Customer Reviews

Dan DeCarlo's Jetta (The Good Girl Art Library)

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I've just had the pleasure of sitting down with my morning coffees (who can do just one?) and reading Craig Yoe's latest offering of Dan DeCarlo's Jetta. This book is Volume 1 in Yoe's new Good Girl Art Library from IDW Publishing, and there is no better way to start than with some classic Dan DeCarlo art. If this guy isn't just the father of 'good girl art' then he's the granddaddy of them all! DeCarlo created Josie & The Pussycats, redefined the Archie Comics 'house-style', influenced an untold number of artists, and truly deserves every bit of acclaim he gets. Sadly DeCarlo is no longer with us (he passed away in 2001), but he left behind a huge body of work, of which Jetta is a vital (and, until now, missing) part.

For those who don't know, Jetta was a title originally published by Standard Comics in 1952-53. It began with issue 5 (and there's a story to that), but sadly ran for only 3 issues before poor distribution and the ridiculous censorship of comics at the time led to its untimely demise. Fredric Wertham has a lot to answer for, and I will no doubt address that in a future post on Pop Culture Hound! The books have remained rare and hidden gems for many years now (like a lot of comics from this era), so to have them cleaned up and reprinted in beautiful hardcover format like this is quite a treat.

I first read about this book a few months ago when I was trawling through Amazon looking at upcoming releases. I'd heard something about IDW partnering with Archie to release some classic volumes (including DeCarlo and Montana ones), but couldn't find anything at that stage. Fortunately I happened upon the listing for Jetta and was immediately smitten! I like it when a book can get me excited like that as it happens so rarely these days. For a start, it was new DeCarlo artwork (well, to me, anyway) - and it was edited by Craig Yoe who, aside from being a great guy, produces some of the most sincere love letters to comics I've ever seen. Sure enough, the wait has been worthwhile, and I hold in my hands a gorgeous book that drips with love from every page.

One of the things I love about Craig, along with his partner Clizia Gussoni, is the way they produce such beautifully and thoughtfully designed books. You can feel the joy in each page and, despite obviously being a Yoe! Book, it never comes across as laboured or heavy-handed. Yoe and Gussoni's signature is in their craftsmanship, not in some egotistical trumpet-blowing or vain fanfare. They service the material and, therefore, the reader at the same time. Dan DeCarlo's Jetta is no different and I was fully absorbed from cover to cover. I pored over the introduction, salivated over the pin-ups, and lost myself in the reproductions of DeCarlo's original comics ... In short, I was mesmerised!

Jetta reads like a cross between an old-school Archie and one of the early MAD comics. It has the same outlandishness and humour, but grounded in the angst and issues found in high-school comics of that period. There's the usual gang of teenagers, including Hilaria, Biff, Gizmo and Arky (sound familiar?) - besieged on all sides by the typical mix of clueless parents and meddling teachers - all wrapped up in their own crazy vernacular. Where else would you hear expressions like 'cookin' with uranium', 'atomized with embarrassment' or 'stop poppin' your rockets'? DeCarlo creates a unique cast of characters who speak their own language yet are still completely relatable and easily understood.

Aside from the wonderfully informative introduction (which features more beautiful DeCarlo images), the other truly great feature of this book is the collection of Jetta pin-ups by a host of modern artists. This is another area where Yoe shines. Not only is he an expert comics historian, but he has his finger on the pulse of modern comics and animation as well. The result is a broad mix of styles and interpretations from some well-known illustrators through to some lesser known (though not lesser talented) ones. I particularly enjoyed seeing folks like Jay Stephens, Danny Hellman, Dean Yeagle, Scott Tolleson, Dominic Marco and Molly Crabapple bring their signature to the cosmic beauty ... but now that I've started naming names I already feel like I've left so many out. I would've loved to see even more pin-ups, but the real star here (and rightly so) is Dan DeCarlo himself.

Overall I give this book a solid 9.5 out of 10. I'd give it a 10, but I'm a little petty and childish in that way - the beauty and superb work put into the book only serves to remind me of how little of Jetta there actually is available. I have it all in this one book and that's all there will ever be ... It's a bittersweet thing. This book should be required reading for fans of Archie, Dan DeCarlo, good girl art, and budding comics historians everywhere. While I eagerly await the continuation of Yoe's Good Girl Art Library, I think he will be hard pressed to beat this first, essential volume. As Jetta herself said, 'Sizzling comets! We hit the jackpot.' See more reviews like this at Pop Culture Hound (popculturehound dot com).

This little book will blow your mind! Between its covers you'll find not only all 3 RARE Jetta comics beautifully reprinted, but tons of sexy funny cute AND titillating Jetta pin ups by GREAT contemporary artists like Dean Yeagle Bill Presing and Craig McCracken. What a treat!!! The book is what you can expect by great designer Craig Yoe: high quality design that beautifully showcases the art. Last but not least LOTS of interesting facts about DeCarlo.

Dan DeCarlo's Jetta comic book, which ran for three issues, first appeared in 1952. It takes place in 2052, when there's "a new kind of teen-age talk". It's everything good about Archie comics shot into the future, combining the best features of '50s comic art: the stylized design, teen slang, and zany slapstick. Jetta is the cosmic cousin of Betty and Veronica, and Arky's space ship has "Atom and Eve" doodled on it, not unlike Archie's slogan-scrawled jalopy. The big news is who's taking Jetta or Hilaria to the Prom at Neutron High School, not unlike the sock hop at Riverdale. Jetta, "Teen-Age Sweetheart of the 21st Century" which began at issue #5 (a ploy to suggest a track record for new comic titles) and ran through issue #7, was published by Standard Comics (Pine's).

With such a winning formula, no wonder Archie's artists spun off so many likable teen tales, including Sabrina, Josie, and my favorite, Archie's Mad House (later called Mad House). I wouldn't be surprised if DeCarlo did those also, because he did Sabrina comics, and she became a regular in the retooled Mad House title starting in the '60s. Despite the rarity of this comic trio, one might yet find the price a bit steep, but this is a Craig Yoe book, which means that's only the beginning.

Besides the three full color comic books in this 115 page, full-color, (about) 9 X 12 inch hardback coffee table book, there's a twelve page introduction (more or less, depending if you count the art), and 37 pin-ups of Jetta in a myriad of diverse styles by a roster of contemporary artists. This would not attract me to the book, as I am not a fan of the constant revisioning of comic and cartoon characters: I don't think there should be a live-action Popeye or a CGI Garfield merely because some studio has bought the property; I would not be a fan of a reimaged Jetta comic book, for instance, merely because the original Dan DeCarlo ones are so amazingly great. To give another example, I don't think the new Dan Dare comics have anything on Frank Hampson's originals, and see no reason to make new ones.

That said, this is volume one in "The Good Girl Art Library" from IDW/ Yoe Books. The pin-ups are meant to be viewed in a light-hearted way as part of the '50s culture, as opposed to the Playboy-style nudes also prevalent at the time. The phrase was Don DeCarlo's, and I think of the sort of "pin-up" art associated with Vargas, Frazetta, and Vaughn Bode. The pin-ups are in three sections, dropped in between the three comic books. I think the book remains OK for kids who read Archie comics, and as I have had cause to say many times before, cheers to Craig Yoe, who is doing for comics what Jerry Beck is doing for animation: making really great stuff almost as available and affordable a half century later as when it first appeared. As Jetta would say, "Now we're cooking with super-atomic radiation!"

This is a beautiful combo of great Jetta comics of the past seamlessly juxtaposed with new interpretations from amazing contemporary artists! It's pure eye candy! Craig Yoe's books are always full of great content! Get it! I highly recommend it!

Having been a fan of Dan DeCarlo's work for most of my life, I expected quite a lot from Jetta...and I wasn't disappointed! Such a cute, funny and entertaining book! This is a wonderful addition to my library.

The first offering in IDW/Yoe's "Good Girl Art Library" takes the form of a handsomely mounted reprinting of all three issues -- officially tagged issues #5-7, but that's due to a little publishing chicanery from an era that, amazing as it may seem to us, shied away from making a big deal of "risky" first issues -- of Standard Comics' JETTA, an early product of the luscious pen of the young and ambitious Dan DeCarlo. DeCarlo had already established himself at Timely/Marvel with such "good girl" titles as JEANNIE and MY FRIEND IRMA when Standard asked him to develop its new epic of teenage hijinks in a then-far-distant 21st century. JETTA apparently failed to click with audiences despite DeCarlo's best efforts, but the title definitely presages the creation of The Jetsons a decade later... that is, if you can imagine The Jetsons projecting cultural cliches forward from the early 1950s, rather than the early 1960s, and tagging Judy Jetson as its focal character.

DeCarlo's most distinctive and viscerally appealing work is probably the pin-up art he did for 1950s men's magazines, but the best of that material lay some years beyond JETTA's debut. He had also just begun working for Archie on the original BETTY AND VERONICA title, and what little I've seen of that work indicates that DeCarlo was sticking fairly closely to the then-regnant Archie house style (which he would ultimately uproot and smarten up considerably). JETTA is basically a contemporary ARCHIE comic with a lot of in-panel clutter added, a lot of space-related jargon inserted as "hep" patter, some extremely short skirts on most women... and, I'm sorry to say, far less distinctive characters on the stage. Jetta, her boyfriend Arky (no coincidence, there!), her rival-of-sorts Hilaria, menacing teacher Miss Gorgon, teenage gizmo-whiz... uh, Gizmo... and the rest don't really spark to life at any time, even when the unusual setting is new and interesting, as in issue #1/#5. Sometimes, the uncredited writers don't even try to disguise character swipes; Jetta's well-meaning but slightly bumbling father is a fairly brazen copy of Archie Andrews' Dad. The "dead hand of the present" seems to lie on JETTA's futuristic setting a bit more firmly than it later would on The Jetsons, as reflected in the graffiti-scrawl on characters' "Jetmobiles" -- that particular craze was already old in the 1950's, having peaked during the "Swing Era" and the WWII years. Even DeCarlo's fine artwork is undercut in several places by the use of lesser inkers. Jetta is certainly a treat for the eyes, though, and the good cheer exuded by DeCarlo's art lifts even these predictable situations a bit above the level of the mundane.

The book makes "weight" thanks to an enjoyable Introduction by Craig Yoe and a series of Jetta portraits by a variety of contemporary "good girl" artists, which run the glamour gamut from excellent to hideous (the latter of which, by contemporary standards, might actually be preferred by some). All in all, it's an interesting portrait of a talented young artist turning a less-than-stellar concept into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Dan DeCarlo's work on this short-lived teen-age comic book certainly opened my eyes. Was this where Hanna-Barbara got the idea for the Jetsons? You have to wonder.

Set 100 years in the future (2052) this book highlights some good work by the author, although the writing may seem painful to readers today. Definitely worth a look if you're interested in comic art and its history.