Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1027122 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 200 pages

From Booklist
Predating by nearly two decades the supposed earliest comic strip, Yellow Kid, begun in 1896, American illustrator Frost's pen-and-ink stories ran in Harper's Weekly, Scribner's, Life, and other leading magazines. The frequently wordless stories lack balloons, panel borders, and other traits of the comics format but are undeniably forerunners of the strips that, by the turn of the century, flourished in U.S. newspapers. Frost even applied the term comics to his efforts. This oversize volume gathers the three collections published during Frost's lifetime (1851-1928) and include his best-known effort (depicting a cat's wildly explosive reaction after ingesting rat poison), other comic pieces, and some 60 illustrated limericks. Distinguished by the kind of skilled pen work characteristic of the premier magazine illustration of Frost's era, the hilariously expressive stories display a genuinely zany flair and capture motion in a manner that anticipates animated films as well as comic strips. Frost strongly influenced such later cartoonists as Little Nemo creator Winsor McCay; he lacks their renown now, but this definitive collection gives him his due. Gordon Flagg
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Customer Reviews

'The' bible of information and art from Frost
A.B. Frost's Stuff And Nonsense provide an intriguing anthology of one of the first to produce 'comics'. Born in 1851, he became a regular short story contributor to Harper's Weekly and other publications, spicing his works with cartoons and illlustrations. Stuff And Nonsense's French/English survey of his life and productions includes paintings as well as caricatures and cartoons, and is 'the' bible of information and art from Frost.