Fred's Book Club: None the Wurst.

Welcome to Wednesday! That means it's Hump Day, and time for another entry in our Humpback Writers feature. Sometimes they are Humpback Artists as well, but in either case they don't actually have hunched backs. Well, not in today's case, although I am certain our featured writer drew camels at some point. Close enough! 

Wallace Tripp's Wurst Seller is a book of cartoons by Mr. Tripp, who left us in 2018 at the tender age of 78. He's probably best remembered as an illustrator of children's books, including some of the very popular Amelia Bedelia books by Peggy Parish. The above paperback, a brief compendium of art, sketches, fuzzy animals, silly jokes, and horrible puns, was published by Sparhawk Books in 1981. 

I was not surprised to find out that Tripp had lived and worked in England for a time, because there is something English about his sense of humor and his meticulous animal drawings. I hope his estate will not mind my posting some work from this book; how else is one to excerpt it? 

Note that while the term "When you call me that, smile!" does come from the novel The Virginian, the actual author was Owen Wister. Tripp is knowledgeable and expects his audience to be as well. 

I certainly was not, when I came into possession of Wurst Seller. I just loved the gags. This, for example, I enjoyed, but I didn't get the reference: 

It was still funny to me without knowing that the Colombe mentioned at the bottom was Michel Colombe, whose bas relief of St. George was in the Louvre:

And I certainly had no idea that Sandro Botticelli's Primavera, about classical characters and the lust of spring...

... was the inspiration for the bittersweet Tripp "Primavera 1942":

But I should have known something about it, as a sweet aged female relative had told me about being in high school when all the boys had gone off to war. You even see an animal Douglas MacArthur in a jeep on the bottom right, with a trailer of flowers and a sign with the Villon quote, "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" (And you see an upside down bunny rabbit on the top left, which -- why not?)

What I mostly liked in the book back then were the silly drawings that pepper the pages, generally featuring animals:

So I thank you, Mr. Tripp, for a very entertaining book, and I hope you will be remembered. It's funny that authors of children's books are often better known than the illustrators, even though the pictures are what usually draw children in. But let us tip the topper to Tripp today, for a job well done.

P.S.: While Wurst Seller has many animals (snakes, skunks, tigers, etc.) and even two Sopwith Camels, there are no camels. Pity -- that would have been as close as we've gotten so far to an actual Humpback Writer.