An informative, visually captivating look at the ingenious marketing of stogies.
Colorful cigar-box illustrations open a window onto America’s past in this beguiling catalog.
In this fourth volume of his catalog, Humber displays 100-plus items from his collection of cigar boxes manufactured in the United States and Canada from 1880 to 1920, the golden age of cigar smoking. Their main attractions are the lithographic illustrations on the insides of the lids, which are basically advertisements—slogans include “A 10¢ cigar for 5¢”—but also objets d’art intended to catch the eyes and imaginations of customers. The subjects tilt toward masculine, cigar-chomping associations, with many pictures of statesmen and generals from Maximilian I of Austria to Ulysses S. Grant, Arctic explorers, captains of industry, and Native American chiefs. There are also depictions of women that play to the male gaze, including portraits of then-famous actresses and sopranos, a painting of woodland nymphs frolicking with a satyr, and a scene of Coney Island beach beauties splashing about in bathing costumes that leave their calves scandalously exposed. (More respectful are a demure portrait of Jane Austen and a tableau of swaggering feminists in bloomers.) There are renditions of cultural touchstones from high (a scene from Wagner’s Tannhauser) to low (a portrait of silent-movie wonder dog Rin Tin Tin). The entries include details of each box’s date and manufacturer but consist mainly of a substantive, short essays on the life or history of the subject depicted; the book thus feels like an engaging if haphazard encyclopedia. Humber’s prose is lucid and workmanlike, sometimes edging into flights of metaphor. (“Like the unlocked mouths of hungry children seeking a candy, these lids…were wide open hoping to attract anyone peeking at this particular cigar box label to buy, perhaps compulsively, a special cigar product sold as Moon Spots.”) The lavish illustrations showcase the high quality of contemporary lithographic printing techniques with their rich, subtly graded colors and fine detail. Both collectors and casual readers will find here a trove of interesting Americana.
An informative, visually captivating look at the ingenious marketing of stogies.Pub Date: June 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-03-915352-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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