Coca-Cola - Another Sundblom Santa.

People will try to tell you that Coke created the modern image of Santa Claus, but that's a myth. Our concept of what Santa looked like had been evolving for a long time, and had pretty much been in place long before Coke decided to use him for marketing their soda during the otherwise-dreary-for-the-soda-market holiday season.

That said, we found this terrific full page ad in the Dec 11th, 1950 issue of LIFE. Even though it's uncredited, it's definitely painted by Haddon Sundblom, which we've spotted before in his natural habitat of a Coke ad.

This ad shows two happy kids stocking their fridge in preparation to have a stranger break into their house and eat all their food. Surely, a dream come true. Psst! Kids! He's right behind your refrigerator and he's thirty feet tall.

Sundblom was on the Coke payroll from the 1930s on into the 1960s, so that's why we can be sur ethis is one of his. Also, his style is often imitated, but never well.

Here's a fun bit of trivia. Ever wonder who's doing all the Coke Santa paintings now? Nobody. Sundblom's Santa paintings are still used for Coke's advertising. I would have thought they'd have hired a new artist to copy his style when he died in 1976, but they're just using the same art. The huge billboard of Santa you drive past on your commute? Still Haddon Sunblom. Cool, huh? I'd be interested to see the facility where they store all of Sundblom's original paintings. That would be a hell of a tour.

Paintings like this were routinely heavily referenced. That means the artist would organize a photo shoot with a model, and use the resulting picture(s) to do the painting. Sorry to shatter any illusions, but paintings like this aren't just conjured out of the artists imagination... especially when there's a deadline.

So, wondering what Sundblom looked like, the P.A.G! Research and Googling Squad found a picture of him. There's our boy! Hey, wait a second...

 If I had to guess, I'd say that's Sundblom's face on Santa. White hair with strangely dark eyebrows? Check. Prominent, slightly shiny lower lip? Check. Smile lines at the corners of the eyes? Check. Shape of the nose.?Check. Sure, he fattened himself up a bit, but that's Haddon himself!

But back to the idea of Coke having "created" our image of Santa. Here's a bit from Snopes on the subject.

...the beloved persona of Santa Claus is somewhat distinctive in that his appearance is neither one that has been solidified through centuries of religious tradition nor one that sprang fully-formed from the imagination of a modern-day writer or artist. Santa Claus is instead a hybrid, a character descended from a religious figure (St. Nicholas) whose physical appearance and backstory were created and shaped by many different hands over the course of years until he finally coalesced into the now familiar (secular) character... 

...However, illustrations of lavishly bearded Santas (and his predecessors), showing figures clothed in red suits and red hats with white fur trimming, held together with broad black belts, were common long before Coca-Cola's first Sundblom-drawn Santa Claus advertisement appeared in 1931. 

There was a period of overlap during which the modern Santa Claus character coexisted with other Christmas figures and other versions of himself, as his now-standard appearance and persona jelled and his character grew in popularity to become the dominant (secular) Christmas figure in the western world. However, that period had ended before Coca-Cola began utilizing Santa for their holiday season advertisements. As noted in a New York Times article published in 1927, four years before the appearance of Sundblom's first Santa-based Coca-Cola ad. 

Coca-Cola's magazine advertisements, billboards, and point-of-sale store displays were for many Americans their primary exposure to the modern Santa Claus image. But at best what Coca-Cola popularized was an image they borrowed, not one they created.

So there's that. Coke didn't invent Santa Claus, but it looks like Sundblom's portrayal of Santa represents the final evolution that's remained basically unchanged for about sixty years now - and an image that's many people's favorite. Why fix what's not broken?

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Paperback Book Cover - When the Green Star Calls.

Today, we feature another great paperback book cover. It's a 1973 novel by Lin Carter called When the Green Star Calls. The cover art is by Luis Dominguez, and I have to say I like Dominguez' paintings more than his drawings. Nuff Said.

This is the book two in Carter's Green Star series. I don't know the series myself, but I know how to search Wikipedia. Here's a link to that article, if you're interested.

Based on my total lack of research on what the story is about, I can tell you that it involves a lucky young man being whisked away on a romantic date with a guy with a teapot on his head, in a golden hoverswan, soaring over the triceratops-infested swaps surrounding an alien dildopolis. Oh, such a time they'll have!

What's that? You say you'd like a special crop of this image with the text removed. Here, let the P.A.G! Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade get that for you. The original version is included too, at maximum-blogger-allowable 1600px height. You're welcome!

Berkeley Blades - Not a Rube Goldberg machine.

We were going to post this Berkeley Blades ad for its clip art anyway, but it turns out the artist who did the illustration is famous!

The Forties were good for Sexy Dame cartoons. This one features an apparently horny sentient dog who doesn't pass judgment based solely on species. It could also be that the male and/or female dog not only identifies as a human, but also still prefers to have sex with other dogs, and simply likes to look at human legs while he and/or she does so, and will now require us all to refer to him an/or her as Mr. Theodore Abernathy, because that's his and/or her new reality. If you don't express breathless fascination with this little gentleman's Journey, you are an inhuman monster worse than a thousand Hitlers with a side order of Pol Pot.

There. Simple! Glad to have that out of the way.

What's this? Well, for one thing, it's an artist signature we can actually read. For another thing, once we use our Power of Reading, we see that it says "Rube Goldberg". Rube Goldberg! THE Rube Goldberg? Yep! before he started a pop culture meme by drawing comedically complicated machines, he was just another magazine cartoonist with a degree in engineering. It's a tale as old as time itself. Artist with engineering degree starts in obscurity, then draws goofy machines, then carves himself a place in history because of it.

Rather than recount his career by typing it all out, let's just post a link to Rube Goldberg dot com. It's a non-profit foundation promoting STEM education, so they're fighting the good fight. IF you click through the link, there's a short video of his biography with a cute British girl in it that's pretty funny, and some other Rube videos, too.

https://www.rubegoldberg.com/about/

Anyway, about that clip art. Here's that clip art. Set your Zippo to burn through a kite string pulling the pin on a seesaw dropping a baked potato onto you mouse's right-clicky button in three, two, one, LIGHTZIPPONOW! You're welcome.

Pontiac Bonneville - With rich creamery butter.

What color is your car? Odds are pretty slim that it's brown. But brown was popular in The Sixties and Seventies. This has always baffled me, until the terrific painting in this 1960 Pontiac ad somehow found a way to make a brown car not look like a turdmobile. Just look at those chocolatey reflections in the door. This is one of many beautiful Pontiac ads painted in The Sixties by Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman.

 Yes, it's just a marketing fantasy, and therefore, a lie. But well done, gentlemen. Here's an article about Fitzpatrick and Kaufman at The Truth About Cars, if you're curious for more information.

This flavor of paint is best served in warm milk, with cookies. (No. Do not drink paint. This is just a metaphor, jeez.)

P&B Wools - Rowland Emett! Whimsy for everyone!

More great stuff from our friends across the pond today. This time, we bring you  our discovery of a new favorite illustrator in this 1947 ad for P&B wools, who, for some reason, use a beehive as their logo. Weird. Anyway....Rowland Emett!

Until a few minutes ago, I'd never heard of Rowland Emett. Thankfully, one of our cub reporters dropped this ad on my desk, exposing my foolish ignorance, humiliating me. How dare you, cub reporter! Also, nice work! I'm giving you a raise and then firing you. You can have the corner office. I'm sorry, but you'll have to clean out your desk as soon as you move in.

So who's this Rowland Emett guy? English illustrator and sculptor. 1906-1990. His dad was an amateur inventor. This makes a lot of sense. Have a look.

Here's some FaceTube video of some of his sculpture. You may want to turn down the music. Why oh why do so many amateur video editors insist on forcing music into everything? I think most of the time, "nat sound" would be better. It is well shot, though. You have to shoot Emett's stuff like this, as a series of close up details. You wouldn't get it all in with just a wide shot.

It's interesting (read: disappointing) to note that so many people, when posting videos about Rowland Emett, can't resist tacking on the line "Marvelous Machines", as if they're the first person savagely clever enough to come up with that description. It's ironic that Emett was so inventive and original, and people use that stupid cliche to celebrate his work. This reminds me of the phrase "think outside the box". In praising originality, we use tired, pre-packaged thoughts and worn out catch phrases. Well done, us. People who urge you enthusiastically to "think outside the box!!!" have never even seen the edge of "the box", let alone spent any time thinking outside it.



Here's a news reel on Emett from British Pathe', which, by the way, has uploaded tons of their clips to FaceTube, indexed into playlists no less. Thanks, Pathe'!



In this video, they mention his design work for Chitty Chitty Bang bang. I had a feeling he had some involvement in the Willy Wonka movie also, but facts don't seem to bear this out. We couldn't find any evidence that he worked on that film.



His stuff doesn't really represent well at small scale, which makes today's ad a little unfortunate. It's about 4" by 4.5". Good thing that promoted guy I fired spotted it. We can use a sharp-eyed go-getter like him around here. I should hire him.

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Esso - Beneath the blue suburban skies.

When's the last time a gasoline ad was even vaguely enjoyable, or at least didn't make you hate the executives that paid for it? You can say 1952 if you like. This Esso ad from Britain's Picture Post is more pleasant than it needs to be.

Seemingly the entire cast of Penny Lane (not really, but you know) is running for Esso gasoline, lubricants and road maps, whether or not they have a car. There's the, uuh, boy smashing pots. There's Shakespeare and Bacon getting their names mixed up for some reason. There's a bunch of kings bowing to each other. And there's a fox hunt chasing Lady Godiva. Why? Doesn't matter.

Who's "Sillince"? It wasn't easy for the research and Googling team to find out, but it looks like William Augustus Sillince was an English cartoonist and illustrator of some note, working mostly in the Fifties and Sixties. He drew for Punch magazine (along with Gerald Scarfe! Hm!) as well as the advertising industry, which brings us to this Esso ad. What's an "Esso", you say? It's a British petroleum company. Nuff said.

If you can figure out the jokes in these political cartoons, you're a better man than me. Or, you were alive in mid-century England. Best of luck!

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Coronet VSQ Brandy - You know, I fray have to mame this ad.

Wonderful modernist booze ad news now, from 1957! Dateline, LIFE magazine, 1957! There's a really great modernist ad! And booze!

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No that isn't all! Couple things. Who designed this ad and what's brandy all about anyway?

First, I've just learned that brandy is made from wine. Heat up some wine to distill it, and what you have is basically brandy, with the impurities and heavier stuff left behind. This is probably why you just sip it. It's powerful stuff. If you guzzle it, A) You're probably a pirate and B) It's probably cut with water because and water didn't stay clean for long in the hold of a ship and you're a pirate. This also makes me wonder: if wine is something that routinely leaves me with a pretty good headache, does this mean that brandy may... do less of that because the impurities have been boiled off? Wups. Scratch that.

The impurities in booze that can cause headaches, particularly “dark” drinks like red wine, sherry, brandy, bourbon and beer, are legion.

There's also the part about dehydration, but that's just inherent in drinking alcohol of any kind. So, no, I don't think switching to brandy would solve the headache issue.

So who's the artist? Paul Rand, it clearly says on the waiter's apron. Turns out, he was a graphic designer who did lots of famous logos you're already familiar with. See?

He was a big deal in the modernist movement, which emphasized simplicity, readability, and clean, uncluttered design. Noble motivations, if you ask me. Apparently, there was a kind of disagreement between Rand and other artists when the postmodernist movement began.

Postmodernism kind of favored geometric shapes, like modernism before it, but, as this building shows, postmodernism was more than happy to use modern-looking shapes to decorate everything, junking up the design and generally giving me a headache, without the pleasure of drinking wine first. Any strip mall built in The Nineties, for example, looked this way. Rand, like any good modernist, valued simplicity, and hated this. I'm inclined to agree. This building would look better as a pile of rubble.

Wow. There's nothing like a good old graphic design war to get the blood going, right?

Anyway, this Coronet Brandy ad would look so good in a frame, I may just have to pop off to some kind of website and get it printed up all nice on some acid-free paper. It'd look good in my basement lounge. The hard part would be fitting the vertical shape into a frame. You'd need a matte, because you won't find a tall skinny frame just the exact size. Oh, the horror of framing drama and design wars! How DO we get by? By drinking of course.

The French Line - A cartoon of Frenchness, by Pierre.

I need to go to Paris some time. Friends that have been there tell me that the whole thing about the French being pricks just isn't true. Apparently, they're pricks to you only if you condict yourself like an Ugly American - you know, being belligerent, and getting irritated when France isn't exactly like the U.S.A. Also, I'm told that the people are even nicer if you go outside the city, where they're not bombarded with blowhardy tourists all the time. Makes sense.

This 1936 ad for  French Line cruise ships seems to portray a cartoonish parody of Paris. Really? Kids playing with circle-and-stick in 1936? This painting looks more like 1836 to me. At least the dogs aren't poodles. Maybe those wiener dogs are the first German invaders? They do seem to have that boy on a leash.

Here's a travelogue of Paris from 1936. It seems more modern than life in the painting.



Surely this painting must have been done by an American. nobody else would..... huh?

Seriously? "Pierre Brissaud?" That name can't be real. It's got to be a jo... Hey, wow! apparently old Pierre was big in the deco movement, born and trained in France. Nice work, Pierre. Actually, I like his other work even better than the watercolor in this ad. He seems to have to have dialed back his personal style for this french Line ad. These other examples of his stuff seem to have more personality. Check it out:

I like Brissaud so much, I have half a mind to put this book on the old Amazon wish list for later purchase. Oh hell. That's the Kindle version. I want paper, baby! Oh well.

Lastly, here's Jonathan and Darlene Edwards molesting Paris in the Spring from their fantastic masterwork Jonathan and Darlene Edwards' greatest Hits:

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Wagner Auto Parts - Service with a smile and a funny hat.

Sorry, joke enthusiasts. Nothing super funny about today's 1949 ad from Wagner auto parts. Just a piece of very dated clip art and some cool car illustrations. And spot color! You know how you all get excited about ads printed in black plus a color, right? Didn't think so. Well it is anyway.

I don't remember personally, but there was a time when gas stations, or "service stations" were populated with scurrying humans in uniforms who would scamper all over your car, checking fluids and stuff while your tank was filled... also by a worker bee in a crisp white uniform. They wore quasi-military hats like the one Gomer Pyle wore. That's what's the deal with the Disembodied Floating head at the top of this ad. This explanation was for the confused among you who are less than 100 years old.

In my experience, I can remember a time when there was still a gas station guy who would walk up to your driver's side window and ask what kind you wanted and how much. But, since this was The Seventies, he didn't look like the clip art guy in this ad. he looked more like Doctor Johnny Fever, from WKRP in Cincinnati, and was probably just as likely to try and sell my dad a joint as he was willing to sell him a carton of Salem 100s.

I was neither a gasoline customer, nor alive, when gas stations were run like this. But in my experience, I can remember a time when there was still a gas station guy who would walk up to your driver's side window and ask what kind you wanted and how much. Since this was The Seventies, he didn't look like the clip art guy in this ad. he looked more like Doctor Johnny Fever, from WKRP in Cincinnati. In a way, I kind of prefer to pump gas myself, rather than have even this limited conversation with a potential tilt-a-whirl operator. I'm sure if I were a lady, I'd feel even more strongly about this.

Anyhoo, the car illustrations in here are pretty good. They remind me of the Richard Scarry books I used to have when I was a single-digit human. Richard Scarry books were focused more on showing kids how things were made, built, moved, and generally done. Even his more "plot-driven" books featured vehicles pretty heavily. Good man. He encouraged curiosity.

I have half a mind to buy up some copies of these books before they're outlawed for not being "self-esteem oriented" enough. Some people seem to want a world full of people who have a very high opinion of themselves, despite the fact that they don't know how to do anything. When I make my nostalgia-driven purchase, I could use the excuse that I was buying them for my girlfriend's son, which is true enough. That would not explain, however, why I bought two copies of each (one for me and one for he). Lucy, I have some 'splaining to do.

Anyhoo again, this Wagner ad uses a very typical Fifties font for the body text: Two Cent. The title script font looks like one of the "Sign Painter" collection. If you simply can't live without either of these fonts, you should be able to find free versions of them on the web without too much trouble.

The groovy font used for the title of "Busy, Busy World" could be simulated by starting with the "Socket" or "Ad Lib" TTF and then bending, scaling and pulling on the strokes to do the nutty, uppy-downy stuff and the goofy legs on the letters. These should also be pretty findable out there on the intertubes.

Here is the gas station guy, complete with Gomer Pyle hat and misguided chalky shading. He has thos pac-man eyeballs that were all the rage in The Fifties. There are big and small Jpegs and PNG versions (with transparent alpha channel). I'm pretty sure that most applications will let you flip images horizontally, so no mirrored ones are posted. Complain if you can't flip them yourself, and we may change policy on that.  Please enjoy. You're welcome.

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