Lighter Side of Sherlock Holmes , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Glenn Schatell

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249 pages

English

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Norman Schatell was the leading Sherlock Holmes artist of the 1970s. 'The Lighter Side of Sherlock Holmes' is a collection of over 300 humorous cartoons and illustrations based on the characters that appear in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's' famous stories. Many of the cartoons and drawings originally appeared in 'The Baker Street Journal', the British 'Sherlock Holmes Journal', 'The Armchair Detective', 'The Baker Street Miscellanea', and 'The Serpentine Muse'. Murder Ink, a former New York City mystery book shop, used fifteen of the cartoons to illustrate a line of stationery. The book includes the comical 'Arts and Crafts' Sherlock Holmes drawings, 'The Anthropological Holmes' (a fanciful look at Sherlock Holmes in ancient civilizations and around the world), and many of the illustrated envelopes he mailed to his friends. The book is a must for all Sherlock Holmes buffs - and a treat for anyone who enjoys the stories, movies, and television shows.

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	25 septembre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781780924069
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Title Page
THE LIGHTER SIDE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
The Sherlockian Artwork of Norman Schatell
Compiled by Glenn Schatell

Publisher Information
First edition published in May 2013 by MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.co.uk
© Copyright 2013 Glenn Schatell 2013
The right of Glenn Schatell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this book, as of the date of publication, nothing herein should be construed as giving advice. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not of MX Publishing.
Cover design by http://www.staunch.com

Introduction
“Dear Sir,” wrote a Union City, New Jersey, high school student on March 16, 1942, to Howard Haycraft, about his book Murder for Pleasure , “I wish to point out one minor mistake in [an] otherwise perfectly splendid book.... Being only 17, without any cash, I have resorted to taking your book out of the Public Library. I have managed to fill 3 note-books with interesting information taken out of Murder for Pleasure .” He went on to point out the error politely, closing with a postscript: “PS. Is there any chance for a Holmes addict like me gaining admittance in the Baker Street lrregulars? What would be the requirements?”
The letter, now among Howard Haycraft’s papers in the University of Minnesota Libraries’ Sherlock Holmes Collections, was written by Norman Schatell. There is no record of Haycraft’s reply, and World War II was already giving the intelligent, strapping youngster other things to think about. But whatever Haycraft did say, it was no discouragement to Norman Schatell’s Baker Street aspirations, even though it was not until the early 1970s that he began to attend the BSI’s annual dinners.
When I met Norm at that time, he was a big man with a friendly face, but quiet and shy, and he might have been overlooked had it not been for a keen sense of humor that his shyness could not repress. He was older than he appeared, we found - born in 1925. Most of us took him at first to be in his late thirties, and I remember my surprise later when Norm produced a number of old mystery book reviews, clipped from Australian newspapers in 1943 and ’44, by “Dr. Watson, Jnr.” (journalist Richard Hughes, founder of the BSI’s Baritsu Chapter in Occupied Japan after the war was over).
Wherever did he get them, I asked. When he was “out there” during the war, he answered. What were you doing there, I asked, imagining him to have been a toddler at that time. “I was with the Marines,” he replied, rather bewildered by my stupefied reaction - a U.S Navy Gunner’s Mate Third Class supporting Marine operations in World War II before I was even born.
After the war Norm worked his way through New York University, graduating with a B.A. in art education, and later obtained a master’s degree in art education from Hunter College in New York City. He taught art for many years at Union Hill High School in Union City, New Jersey. He started producing art in a serious if lighthearted way while in the Navy during the war, and more than two hundred cartoons of his about Navy life are now part of the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project.
Norm was interested in Sherlock Holmes in theater, pastiche, and other forms; he was fascinated by Sherlock Holmes as a cultural phenomenon, including the way Baker Street Irregulars and others celebrated him. But he was an art teacher, and it was as an artist that he proceeded to astonish and delight the Irregulars. However quiet his manner, when he combined his zany sense of humor and his artistic talents with his intimate knowledge of Sherlock Holmes, the results were hilarious and wonderful.
His Season’s Greetings mailing for 1975, for example, was a set of drawings titled “The Arts & Crafts Holmes” - a half dozen items from pages and pages of ideas he had jotted down, providing descriptive text, cross-section diagrams with instructions on how to make them (sometimes remarkably complex ones like the “Very Kinetic Sherlock Holmes Marionette [With Kinetic Pipe]”), and drawings of the finished products, for such other whimsies as “The Late Professor Moriarty Oscillating and Magnetic Automobile-Dashboard Goodluck Figure,” “The Wonderful Dog that Did Nothing Snap-back Demon-strator” with a miniature fire hydrant at one end where the dog did nothing, a “Working Model of the Great Grimpen Mire,” and “The Holmes-Roylott Trick Poker” in five hinged sections for dramatic but easy bending. (“Electrify Your Scion!”)
Norm’s work was very popular; the good deal of it that Baker Street Miscellanea and other periodicals published never satisfied demand. He was unfailingly generous with his time and talent. I don’t suppose anyone importuning him for a piece of art for a letterhead or a scion society dinner programme, or for a cartoon or illustration for their publication, was ever disappointed.
An additional benefit of being a correspondent of Norm’s was his habit of illustrating the outsides of envelopes in which his letters or artwork were enclosed. These envelopes, usually resplendent in bright colors, could be awe-inspiring - and God knows what the U.S. Post Office thought, especially when Norm drew Sherlock Holmes stamps of his own alongside the ones the Post Office issued. Occasionally an idea of his on an envelope was the genesis of a longer set of drawings later, such as his inspired “Anthropological Holmes” series published in Baker Street Miscellanea , featuring Sherlock Holmes Easter Island monoliths, African ritual objects of all kinds, Northwest Pacific totem-poles, and so on, with notes by co-editor Donald K. Pollock, Jr., a professor of anthropology as well as a Baker Street Irregular (“The Anthropological Journal,” BSI).
Behind the humor sometimes were deeper reflections about the Canon, though; such as Norm’s drawing of Sherlock Holmes as Don Quixote, with Dr. Watson on a donkey as Sancho Panza, contemplating a windmill with Professor Moriarty’s malevolent face at the hub of its blades. And behind the cartooning was a deep appreciation of serious art on his part. Probably Norm’s various gifts were never shown to greater advantage than in his slideshow about Sherlock Holmes’s chance meeting with, and influence upon, a young Spanish painter of unconventional vision - a presentation culminating with superlative pastiches of Pablo Picasso’s art incorporating Sherlockian motifs of all kinds. Norm’s arresting imitations of Picasso’s styles, and his straight-faced delivery of this appealing fantasy, had more than one audience going before its members realized that this was yet another product of his own fertile imagination.