The Last Dream-o-Rama

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and affectionate parody of 'dreamboat' cars
Review: Bruce McCall used to work as a commercial illustrator specializing in automotive illustration. This caricature of period advertising is a delightful addition to his incredibly out of print ZANY AFTERNOONS.

I believe that Bruce McCall really loves the overdesigned, overhyped monster cars of the Fifties and Sixties. I love his wicked parodies of the copy that used to be found in auto ads.

Now available with special Individually Bound Pages!

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious satire and superb drawings
Review: Bruce McCall's "The Last Dream-O-Rama" is a wickedly clever satire of the 1950's dream car phenomena.

If you've seen McCall's "Bulgemobile" advertisements from the 1970's vintage National Lampoon magazine, you already know he's a gifted artist with a droll sense of humor about automotive excesses. He has a talent for writing that comes close to real advertisements but just pushes it a little bit further such as "Fireblast! Twice the car you'll ever need - and that goes double for the new four-door FunTop!"

In this colorful book, after some pages spoofing dream car shows ("It's un-American to miss the Cavalcade of Chrome"), the bulk of the book has delightful full-page drawings of outrageous concept cars. Each has a half page history on the facing page.

One is the "Silver Sabre Patriomatic Funfighter, 1957" which looks only slightly more like a jet airplane than Pontiac's actual Firebird dream cars. Another is the "Armageddon Mk1, 1958" for the fallout shelter crowd. And there are many, many more with great variety. A few may be too silly for some tastes, but they are all wonderfully drawn.

The book wraps up with "Name Your Own Dream Car - the Detroit Way" and finally "Dream Cars Around the World" with yet more drawings and descriptions.

This book is a satisfying satirical, or perhaps all too true, look into the fifties and a great value even if you're only going to look at the drawings.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious satire and superb drawings
Review: Bruce McCall's "The Last Dream-O-Rama" is a wickedly clever satire of the 1950's dream car phenomena.

If you've seen McCall's "Bulgemobile" advertisements from the 1970's vintage National Lampoon magazine, you already know he's a gifted artist with a droll sense of humor about automotive excesses. He has a talent for writing that comes close to real advertisements but just pushes it a little bit further such as "Fireblast! Twice the car you'll ever need - and that goes double for the new four-door FunTop!"

In this colorful book, after some pages spoofing dream car shows ("It's un-American to miss the Cavalcade of Chrome"), the bulk of the book has delightful full-page drawings of outrageous concept cars. Each has a half page history on the facing page.

One is the "Silver Sabre Patriomatic Funfighter, 1957" which looks only slightly more like a jet airplane than Pontiac's actual Firebird dream cars. Another is the "Armageddon Mk1, 1958" for the fallout shelter crowd. And there are many, many more with great variety. A few may be too silly for some tastes, but they are all wonderfully drawn.

The book wraps up with "Name Your Own Dream Car - the Detroit Way" and finally "Dream Cars Around the World" with yet more drawings and descriptions.

This book is a satisfying satirical, or perhaps all too true, look into the fifties and a great value even if you're only going to look at the drawings.

Rating:
Summary: Not as zany as Zany.
Review: I always looked for Bruce McCall's brilliant work in the National Lampoon and loved the reprinted work in 'Zany Afternoons' (I bought two copies, just in case) and it confirmed that here was an unusual humorist, as good with a paint brush or typewriter.

This latest book though I found a bit disappointing. The material does not really stretch to 128 pages, lots of these (especially the text ones) have far too much white space and the illustrations I found lacking in detail. In 'Zany Afternoons' there are three hilarious parodies of Detroit car brochures, 1934, 1946 and 1958 Bulgemobiles, all have paintings of fantasy cars with backgrounds full of detail, it is this detail that I found missing in so many of the paintings in 'Dream-O-Rama'

Still, the text is very funny and if you are new to Mr McCall's work try and get 'Zany Afternoons' and 'Sit!', he wrote the wonderful words to accompany the dog paintings of Thierry Poncelet.

Rating:
Summary: A fun ride through imagination
Review: I really liked this book. As someone who has always been critical of the schlock the automakers enjoy forcing upon the American people (can you really tell me the difference between a Camry and an Escort - come on), I enjoyed this artist's take on what would have happened if designers in the 50s had been allowed to have carte blanche at the drawing board, creating vehicles based on all the fads and crazes of the day. While not practical in the least, the cars all had an enjoyable retro-futuristic feel to them that made me think of a cross between the Jetsons and I Love Lucy. The illustrations are rich and wonderful, in that vibrant palette of hipster 50s pastels so commonly used in the Eisenhower era. The captions and comments from the author/artist are clever. My favorite cars are the Orbitronic Minus-Zero Saucersnatcher 1956 (p.47), which has room for a Roswell space alien friend in the back, and the Panavista FilmFlyte Visionaire 1955 (p.35), that brings the experience of a drive-in movie to a drive down the freeway. This would be a great conversation piece for the coffee table, or a nice addition to any library for car buffs or fans of the fabulous 1950s.

Rating:
Summary: A fun ride through imagination
Review: I really liked this book. As someone who has always been critical of the schlock the automakers enjoy forcing upon the American people (can you really tell me the difference between a Camry and an Escort - come on), I enjoyed this artist's take on what would have happened if designers in the 50s had been allowed to have carte blanche at the drawing board, creating vehicles based on all the fads and crazes of the day. While not practical in the least, the cars all had an enjoyable retro-futuristic feel to them that made me think of a cross between the Jetsons and I Love Lucy. The illustrations are rich and wonderful, in that vibrant palette of hipster 50s pastels so commonly used in the Eisenhower era. The captions and comments from the author/artist are clever. My favorite cars are the Orbitronic Minus-Zero Saucersnatcher 1956 (p.47), which has room for a Roswell space alien friend in the back, and the Panavista FilmFlyte Visionaire 1955 (p.35), that brings the experience of a drive-in movie to a drive down the freeway. This would be a great conversation piece for the coffee table, or a nice addition to any library for car buffs or fans of the fabulous 1950s.

Rating:
Summary: The Last Dream-O-Rama: fact or fiction?
Review: I remember when I first read his 'Zany Afternoons' thinking this is the absolute peak of comic/catoon/satire. If you think some of the New Yorker cartoons are good just wait till you read either 'Zany' or 'O-Rama'

Not alone are his actual cartoon pictures brilliant but the ideas behind them are mind-bogglingly clever. You actually wonder if some of them are true to life.

I have been searching the Internet ever since for more works by this exceptional artist so I am open to suggestions.

You know the picture of the dogs playing poker around a table? Forget it, Bruce McCall has them licked and left panting!

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Rating:
Summary: McCall's Genius Wearing Thin
Review: The brilliant satirist and illustrator who gave us a billion terrific and memorable laughs in the pages of National Lampoon and "Zany Afternoons" is now, it seems, on autopilot. Bruce McCall hasn't lost his edge in the technical department, but this anti-paean to the 1950s reads less like a parody of car advertisements and more like a screed against the Evil Consumption Tendencies Of Straitlaced Anti-Communist Americans And Their Depletion Of Natural Resources, Curse Them! It is not, in a word, funny. On the flip side, if you're not familiar with his brilliant "Zany Afternoons" and don't feel like being gouged by the vultures who are charging $250 + for a good-condition copy, then this is a fair sampling of McCall's stuff. To get a real glimpse into his rapier wit, check out http://www.jamesgoodmangallery.com/mccall/pages/exhibframez.html for a gallery of his pieces shown about four years ago in New York. If the taste and style of the '50s and '60s are not your cup of tea and you want to see some hilarious spoofs, check out James Lileks and "The Gallery of Regrettable Food." But don't waste your money on this latest, weak offering from McCall.