Barnaby, Vol. 2: 1944-1945

Barnaby #2

by Crockett Johnson, Philip Nel (Series Editor), Eric Reynolds (Series Editor)

The long-lost comic strip masterpiece by Crockett Johnson, legendary children's book author (Harold and the Purple Crayon, The Carrot Seed), collected in full and designed by graphic novelist and Barnaby superfan Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, Wilson). Vol. 2 collects the years 1944-1945 of 5-year-old Barnaby Baxter and his Fairy Godfather J.J. O'Malley's misadventures. The cigar-chomping, bumbling con-artist and fast-talker O'Malley takes Barnaby on a trip to D.C. to serve his term in Congress. Also, Gus the Ghost and O'Malley follow the Baxters to their seaside cottage, enlisting Barnaby to join them on a treasure hunt. Plus Wall St., Ermine hunters, soap salesmen and more! Adored by all ages, Barnaby's deft balance of fantasy, timeless humor and elegant cartooning will delight even the most sophisticated reader (Chris Ware (Building Stories) loves it), much as it did in its original run, attracting fans as diverse as Dorothy Parker, Charles Schulz, W.C. Fields, Gardner Rea, Milton Caniff, Rockwell Kent and Louis Untermeyer.

Genres: Comics, Humor, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy, Fiction, Comic Strips

376 pages, Hardcover

First published June 22, 2014

About the author

Crockett Johnson was the pen name of the American cartoonist and children's book illustrator David Johnson Leisk. He is best known for the comic strip Barnaby (1942–1952) and the Harold series of books beginning with Harold and the Purple Crayon. [From Wikipedia.]

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little Barnaby Baxter continues to lead an interesting life thanks to the shenanigans of his fairy godfather, Jackeen J. O'Malley. Whether the little winged con artist and prevaricator is dabbling in politics or the world of finance or simply trying to get his favorite dish served at Thanksgiving, Mr. O'Malley is sure to fail in a most spectacularly successful way.

And this Fantagraphics edition provides plenty of supplementary analysis, history, and notes to catch you up on the bits that might go over your head when O'Malley works up a full head of loquacious steam.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 5 out of 5]

The further adventures of Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley. All your favorites are here: Jane, Gorgon, Barnaby's parents, Gus, McSnoyd ... This strip is a constant delight. The humor is more about characters and situations than it is about punchlines. In addition to the strips, there are also informative essays about Crockett Johnson, both life and work. As with volume 1, there is a section at the back (titled "The Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder and Marching Society: A Handy Pocket Guide") devoted to explaining cultural references and inside jokes in the strip. There's actually one of these that I feel I should take issue with. During the sequence listed as, "Howard, the Sigahstaw Indian - 22 October - 23 November 1945," Philip Nel speculates that the tribe name is an anagram of, "A Sightsaw," and ventures, "Perhaps a reference to Indian reservations as tourist sites?" This seems a bit dodgy to me, and, from the question mark, I'm fairly certain Mr. Nel knows this. A much better explanation, I think, is discovered from speaking, "Sigahstaw," aloud. The "i" is short, and the "g" is hard. Sounds a lot like, "cigar store," right? Especially if you do it with a Boston accent. Back in the day, one of the distinguishing features of a tobacco shop was a statue of a wooden Indian clutching a handful of cigars. I'm pretty sure this reference is what Johnson had in mind when he wrote the sequence.

[Kim]

The most beautiful daily strip. but boring to read

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will start with a short declarative statement: Barnaby was a great comic strip. In the first place, it looks great - not in the way that, say, Prince Valiant or Flash Gordon do, but with a beautiful simplicity of line that stands out from almost all other comic strips.

Second, it is funny. Very, very funny. Because people often disagree about what things are humerous, I am sure that not everybody will agree that this is funny. To me, this ranks with Pogo, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Sir Bagby, and Cul de Sac.

This is Volume 2 of a projected five collections of Barnaby. It includes the 1944 and 1945 strips. There is a short foreward by Jules Feiffer (and shame on whoever labelled the Gluyas Williams illustration and failed to mention that the man portrayed is Robert Benchley).

Then there is a much longer piece, Appreciating Barnaby and the Power of Imagination by R. C. Harvey. This is a terrific example of someone totally missing the point. The strip is about a five year old boy, Barnaby, and his fairy godfather, a pixey [Johnson's spelling] named Jackeen J. O'Malley. O'Malley, says Harvey, is "forever out for himself" and "a grasping and self-centered social parasite, and a raving egomaniac. He is a troublemaker." Self-centered, yes; the other qualities, absolutely not. You certainly couldn't leave O'Malley with your food and expect it to still be there when you return. (Didn't Barnaby's parents ever wonder where all that missing food had gone?) His vanity, admittedly, is considerably larger than he is.

But if you read through this book, you see that O'Malley means well, no matter how things turn out. When a dam is needed in the area in which Barnaby and his family live, O'Malley goes to Washington, DC and gets it approved. True, it wasn't the dam he was trying to get approved, but that also was an effort to be helpful. When O'Malley is told that Barnaby's father, sick at home, is worried because the production chart in his office needs to go up, O'Malley takes care of it. Of course, he doesn't do anything to increase production, he just alters the chart, which is what he was told was required. Barnaby's mother would like an ermine wrap; O'Malley gets one for her (just not quite legally). There is a cat stuck in a tree; O'Malley gets it down, with the aid of a witch's flying broom; it was just bad luck that he broke the broom.

I could go on with more examples, but I think it's clear that O'Malley is not "forever out for himself." He didn't attempt to profit from his efforts; he just tried to help.

There are very helpful notes in the back explaining references that current readers might not understand. There is also a short article from 1943 praising Barnaby and a longer, excellent afterword by Philip Nel, discussing Barnaby, Crockett Johnson, and world events during the period in the book.

The front cover is awful. I see from a photograph in the book that the same picture of Barnaby was used in advertising material back in the 1940's. It was awful then and it is awful now.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ought to have liked this even more. I don't know how comic strip readers divide themselves (maybe they don't) but I feel there's "people who like the smart verbal humour of a Peanuts" and then there's "People who don't," and Barnaby seems very much to fit in a smart-Peanuts-people mode, so right up my alley. And yet while I enjoyed it, I never quite loved it.

I can admire its clean minimalist staging ... but it's almost too minimal; everyone's in profile, and they mostly have one mood each, so it can't ever get exciting, no matter how high the stakes. Barnaby calmly accepts, his family disbelieves, O'Malley rationalizes to himself, and Gorgon doesn't care, time and time again.

And one essential feature of the narrative continually rubs me the wrong way: the adults don't see Mr. O'Malley. I wouldn't mind if he were hiding from them, but he's patently not, so it has to be by coincidence that he is never glimpsed given his constant presence. If he were hiding successfully, or Barnaby was keeping him a secret, fine, but it strains credulity that he's inadvertently always away when parents enter or vice versa.

(I'm so glad Sesame Street made a point of allowing Big Bird's friend Snuffleupagus to be seen, after receiving criticism that children should be raised to think their voices mattered and they will be believed).

The stories are sort of cute, and I do like O'Malley's aspirations, but I just can't help but weary of all the you-just-missed-him moments, which presuming were amusing to everyone at the time.

And I'm troubled by Howard, the Indian—not because of the put-on dialect, or the stereotypical costume—but because, so far, all of Mr O'Malley's friends are imaginary creatures; it implies Indians aren't really, any more than pixeys or ghosts or leprechauns.

Note: I have written a novel (not yet published), so now I will suffer pangs of guilt every time I offer less than five stars. In my subjective opinion, the stars suggest:

(5* = one of my all-time favourites, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = actually disappointing, and 1* = hated it. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)

[Norman Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

This screwball comedy in comic strip form is a delight. Barnaby, the five-year-old protagonist, is a wide-eyed optimist learning about the world, a world that at the time (January 1, 1944 - December 31, 1945) was at war. His fairy godfather, Mr. O'Malley, is completely self-centered but has a good heart and wants to help Barnaby and his family. It's just that Mr. O'Malley is inept in pretty much everything, although often winning out in the end due to simple good luck. There is really very little mention of the war in this volume; I suspect that Johnson knew that by keeping the story light he could do more for the public's morale than otherwise. There are a lot of references to cultural, political, and historical facts that a well educated reader of the time would get, but are now obscure. Luckily, the editors include a guide in the back matter that explains many of these references (although a bit unwieldy for the ebook edition). One of the great things about these strips is that they are operating on a couple of levels: adults can appreciate the political satire and children can appreciate the wacky antics of Mr. O'Malley and his friends. One of those friends is Howard, the Sigahstaw Indian (a phonetic reading of Sigahstaw reveals its origin as "cigar store" slightly mangled). So, at first glance it appears that this character is a bad caricature of a Native American speaking broken English, à la Tonto. But we glimpse Howard speaking normal English when he wants to, so we can assume this characterization is probably another one of Johnson's satirical lampoons and not a malicious slight against Native Americans (in the foreword and afterword it is pointed out that Johnson was a staunch supporter of civil rights for minorities, further indicating that he intended no disrespect towards Native Americans).
Johnson's artwork is simple yet meticulous. His use of a sans serif type font instead of hand lettering enables him to cram more dialogue into the panels, further enabling Mr. O'Malley's bloated monologues.

[Al Capwned · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book damaged with a 50% discount. I knew about the Barnaby strip but I thought I would read something very dated. Boy, was I wrong! As I was reading, I completely immersed into the world of Barnaby and I have to say, Crockett Johnson was a genius.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

via NYPL - Very nice drawing. The stories skew extremely young - I couldn't get into it, but maybe I'll revisit it for my kids in a couple years when they're reading for themselves.

[Jeff Lewonczyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

While it's not exactly unsung, I feel like Barnaby is the seminal comic-strip masterpiece that the fewest people are aware of - which is funny to me, because almost everyone does know Crockett's work for kids, especially Harold and the Purple Crayon. I just can't stress enough what a delight it is to read these collections - the characterization (especially of the fairy godfather Mr. O'Malley) is immortal, the point of view is as sharp today as it was in the 40s, the writing is consistently a precise shot of wit, and the minimalist graphics are iconic. I love Barnaby!

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two more years of Johnson's generally forgotten and underrated comic strip from the 1940s. There is a lot of funny stuff here, though rarely of the belly-laugh variety. Johnson's wit tends towards the urbane and sophisticated, so the humour is often intellectual and muted. But it's still funny stuff. Johnson's highly stylized art does at times seem lacking in variety--the characters all tend to look very much alike. Johnson actually takes advantage of this in one story line about O'Malley's relatives turning up. The strips themselves are excellently contextualized by an introduction and biographical essay, as well as other contemporary pieces (e.g. a 1943 article on Barnaby) and by pretty thorough notes explaining references in the strip. Perhaps not quite a must-have for fans of comic strips, but certainly close. I'd recommend it to anyone seriously interested in comic strips.

[Mixter Mank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nowhere else will you find comic text so literary and learned (all meticulously typeset in Futura). Volume two continues to charm us with the strip's poetic brilliance — Barnaby remains suspended between parents who just won't listen and a fairy godfather who just won't listen — but it also gets political, revealing Crockett Johnson's Leftism (comes with a glossary of dated allusions). Highly recommended to fans of absurdist and screwball humor. One of the greatest comic strips of all time.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably nothing in here is as clever as it seems. The children's-book art makes the relative sophistication stand out.

The things that seemed really neat while I was reading them are not particularly sophisticated in the abstract.

Something about it makes a couple of pages seem very light but a couple dozen pages seem very heavy.

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Barnaby and his ridiculous over the top schemes for simple tasks. I love a lot of the new characters that were introduced and Barnaby and Jane. I like the snark and humor of these.