Recently I’ve been rereading some graphic novels by Seth. I feel an affinity with his style of illustration and his stories, so whenever I need some sort of pick-me-up I crack them open.
Wimbledon Green: The Greatest Comic Book Collector in the World has had my attention for the last week or so. In the introductory note Seth says he doesn’t think this is one of his best works, but drawing and writing it was a compulsion. It’s a compulsion for me too. When I’m looking for some light escapism I feel compelled to read it. There’s something wild and manic about it, what with its eccentric cast of characters, autogyros, speeding trains, wild Ontario locations, chases, heists, discoveries, shady deals, and on and on. It’s a series of interconnected stories, cameos, comic reviews, monologues, and interviews all linked together to tell the story of Wimbledon Green.
There’s one story in particular I always come back to, Fine and Dandy: A Short Talk by Wimbledon Green. Why? From the first time I read it, it seemed to have strong parallels, at least in my mind, to E. L. Moore’s life and work. I’ve always marvelled at the coincidence. Now, don’t get me wrong as you read further, what appears in the story is all fiction, and all coincidence.
In the talk Green tells the story of cartoonist Lester Moore and a comic book he created called Fine and Dandy that ran for 36 issues between 1946 and 1951. So literally right from square one - most of the comic is a grid of squares! - we have Lester Moore, aka L. Moore, aka LM, which immediately strikes the E. L. Moore gong in my brain. If I was a conspiracy theorist I’d think this was the beginning of a coded message :-)
Ok, so name similarity aside, what else? Well, Green then tells us LM entered cartooning rather late in life. LM was in his 30s, which isn’t that old, but apparently was for starting as a publishing cartoonist. ELM entered his field late too. He was in his late 50s when he published his first item, a photo in Model Railroader. Green notes prior to cartooning LM held a variety of jobs and he “tramped about in the 30’s”. ELM held a variety of jobs in his early life and was a self-described “vagabond” in the 30’s. Green notes LM may have used some of his hoboing experiences in his comic; ELM appears to have.
Fine and Dandy chronicles the comic adventures of two hobos, Fine and Dandy, as they tramp the backroads and rural areas of Depression era America. There’s a recurring cast of characters. Green mentions just three: Li’l Tiny, a child hobo (reminds me of ELM’s Baby Spumoni); Boxcar Pearl, a woman hobo (reminds me of ELM’s Ma Spumoni); and Gran’pa Stretch, the world’s oldest hobo (reminds me of ELM’s Grandpa Bunn). ELM had his cast of characters too - examples I’ve noted in ()s in the previous sentence - with many recurring. Fine and Dandy often found themselves in jail for ‘liberating’ chickens; ELM hints that he too may have spent sometime in lockup for something similarly trivial.
And LM and ELM both feature trains in their work.
Green ends his talk by saying, “”Fine + Dandy” fit easily into the elite group of comic characters who live off the page. Moore breathed something of himself into them —so that they had a felling of inner depths. Even now, some 50 years later, I can still feel their presence in the world.” With some minor rewording, the same could be said of ELM and his legacy.
No doubt the similarities I see are simply due to Seth creating an excellent simulation of a genre of cartoon storytelling that was popular in the first half of 20th century America. Fontaine Fox’s Toonerville Trolley is a good example of the type. It was popular because even though fictional, readers could identify with it, and many perhaps even lived some of it. No doubt ELM was soaked in it and admired it, both the times and the genre, so he too was a stylist in the genre even though the medium was different. My rational mind knows why the coincidences between LM and ELM are there, there’s another part of my mind that enjoys the fantasy of revelling in “what if there was a link” whenever it hears the gong :-)
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