2003 Mother Goose on the Loose: Illustrated With Cartoons from The New Yorker. Edited by Bobbye S. Goldstein. NY: Harry N. Abrams.
I am not sure that "Old Mother Goose and the Golden Egg" (92) really relates to the fable of "The Goose and the Golden Egg," but each of the three cartoons here certainly does relate to the fable. The artist for this cartoon is Henry Martin. Click on the cartoon at the right to see it full size. Click here to view the bibliography entry for the book itself.
2003 Mother Goose on the Loose: Illustrated With Cartoons from The New Yorker. Edited by Bobbye S. Goldstein. NY: Harry N. Abrams.
I am not sure that "Old Mother Goose and the Golden Egg" (92) really relates to the fable of "The Goose and the Golden Egg," but each of the three cartoons here certainly does relate to the fable. The artist for this cartoon is Mick Stevens. Click on the cartoon at the right to see it full size. Click here to view the bibliography entry for the book itself.
2003 Mother Goose on the Loose: Illustrated With Cartoons from The New Yorker. Edited by Bobbye S. Goldstein. NY: Harry N. Abrams.
I am not sure that "Old Mother Goose and the Golden Egg" (92) really relates to the fable of "The Goose and the Golden Egg," but each of the three cartoons here certainly does relate to the fable. The artist for this cartoon is Chon Day. Click on the cartoon at the right to see it full size. Click here to view the bibliography entry for the book itself.
2004 and 2008 LM take-offs by Mike Peters. Grimmy Inc. King Features. 9/19 and 8/9. Gift of Diann Greener.
It is always fun to impose current societal restrictions – like “preexisting conditions” and “malpractice insurance” -- on characters in the simpler circumstances of the fables.
Produced and adapted by John Hohmann. Designed by Janet Albrecht. Illustrations by Dominick Giustino. Storytelling by Carl Grapentine. NY: Beanstalk Productions.
1968 Monty Gum Daily Fables. 2nd series complete set: #73-144. M.M. Chanowski Productions. Monty Fabrieken. £49.99 from gum-guide-auctionsuser through Ebay, April, '23.
Verso portions of the 72 cards put together create a large single picture featured above. Card #74 presents FC and #137 TT.
1968 Monty Gum Daily Fables. 1st series complete set: #1-72. M.M. Chanowski Productions. Monty Fabrieken. £25 from London Cigarette Card Company, April, '23.
Verso portions of the 72 cards put together create a large single picture featured above. Card #35 presents FG. These cards are in superb condition!
1968 Monty Gum Daily Fables. 3rd series complete set: #145-216. M.M. Chanowski Productions. Monty Fabrieken. £75 from gum-guide-auctions thrrugh Ebay, May, '23.
Verso portions of the 72 cards put together create a large single picture featured above. Card #154 represents GA and 169 represents FS. These cards are in superb condition!
2003 Montmorillon: Deuxieme Salon de l'Image et de l'Écrit: "Les Fables de La Fontaine." 23 numbered postcards out of a series of 50 published in a limited edition of 1000 for this exhibit at Montmorillon, France, June 14-15, 2003. Various artists. $50 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '18." Council of Rats" for €2.98 from nutshat through Ebay, June, '22. 23 further cards for €3.50 each from nutshat through Ebay, August, '22.
These cards exhibit lively artistry. They are marked by a common orthography in presenting the fable title on the image side and a common format on the message side. Montmorillon is known as a book town and describes itself on the message side of the cards as "Cité de l'Écrit et des Métiers du Livre." One of the liveliest cards, UP by Claude Coudray, is the title card for a set of black-and-white cards found earlier from the wife of the artist at a card fair in Paris in Jan., '05. "The Pig, Goat and Lamb" (#37) by André le Guilloux I had also found as part of a group purchased from the artist at the same card fair. I list it both here and there. This show was a wonderful outpouring of imagination directed to La Fontaine's fables! Among the highlights of this group, I point to FS (#7), for which both animals have their heads buried in menus! In "Fox and Goat" (#11), both animals wait for service from a waiter bringing bear and food! In #18, the horse uses a cart to carry the ass and his load.
2021 Ten cardlets containing coins of Jean de La Fontaine and his fables. Illustrations by Thomas Baas. Coins designed by Joaquin Jimenez, General Engraver of Monnaie de Paris. Made in France.$68.66 from euro-commemorative through Ebay, Oct., '22. One extra at the same time of TMCM from the same seller for $6.82.
How to pay tribute to Jean de La Fontaine without mentioning the Fables? Monnaie de Paris wanted to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the poet by reinterpreting his work. The reverse of each card contains the complete fable in its original version. Both the cards and the coins are nicely executed! I negotiated with the seller to avoid the ridiculously high postal charges; for that I had to give up getting an original box.
1995? Monkey Hand Puppet. Furry Folk and Folktales: Folkmanis, Inc., Emeryville, CA. Unknown source.
As the tag shows on this puppet in excellent condition, the puppet is meant to recall “The Monkey and the Crocodile.” This is the “I left my heart at home in a tree” story. A puppeteer’s hand can move head and both arms of this decidedly happy creature. His mouth is quite fixed in a nice smile.
1997 Four French cartoon postcards of La Fontaine's fables in multiple panels. Monique Touvay, Les Quatre Zéphires Editeur, Versailles. Printed in France. €3 each at St. Ouen, August, '13. Extra of MM for €1.50 from Gérard Crucy, Yerres, at the Paris Post Card Exhibition, Jan., '05. Extra of "The Cat, the Weasel, and the Little Rabbit" for $4 from Topical Paradise, May, '14. TH for $8 from Mrs. Zigletta on Ebay, April, 20.
In MM, successive animals seem to leap out of the pitcher of milk resting on the walking milkmaid's head--until the calf says "adieu" and the pitcher slips off of her head. In FC, the second and third panels are cleverly interrelated: what the crow lets go in #2 falls into the fox's hand in #3, so that in #4 we see only the fox holding the cheese. In FS, notice the parallel vertical lines in pictures #1 and #3 and the parallel diagonal lines in #4, including the chagrined fox heading home with his hat. A good deal of action is puti nto the twelve panels of "The Cat, the Weasel, and the Little Rabbit."
2021 Monaco “Office des Timbres” FDC envelope honoring Jean de La Fontaine. $14.77 from Patrick Ruyssen, Lille, France, through Ebay. May, ’21.
The stamp and postmark share the same image, the stamp for €3.86 in two-color, and the cancellation as a line drawing. I have not yet discovered if the date of May 5 is important for La Fontaine.
1940? From Aesop's Fables. Four full-color cards each presenting one fable. 3½" x 5½". Numbered 166 through 169. London: The Medici Society. FG for $2 from Jim Hawkins, Kansas City, Kansas, through Ebay, Feb., '01. TMCM and TH for £10 each from Unicorn Books, Middlesex, through ABE, Jan., 01. DM for $5 from Mike Marsland, Cheshire, England, through Ebay, Jan., '01.
I have found these four Brett cards from three different sources. The cards have an unusual feature. Brett's art takes up at least the upper half of the picture side of each card, with several figures from the story at the very bottom. In between one finds a title and the first few verses of the fable, finishing each time with three dots . . . which lead to the rest of the text on the verso. Are there more cards in the series? I find two particularly charming elements here. One has to do with the cow at the end of DM: "…without a doubt,/She lowered her horns and--tossed him out." One can see the dog at the lower right twirling through the air. Can one make out that the fox at the bottom of FG is breathing heavily?
1987 Modern Fables. 44 minutes on one side. Read and prepared by Bernard Jackson and Susie Quintenella. 309-7. The Peoples Publishing Group, Inc. Unknown source.
There are regular references to pages to be read while one listens to the tape. I have tried a couple of the stories, and I find them good. They deal with humans--specifically children--rather than animals. They remain short enough to be good fables. In the first story on Side A, "The Little Guy," little Jimmy is only a football fan. Jimmy does a Heimlich maneuver on the choking Alfred, the football player, and so saves him. He thus repays a favor. "Size doesn't always count." "Such Good Friends" at the start of Side B is about a schoolboy thief Lee and his friend Eric. Of course only the latter is caught. "You will be judged by the friends you keep." The introduction makes the point that the morals used here are those Aesop used.
A pitcher 7½" high with the same brown ceramic and the same unpainted floral pattern. The image here under the "Fables de La Fontaine" signature is of MM, the same MM image as the handleless bowl in the Ivy Pattern series. On the other side of the pitcher is a panel offering four lines from late in the fable. $28 from fabulousfinds68_2 on eBay, Feb., '17.
I presume that this is especially meant as a milk pitcher, but the fable does not augur well for the fate of this pitcher. It is after all differently shaped from the pitcher in the image!
A handleless bowl 6" across featuring MM with four verses asking who of us does not build castles in Spain. Perrette holds her head in horror as she looks down at the dropped pitcher and the spilled milk.
1911 La Laitiere et le Pot au Lait: Fable de La Fontaine. Colored series of 5 portrait postcards photographed by Sazerac and published by Croissant. 3 cards for €10 from Cpaphil, Saint-Fargeau, France, August, '13. Two additional cards in the series (#4 and #5) from Bertrand Cocq, along with duplicates of #1 and #3, for $6 each, Sept., '20. Extras of Cards #2 and #3 for €1.30 each from for collecman through Ebay, Jan., '23.
The unusual thing about this set is the coloration of the photographs. The picturing of the dreaming of the milkmaid in the upper left corner of the card seems so similar to what I have seen in other postcard series of MM. Thils sries of five cards completes the narrative of this fable. Might there be a sixth presenting La Fontaine's following comment on the normal human habit of wishful daydreaming?
