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Cars and Comics1995 Oil on linen 44.0" x 84.0" Private collection I grew up loving the funny papers. Forget the news! My sister Susan and I fought over who got the funnies first. In this painting I was able to combine two loves: cars and comics. Jiggs from 'Bringing Up Father', Skeezix from 'Gasoline Alley', the trolley from 'Toonerville Folks', a car from 'Dick Tracy' - coupled with race cars, taxis, trucks, and roadsters. More childhood nostalgia. I begged to order the decoder ring from the back pages of the comic book, but my parents always said no. The number on the side of the taxi was our phone number when I was a kid. The 144 was my studio address. The 'Radio Patrol' strip in the background is peppered with personal names. The trunk behind O-Ma the Dent Maker has names of cities in my life: Austin, Hillsboro, Dallas, Boston, Sausalito, Peking, Tokyo, Bangkok. The Donald Duck book under the Toonerville Trolley is for my husband, Charles, who loved Donald Duck as a kid and will never get over his mother giving his cousin his carefully preserved collection of Donald Duck comic books. |