'Strictly Personal' illustrations by Charles Rodrigues (1964) - - Plus: The tawdry world of Leo Guild

Like many, it was in the 1970s that I first took notice of cartoonist Charles Rodrigues' work.

It was for his strip 'The Aesop Brothers, Siamese Twins', which ran regularly in the comics pages of National Lampoon.

That would always remain my personal association with his name and his artwork, though over the years I'd discover that it had been just one publication among several to print his cartoons on a regular basis.

Rodrigues was born on September 9th, 1926, was of Portuguese heritage, and lived most of his life in rural Massachusetts.

After his service with the Navy in WWII, he married and raised a family.

His long affiliation with the magazine Stereo Review (now called 'Sound & Vision') began with its first issue in
February of 1958 (when it was called 'Hi-Fi and Music Review', later 'HiFi Review' and then 'HiFi/Stereo Review', until 1968 when the name settled to 'Stereo Review').

His cartoons for that magazine were geared for audiophiles, and the humor would often (but not always) depend on a reader's knowledge of audio equipment.

Rodrigues remained a regular contributor there for decades, and drew similarly-themed Ham and CB Radio-centric cartoons for 'Electronics Illustrated' magazine in the '60s and '70s.

In addition to the Lampoon and occasional appearances in Playboy and magazines like Look (see below) and others, his gag cartoons also ran regularly in Cracked Magazine for many years.

He was also a syndicated newspaper cartoonist, with two long-running strips; 'Charlie' (described as being like a gloomier 'Ziggy') and 'Casey The Cop' ▼.

(Follow this link for another example of the 'Casey' strip.)

Charles Rodrigues died at the age of 77 on June 14, 2004, following a brief illness.

The tone of his cartoons (if not the artistic style) was often similar in dark temperament to cartoonists like Charles Addams or Virgil Partch or his contemporary, Gahan Wilson.

Though the work of Rodrigues was seldom overtly macabre, certainly within the pages of
National Lampoon he more than adequately portrayed 'taboo' subjects with regularity, to the point that in my own case it was almost more shocking (having first associated him with NatLamp) to discover how relatively tame and genteel his cartoons could be that appeared elsewhere.

In describing Rodrigues in his book 'A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever', author Josh Karp wrote:

"Charles Rodrigues was a devout Catholic who despised humor of a blasphemous or sexual
nature yet thought nothing of submiting thick, fuzzy cartoons that made humor out of the handicapped, epileptics and dwarfs as they tried to use the toilet or perform other everyday activities."

Collected here are a few Rodrigues illustrations from an old paperback, 'Strictly Personal' - - A "hilarious" collection of (supposedly authentic) newspaper 'personals column' ads.

The book was first published in 1964, and its tendency towards the mildly risqué fit right in with many of the slightly racy humor and cartoon paperbacks printed at the time by Fawcett's Gold Medal Books.










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Below, ▼ two one-panel Rodrigues cartoons that appeared in Look Magazine in 1968.






- And one more 'Stereo Review' panel (date unknown).
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ADDENDUM, 1.13.09: Check out some more Charles Rodrigues cartoons from a 1966 paperback collection, 'Spitting On The Sheriff And Other Diversions' in a follow-up post!


- - Finally, a bit of tangential info with regard to the 'Strictly Personal' book.

The 'compiler/editor' was Leo Guild, a name that may be familiar to readers of trash fiction and old
'tell-all' celebrity biographies of questionable authenticity.

Guild had been a publicist for Warner Bros. beginning in the 1940s, had a long-running column in
The Hollywood Reporter, wrote Radio and TV scripts, and was occasionally credited as a Hollywood Producer.

Some time in the late '40s he began authoring books, mostly pulp fiction, but also celebrity biographies, gambling guides, 'bachelor' joke books and others, well into the 1970s.

He received perhaps his best credits for the bio 'Zanuck: Hollywood's Last Tycoon', while his work 'The Fatty Arbuckle Case' is viewed as being largely embellished fiction.


A few other titles by Leo Guild - -

-Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman
(by Hedy Lamarr and Leo Guild)

- Hollywood Screwballs

- Confidential Sex Survey

- What Are The Odds (follow link for a review at
Your Neighborhood Librarian)

- Cons and Lovers

- Mistress of Cuba (as Rita Benuto)

- The Girl Who Loved Black: White Girls Who Love Black Pimps,
the True Story of One Who Did

- Street of Ho's

- Black Bait: the True Story of Lila, a Foxy, Fast
Race Track Swinger

- Black Streets of Oakland

- The Senator's Whore

- I Was Kidnapped by Idi Amin










Leo Guild's masterpiece (or his 'Plan 9', if you will) would appear to be his 1972 novel 'The Werewolf Vs. the Vampire Woman', described as "...the most craptastically awful book ever written".

A 2007 article in Seattle's The Stranger supplied an overview of Guild's career, and a description of this novel.

- Follow link to 'The Worst Pulp Novelist Ever: Remembering Leo Guild'

Author Paul Collins followed this piece with some further elaboration at his Weekend Stubble blog.
- Click over to 'King Hack'.

- As if that weren't sufficient, you can read a further review of 'The Werewolf Vs. the Vampire Woman' over at The Groovy Age of Horror.

Leo Guild and Charles Rodrigues' book 'Strictly Personal' was released early in 1964.
When the Fall TV season began that year, Leo Guild received writer's credit for the new CBS sitcom
'My Living Doll', though essentially all he'd provided was the idea.

The program starred Bob Cummings as a psychologist given the task of caring for Rhoda, a robot fashioned to look like a real human female, played by Julie Newmar.

The series was basically a variation on the formula CBS had used the year before with their show 'My Favorite Martian', though capable of employing saucier situations than might be attainable with Ray Walston.

- Follow link to one of several video clips available at YouTube.

'My Living Doll' lasted only one season, though it did leave us with the phrase 'Does not compute'.

The following year, NBC countered with 'I Dream of Jeannie'.

Nicolas Bentley illustrations for Lawrence Durrell's 'Stiff Upper Lip', circa 1958

This post is a follow-up to a previously posted 'round-up' roster of artwork by British illustrator-cartoonist Nicolas Bentley.

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"Nicolas Bentley drew the pictures" was a customary credit for Bentley, as was the case here with author Lawrence Durrell's book, 'Stiff Upper Lip'.

First published in 1958, it was Durrell's second collection of 'Antrobus' stories - - Humorous tales inspired by his years with Britain's diplomatic corps.
(See also: Inventions of Spring, "An Introduction to the life and work of Lawrence Durrell".)

This paperback copy is a 1971 reprint of an edition first published by Faber in 1966.
(An image of the cover from an undated hardback edition appears at the bottom of this post)






























































































































































































































































































































































At right, ▶ cover art from a hard-bound edition.

For more information about Nicolas Bentley, see previous post; 'Nicolas Bentley illustrations web round-up', or click over to the Wikipedia entry.

Ronald Searle: Paris By Proxy (1965 magazine feature)

Ronald Searle has been crafting cartoons, illustrations and other artworks for more than sixty years now.
Regardless of subject matter, his lines are enchanting and unique.

Born in Cambridge, England in 1920, Searle had been living in Paris for roughly four years when the images below ran in the May, 1965 issue of Show Magazine.

The Searle portraits above ▲ come by way of a photograph series posted at the Ronald Searle Tribute blog.

The text of the magazine piece fibs a bit when it suggests that British subject Searle had been 'dispatched' to Paris to report back for them.

A further conceit of 'Paris By Proxy' is the notion that the experience of the places Searle depicted could be reproduced just as easily at home in the U.S., thus boosting the domestic economy.

That was their angle of the day and they stuck with it...

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For more Ronald Searle, see also:
- The Ronald Searle Tribute blog is a labor of love, and a great place to start.

- The Wikipedia entry has a nice selection of links to investigate, including an illustrated bio page at
Been Publishing, I'm Back, and a link to his designs for the British Art Medal Society.

Nicolas Bentley illustrations web round-up

Nicolas Bentley (1907 - 1978) was a British cartoonist, illustrator and author who worked primarily from the 1930's through to the '60's.

His earliest commercial art was produced while working for Shell Oil in the late 1920's.

Disliking the world of advertising, he moved into book illustration, establishing himself early on by providing artwork for (family friend)
Hilaire Belloc's 'New Cautionary Tales', published in 1930.

Bentley's notable illustration credits also include the 1940 edition of T. S. Eliot's 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'.

Bentley was also much loved in Britain for cartoons that appeared there in magazines and newspapers, but his work is largely unknown here in the U.S.






I love Bentley's style!

I hadn't heard of Nicolas Bentley until recently, when it was suggested that he might have been the uncredited illustrator for some images I'd posted from an old Berlitz language instruction textbook.

I can certainly see the resemblance, though I remain unconvinced.

I can also see the similarity in styles cited when his work has also been compared to Al Hirschfeld and to Gluyas Williams, but I think Bentley has some strongly unique qualities, too.

I wish there were more examples of Bentley's work available online. Hopefully we'll be seeing more in the future.










- For what can be seen, a great place to start are the Illustrations from the 1948 book,
'How to Scrape Skies', posted at GoofButton.com

- Following that there is a wonderful 'small collection of his work' to be found at the extensive
Alphabet of Illustrators. Included there are some beautiful examples of Bentley's color work and endpapers.

Also worth mentioning are:
- A few drawings from an exhibition at Chris Beetles Gallery

- An assortment of Nicolas Bentley book jacket illustrations on view at flickr.

There are a few other random individual illustrations that can be found around the web, but those seem to be the more significant ones.

If you spot any others, be sure to let us all know!

See also:
- A previous post about British commercial illustrator / surrealist painter
Victor Reinganum, a compatriot of Bentley's.
Together they formed the Pandemonium Group in 1926; a loosely knit group of "bright young things" that held regular exhibitions at the
Beaux Arts Gallery.

ADDENDUM, 11.23.08: I've just posted scans of Bentley illustrations from an old copy of
Lawrence Durrell's book, 'Stiff Upper Lip' that I found recently.
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- Here's one more Bentley illustration for the stack here, from a 1940 issue of Britain's Lilliput magazine, found at Yesterday's Papers.
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