Arf Forum (Paperback)

~ Craig Yoe (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers will find this book doing strange and wonderful things to their minds. Imagine someone going through old magazines and stopping whenever an unusual picture or story catches his attention. Then imagine this reader taking the time to cut out the oddities and stick them in a file folder. And finally imagine someone selecting the most unusual, striking things out of a drawer filled with such folders and printing them in an elegantly designed, lovingly printed anthology. Arf Forum features Max Ernst's surrealist collages (a man with the head of an Easter Island statue cavorting in various melodramatic scenes) as well as a sleazy photo story from the early 1940s about a visit to a comics studio where girls pose in their underwear. Yoe's warm memoir of a meeting with cartoonist Bill Holman (Smoky Stover) shows the modern audience how dazzling this comic strip was, while a piece about ultra-obscure artist William Ekgren (known only for three covers) offers a tantalizing glimpse of an unfulfilled talent. Yoe fills this volume to the gills: Stan Lee on irate readers, Italian cartoonist Kremos's girly cartoons, a photo of Elvis reading a Betty and Veronica comic. There's no overall theme here except Isn't this cool! but that's enough; it is cool. (July)
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From Booklist

For his third exploration of "the unholy marriage of art and comics," cartoonist-designer Yoe unearthed another cornucopia of obscure and delightful artifacts. They include a sampling of Bill Holman's singularly screwball newspaper strip, Smokey Stover; excerpts from an experimental 1934 graphic novel in collage by German dadaist Max Ernst; an appraisal of the enigmatic William Ekgren's bizarre 1950s horror comics covers; and an assortment of caveman cartoons by early-twentieth-century hands. Comics themselves are the subjects of some of the most beguiling entries, such as a metastrip in which Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse read and discuss their newspaper exploits, a 1941 fumetti in which scantily clad models purport to show how comics are made, an early story by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee (a beleaguered comic-book editor defends his horror titles against an outraged citizen), and vintage photos of Rock Hudson and Elvis Presley enjoying the funnies. Those of a scholarly bent might wish for more documentation of these intriguing works, but Arf's focus remains, appropriately, on the visual qua visual. Flagg, Gordon

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Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (May 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560978325
• ISBN-13: 978-1560978329
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 8.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #528,721 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ARF FORUM is a treasure!, September 10, 2007

By	D. Hellman (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

No student of the history of comics and commercial art could be disappointed in Craig Yoe's magnificently-designed ARF books.

Volume Three in the series, ARF FORUM, is (no surprise) a delight to behold: where else will you find artistic titans like Jack Davis, Ferdinand Opper and Max Ernst co-mingling amidst the pages of a single book? Of particular interest to me is the chapter on Kremos, (aka Niso Ramponi), a mid-Twentieth Century Italian Girlie artist whose wonderful work I'd never seen before. Throw in a hefty pile of long-lost comic book covers, a few zesty pages clipped from vintage Men's mags, even a zany contemporary strip by Mr. Yoe himself, and you've got some tasty pickins indeed; all of it so scrumptious, you never want the four color smorgasbord to end!

That's what keeps me coming back to the ARF books; the knowledge that Craig Yoe will once again dive deep into the ash heap of two centuries' popular culture and unearth rare cartoon gems, reminding us of an unfortunate truth: that most of our truly great artists are dead!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rare treat for the jaded comics fan, September 7, 2007

By	David Burd (East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought the first two volumes in this series, and the third is just as good or better! Craig Yoe does the impossible: he presents comics and art (or comics art) that I haven't seen before. After collecting comic books and comic strips for longer than I care to admit, it's tough to show me something new. Arf Forum, like Arf Museum and Modern Arf before it, has plenty to look at, and most of it for the first time. Some of the material hasn't been seen in decades, other stuff has never been printed anywhere before. It really is like a comic book museum between two covers. Arf Museum isn't for the 13-year-old X-Men fan. It's for adult lovers of the comics artform who think they've seen it all. They haven't, and Yoe proves that with every volume.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ooh La La Arf! Arf!, July 17, 2007

By	R. Schaad (Harrison, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a fantastic series...and this issue is certainly no exception. For me, the highlight is an appearance by the elusive Smokey Stover (one of my favorite comic strip characters as a kid). Great format, rare stuff...always a pleasure. Worth your money! I've bought them all.