables" First Day of Issue envelope featuring the "A" Stamp. Postmarked Memphis, TN, May 27, 1978. Signed by Doris Gold. $5.95 from DK Stampman through eBay, July, '18.
Catching up on cataloguing stamps led me to realize that this is a whole series of sustained UPOPS FDC's, and so I went back to see if I could find the missing letters A, B, and D. I had luck so far only on this "A" envelope. "Doris Gold Cachets" here will become simply "Doris Gold" in later FDC's. Was this "A" stamp worth $.15? I believe that no particular "Fairy Tale" is depicted by showing these two children playing with a building/spelling block.
1965 "A Note to La Fontaine," poem by Jean Garrigue in "Selected Poems," published by University of Illinois Press in Urbana, 1992. Poem first appeared in "The New Yorker" in 1965. Available through Internet Archive.
Garrigue catches La Fontaine's sentiments, I believe, beautifully. Fie on the ant life! Live to sing and to be enchanted.
1978 "A Getting-Away-With-It Fable." Crawdaddy Magazine, p. 30. 1978. Illustration by George Jartos. $9.99 from John Huber, Livonia, MI, through eBay, May, '08.
This grasshopper signs a recording deal and cuts an album of Cajun songs "that the ants really dug and the grasshopper went platinum and moved to L.A. while the ants sat around in holes eating some really disgusting things." Good fun!
1990 Five original watercolors of "A Farmer and a Mother Lark" by Kim Young-ok, student at Sogang University. Assigned, confiscated, and donated by Margaret Carlson Lytton, Spring, 1990.
Done originally as a class assignment for a story to be told with a visual aid. The fable's beginning and ending come across especially well in these simple and lively prints. How nice to see Aesop alive in this student's imagination!
