Customer Reviews

The Cat on a Hot Thin Groove: The Complete Collection of 78rpm Artwork from the Legendary Record Changer Magazine

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Great 1940s comics that capture the world of the jazz fanatic circa 1945-1950. Deitch's artwork is clever, original, somewhere between Virgil Partch and Harvey Kurtzman -- far above the amateurish efforts one associates with fanzines. Anyone familiar with the loonier aspects of record collecting will find much amusement in these cartoons (The Cat berates one guy searching a huge pile of records with, "That's the 'A' master which is relatively common!"). Deitch also drew some interesting covers, reproduced here in full color. Anyone into vintage comics, records, and/or jazz will dig this.

The packaging is a bit overkill. The width of the book is huge, but there is a lot of white space on the inside pages. A smaller size would not have detracted from the artwork, and would have made this a more affordable book. Also, nobody seems to have proofread the copy, as there are quite a few typos.

This book gets seven stars. At first, I think I thought it had something to do with Mad Magazine, like Spy Vs. Spy. What I found was a goldmine. Rarely do I see books dealing with geeking out on something. Gene Deitch clearly loves Jazz Music. This book documents a dope artist, blossoming into greatness through an interest in an outsider sound. His honest comments on obsesive geekdom, as well as race relations, are appreciated. A super cool gift, as well as a beautiful, beautiful book. the OilCan highly recommends.