Little Annie Fanny, Volume 1

Rating:
Summary: Long Overdue Tribute to Annie
Review: Little Annie Fanny is easily one of the finest, most beautiful comics ever created. She deserves to stand up high with Little Nemo, Maggie & Jiggs and the Wallet family. Every panel was brilliantly painted, and the humor was straight out of the golden age of Mad Magazine. Playboy's recent attempts at reviving Annie with new artists and writers is sad and embarassing, and they really should stop. No one will EVER be able to duplicate the genius of Kurtzman and Elder, and the sweet, lovely, wide-eyed innocence of the original Annie. Too bad these two volumes aren't hardbacks, because they're definitely keepers.

Rating:
Summary: Long Overdue Tribute to Annie
Review: Little Annie Fanny is easily one of the finest, most beautiful comics ever created. She deserves to stand up high with Little Nemo, Maggie & Jiggs and the Wallet family. Every panel was brilliantly painted, and the humor was straight out of the golden age of Mad Magazine. Playboy's recent attempts at reviving Annie with new artists and writers is sad and embarassing, and they really should stop. No one will EVER be able to duplicate the genius of Kurtzman and Elder, and the sweet, lovely, wide-eyed innocence of the original Annie. Too bad these two volumes aren't hardbacks, because they're definitely keepers.

Rating:
Summary: Geniuses in Limbo
Review: One of the most frustrating creations in all of comix. No question this is the most big-budget (big-busted), lavished-over (slathered-over), gorgeous (engorged) strip ever made. Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder and some spiffy helpers had all the resources they needed at last. There are many hilarious, cutting, zany and fun-nostalgic moments here. Yet finally, it feels like a defeat. "Playboy" is just a smaller, and more small-focus universe than the old "Mad." Harvey wanted to run his own show, and being a hired hand even in a gilded palace like the Playboy Mansion ground him down. The strips almost imperceptibly become more mechanical, more resigned. Horribly enough, the satires in issues of "Mad" from this era eventually come to seem wilder, freer, more penetrating than "Little Annie Fanny." The hugest overall problem is that male lust is simply not Kurtzman's best subject (especially by today's standards, he doesn't have much perspective on it). Weakness, venality, folly and self-deception are closer to his heart, and for whatever reason, Annie could never bring him as close to those subjects as her earlier, male incarnation, Goodman Beaver. But man, is that art beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Good news, bad news
Review: This book is roughly equivalent to the collection "Playboy" published in 1972 with the same title; it contains more episodes than the earlier one, but not all of them (which means this new volume is likewise just a selection, not the complete run), and the colors aren't as bright as the original book. Nor does it contain the foreword Hefner wrote for the first edition. On the other hand, the new edition contains 20 pages of editorial matter at the end, explaining contemporary references and historical background that few readers needed 30 years ago. So the purist will want to hang on to (or acquire) the 1972 edition, but everyone else can revel in this sexy social satire. The best news of all is the subtitle: vol. 1. The post-1972 strips were never collected in book form, and it is to be hoped that vol. 2 is already in production.

Rating:
Summary: Good news, bad news
Review: This book is roughly equivalent to the collection "Playboy" published in 1972 with the same title; it contains more episodes than the earlier one, but not all of them (which means this new volume is likewise just a selection, not the complete run), and the colors aren't as bright as the original book. Nor does it contain the foreword Hefner wrote for the first edition. On the other hand, the new edition contains 20 pages of editorial matter at the end, explaining contemporary references and historical background that few readers needed 30 years ago. So the purist will want to hang on to (or acquire) the 1972 edition, but everyone else can revel in this sexy social satire. The best news of all is the subtitle: vol. 1. The post-1972 strips were never collected in book form, and it is to be hoped that vol. 2 is already in production.

Rating:
Summary: Good news, bad news
Review: When I was 8 years old my friend Jamie had a bunch of his dad's Playboys in a shed in the basement of his house. We used to sit down there, pretending to play poker and making card houses while leafing through the magazines. Although the photos did plenty to stoke my pre-pubescent desires what really got my young blood boiling were the Annie Fanny strips in the back. I could never suitably explain why, but in the same way that a Fellini film is so more enticing than reality, those painted cartoons depicting the escapades of the buxalicious Miss Fanny were far more erotic than the photos of the real women in the magazine. Well, it's many years later and, boy, am I glad they reprinted them all in a handsome volume. What's interesting to me now (okay, what's additionally interesting to me now) are all the topical period references to Jack and Bobby Kennedy, James Bond, The Beatles, Martin Luther King and all manner of 60's icons. Plus, it is a revelation to find out that quite a few other artists other than Kurtzmann and Elder worked on the strip including Jack Davis and Al Jaffee, both Mad veterans, and Frank Frazetta, the king of pulp fantasy paintings. All in all, this is a great treat for those in the mood for the retro comically naughty. Austin Powers fans will love this!

Rating:
Summary: Oh Boy!
Review: When I was 8 years old my friend Jamie had a bunch of his dad's Playboys in a shed in the basement of his house. We used to sit down there, pretending to play poker and making card houses while leafing through the magazines. Although the photos did plenty to stoke my pre-pubescent desires what really got my young blood boiling were the Annie Fanny strips in the back. I could never suitably explain why, but in the same way that a Fellini film is so more enticing than reality, those painted cartoons depicting the escapades of the buxalicious Miss Fanny were far more erotic than the photos of the real women in the magazine. Well, it's many years later and, boy, am I glad they reprinted them all in a handsome volume. What's interesting to me now (okay, what's additionally interesting to me now) are all the topical period references to Jack and Bobby Kennedy, James Bond, The Beatles, Martin Luther King and all manner of 60's icons. Plus, it is a revelation to find out that quite a few other artists other than Kurtzmann and Elder worked on the strip including Jack Davis and Al Jaffee, both Mad veterans, and Frank Frazetta, the king of pulp fantasy paintings. All in all, this is a great treat for those in the mood for the retro comically naughty. Austin Powers fans will love this!