This poster was offered on eBay for $404 – an odd amount to be sure – with the following descrption:
Arriola Dedini Ketcham (poster)
Title: Arriola Dedini Ketcham (poster)
Publication: Monterey, CA: Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, 1983
Edition: First Edition
Description: First Edition. INSCRIBED by the three artists to early California art collectors, Phil and Madalyn. Illustrated poster (26″ x 17″) on heavy paper for the art exhibition held August 13 – September 11, 1983. Fine condition.
Gus Arriola, Eldon Dedini and Hank Ketcham were iconic cartoonists and great friends living on the Monterey Peninsula, each with their distinctive style of caricature drawing. Gustavo “Gus” Arriola was an American comic strip cartoonist and animator, primarily known for the comic strip Gordo, which ran from 1941 through 1985. Eldon Dedini’s career as a cartoonist is best known from his long association with ‘The New Yorker’, starting in 1950 and in 1960 for ‘Playboy’ magazine until his death in January 2006. Dedini also spent two years working for Disney Studios in the Story Department. And everyone knows and loves Hank Ketcham’s beloved Dennis the Menace.
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Robert Harvey, author (with Gus Arriola) of ACCIDENTAL AMBASSADOR, (http://rcharvey.com/) shares this email:
“I spent a lot of time interviewing Gus for the biography, but I found afterwards that he left out some things. He tried to sell a new comic strip about a cat (called Pussy Willow) sometime in the 1980s—either before Gordo stopped or soon thereafter.”
On one of Bob’s last visits with Gus, Gus “pulled out a bunch of original strips and said, ‘I don’t think I ever showed these to you.’ Ha. No, he hadn’t. And by then, the biography was done, published, and on the market. Too late to include it. The strip was Pussy Willow, about a cat and its plump but cute mistress.”
Bob generously shared a few of the strips:
This is not a Gordo character, but a character created for the Carmel Coffee House in Carmel, California by Gus Arriola. If you’d like to order a mug or t-shirt, contact them at http://www.carmelcoffee.com/logo_retail_items.html
This postcard is interesting because it is an example of the stereotype that Gus Arriola sought to change with his stories of Gordo Lopez, et al. And besides, the character isn’t actually reading GORDO. He’s reading whatever is on the opposite side of GORDO!
One of my favorite GORDO images – and one which Gus Arriola used often – is found on this over-sized postcard.
ON THE WALLS OF CARMEL, CALIFORNIA’S FAMILY-FRIENDLY RIO GRILL RESTAURANT AND BAR (http://www.riogrill.com/) ARE ORIGINAL CARTOONS FROM HUNDREDS OF ARTISTS, INCLUDING A SELF-PORTRAIT OF THEIR NATIVE SON, SR. ARRIOLA, ALONG WITH THOSE ETERNALLY SOUSED EARTHWORMS, PANCHITO AND PORFIRIO.
GORDO AND PEPITO BOARD GAME
This is a typical “Chase” board game, where the roll of the die (singular) determines advancement and the first one to the finish wins. If the player lands on a Black Sombrero, s/he must take a “siesta” aka miss a turn. If all four players end up taking a siesta, they all roll and the highest number rolls again to being play.
Although the game is basic, the graphics on the board and, more so, on the box, are terrific. The images below are of the box, the board and the sides of the box. The playing pieces are simple colored wooden disks. The characters are copyright 1947, just one year after the daily strips began following the end of World War II and I believe this is also when the game was produced.
GORDO’S CHILI CON QUESO RECIPE (below) was surprisingly difficult to obtain – and much requested from the FOG – Friends of Gordo. The recipe was a gimmick by Gus Arriola, who asked his readers to write to the newspapers to ask for the recipe. Gus wanted to show the newspapers how popular GORDO was to its readers and it is reported that the newspapers were inundated with requests. The enlarged version is for those who want to try the recipe. Thanks to FOG Brett Bydairk, whose many comics strips we have posted on the DAILIES sites, we now know this was first published in 1947. For more on this, see the July 1948 Daily strip and the Sunday 1948 strips. Enjoy!
A 30″ x 20″ (approx) poster for the 1987 Monterey Film Festival
The letter above is described on the eBay listing below.
FOG Brett Bydairk (who has since left us. RIP) did a bit of sleuthing after reading a strip wherein Gordo sings an old song. While I thought it was just something Gus Arriola made up, it is in fact a song, from as early as 1914. While I have to find the strip again, below is a link to the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bEhBWW4xHY
and here’s the lyrics: http://www.lyricsvault.net/php/artist.php?s=45331#axzz4lipxXqsw
The fun part for me of this website is finding things I never knew existed! The image brlow, found on eBay (for $150!), is hand signed (see the bottom) and, according to the eBay ad, is for “ANNOUNCING THE CHRISTMAS PAGEANTS OF LA POSADA AND LA PASTORELA” in Carmel, California – Gus Arriola’s home town.
This non-Gordo piece was provided by Nat Gertler of the terrific Peanuts website www.AAUGH.COM, who generously shared many golf strips from the Crosby Pro-Am programs found elsewhere on this website. Nat writes “Not a golf cartoon, but an illustration that accompanied a humor article on the discovery of the Monterey Bay.”
A Premium offered by the Phoenix, AZ newspapers
GORDO AFICIONADO (amongst his many other talents) MARK BURSTEIN had the honor of presenting Gus Arriola with the “Sparky Award” (named, of course, after Charles “Sparky” Schulz of PEANUTS fame) in 1999. Here is his speech.
I am utterly delighted to be presenting this award to one of the great masters of comic art. Gus Arriola’s Gordo has a life begun in 1942 when he was still in the Army, and carried on in 270 papers, until the demise of Gordo’s bachelorhood in 1985.
When I think of strips known for their original and spectacular graphic designs, I think of Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, and Gordo; strips with heart, one goes to Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, Gordo; memorable characters who grow as we do, and have become part of our lives like Gasoline Alley, For Better or For Worse, or Gordo; strip artists who are laugh-out-loud funny cartoons like Bizarro, Doonesbury, and Gordo; great writing and fantastic wordplay – Pogo and Gordo; adventures in unlikely places, from outer space to inner Mongolia, like Alley Oop, Dick Tracy, and Gordo; strips involving real people, like Phil Frank’s Farley, or Gordo’s Mary Frances Sevier; romantic strips like Brenda Starr, and Gordo…need I go on?
Before Arriola retired the strip in 1985 because of a personal tragedy, Gordo had garnered many awards, including The National Cartoonists Society’s Best Humor Strip award in both 1957 and 1965 and the San Diego Comic-Con’s Inkpot Award in 1981.
He also deserves a lot of credit for bringing aspects of Mexican culture to the attention of 1950’s America, delighting all and sundry with the humanity of his creations, and the colorful (and I mean that in its most literal, jewel-toned Sunday sense) life south of the border.
On a personal note, if I may. I’ve known this elegant, gentle man for several years, and always been received with the utmost graciousness and generosity by both him and his lovely wife, Mary Frances. A little over a ten year ago, I met the beautiful and talented Llisa Demetrios, and our first conversation over dinner that night, with all of our parents surrounding us, turned to Gordo, and her mother, Lucia Eames, must have been favorably impressed (a fine thing in a potential mother-in-law). When she was a little girl, her father, who knew a thing or two about design himself (his name was Charles Eames), used to read it to her on his knee. I thank Gus for introducing me to my fiancée, and for a continuing good times with my mother-in-law, to whom I presented a Gordo Sunday original in exchange for her daughter.
Gus was such an unassuming man, that I know I’ve embarrassed him with so much praise, but you deserve it, dammit, and we’re here to say we love and miss you.
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BALDO MEETS GORDO!
Actually, it was Tia Carmen who met our hero in a shoutout on the wonderful BALDO comic strip. For a better copy of this strip, please visit https://www.gocomics.com/baldo/2001/11/20 and scroll through the days.
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Do you have a GORDO item that can be include here – something beyond the books that are available? Please share it with us by sending a photo and description to jimguida@sbcglobal.net. You can include how you acquired the item and any other interesting information. If you are interested in selling the item, please feel free to include that as well.