I had never seen an original Milt Gross comic strip, so you can imagine my surprise when Andrew Farago, curator at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, arrived one day with this very large Milt Gross Sunday page from August 2, 1931.

The Cartoon Art Museum was loaning us the comic strip for Spark Plug to Snoopy: 100 Years of Schulz, which is on view now at the Schulz Museum (through September 18, 2022).

I was surprised to see how large it was, and I wondered what the Sunday comic page looked like when it was published in 1931.

But what I really loved seeing was the action, the tumbling, the black blacks (still glossy 80 years later), and the sweat marks to show more action.

I can imagine Sparky seeing a strip like this and almost being unable to contain himself as his fingers holding the pen to draw rollicking scenes like this.

I have pointed it out to visitors in the hope that they may be able to capture some of the visceral excitement an artist feels.

 

I hope you will have a chance to visit the exhibition and feel this excitement too!

—Jean Schulz