E. Simms Campbell

The Wwii Era Comic Art of E. Simms Campbell: Cuties in Arms & More Cuties in Arms

E. Simms Campbell was the first African-American cartoonist to be published in nationally distributed magazines. His watercolor comic art was published in Esquire, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, and many other magazines, and his artistic talent was sought out by numerous advertisers. Cuties was his gag panel, and this volume brings together his two Cuties in Arms collections from 1941 and 1943, during those war years when soldier-oriented humor was particularly popular. "I prefer cartooning. You see, I like jokes, and it's hard to put a joke into an oil painting. Have you ever noticed how quiet people are in art galleries? Well, I don't think that's what pictures should do to you. They should make you want to laugh, talk, shout, anything but hang your head." -E. Simms Campbell, interviewed in Sterling Brown's Southern Road (1932)