Cartoons and comics were groundbreakers."Īs for Yoe's favorite artist, that would be Crumb, who created the scandalous Fritz the Cat for his underground Comix. "This is the stock and trade of the cartoonist.
The exhibit features original art by Harvey Kurtzman of Playboy's "Little Annie Fannie," and the magazine's iconic cover of Marge Simpson.Ĭomics as an art form have a "tradition of exaggerating things in words and pictures," according to Yoe.
Later, as sexual mores loosened, erotic drawings became an integral part of magazines like Playboy, with artists such as Jack Cole, whose cartoons became the gold standard for the men's magazine. In 1954, during the McCarthy era, the Comics Code of Authority was created, giving birth to underground publications from artists like Crumb that featured characters like Mr. Later, artists put beloved characters like Popeye's Olive Oyl and even Disney's Snow White in highly compromising erotic situations. "They appealed to kids who lay on the floor to read the Sunday funnies. "When we think of comic strips and comic books, we think of kids, but historically more adults of read them," he said. Today, he runs Yoe Books, which produces books about comic history in his upstate New York home. But I have an adult side, too, and an interest in sex. "I am a creative type and in touch with my inner kid. He also worked for family-friendly Disney, the parent company of ABC News. He was personally recruited by Jim Henson to be creative director of the Muppets and later went on to be vice-president manager.
Yoe's interest in erotica seems a far cry from his day job, developing toys like Cabbage Patch kids and My Little Pony.
"You got to see how the physical act was performed and it was quite revelatory." "When you came across the sex-oriented comics, they were diagrammed well beyond Playboy and the health classes," he said.