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Weird Cartoons

My main love is for characters who are not genteel, not dull. I like characters who fail to "fit in." And so my heart belongs to Sam Gross, a cartoonist who died recently.

Gross seemed to enjoy little weirdos. A frog donates his frog legs to "the kitchen," but then he refuses to take the back exit; he wheels his amputee cart through the dining room, and he looks with horror at all the diners. A deranged penguin hovers like an angel above his earthbound friends; he says, "It's the flippers. You just haven't been flapping them hard enough." A snail falls hard for a tape dispenser and says, simply, "I don't care. I love her."

Gross invented dream worlds. He had a sense of authority, and he didn't waste words. As always, God is in the details: Note the "bug eyes" on the frog (below).






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