Lou Brooks (
Abington, Pennsylvania,
September 5
Events Pre-1600
* 917 – Liu Yan declares himself emperor, establishing the Southern Han state in southern China, at his capital of Panyu.
*1367 – Swa Saw Ke becomes king of Ava
*1590 – Alexander Farnese's army forces Henry ...
, 1944 -
November 21, 2021) was a self-taught American illustrator,
cartoonist, and author. He is best known for his precise bold line work and graphic reinterpretation of mid-twentieth century comics, magazines, advertising, and other popular culture from the period.
History and influences
Until the age of nine, Brooks lived with his parents and grandparents in
Warminster, Pennsylvania
Warminster Township (also referred to as Warminster) is located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was formally established in 1711. The township is 13.7 miles north of Philadelphia and had a population of 32,682 according to the 201 ...
. His grandfather, an immigrant brick layer from
Piacenza
Piacenza (; egl, label= Piacentino, Piaṡëinsa ; ) is a city and in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, and the capital of the eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with over ...
, Italy, built the house by hand. By this time, Brooks's father had returned from World War II, and, in order to raise his family, had abandoned his pursuit of having a career as a comic strip artist. Brooks found himself immersed in his father's art supplies and discarded sketch books of unfinished comic strips, and easily took to drawing cartoons at an early age.
In 1954, he and his family moved to
Levittown, Pennsylvania
Levittown is a census-designated place (CDP) and planned community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Delaware Valley, Philadelphia metropolitan area. The population was 52,983 at the 2010 ...
, and a life of postwar conformity in a community of over 17,000 assembly-line homes on 22 square miles. It was the largest suburban planned community in the United States. Living there greatly affected what was to become Brooks's lifelong aversion to sameness. Nevertheless, the suburban baby boomer popular culture of the 1950s, which included comic books, cars, rock and roll music, and television, influenced Brooks's sensibilities to a large extent.
His career in art began in 1965 as a production artist in the advertising art department of a Philadelphia newspaper, which he credits as giving him a thorough well-rounded knowledge of the graphic arts. He and his wife, Clare Vanacore, relocated to New York City in 1977, and lived there until 1994. They later resided in Northern California.
Illustration art
Beginning in the 1970s, Brooks's art has appeared in just about every major national publication, including fourteen commissions for Time and Newsweek covers, as well as six for the German news publication Der Spiegel. Other publications in which his illustrations have appeared include ''The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Fortune, Money Magazine, Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, Wired,'' and ''Reader's Digest,'' to name a few.
In 1985,
Parker Brothers
Parker Brothers (known by Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. Among its products wer ...
commissioned Brooks to redesign the
Monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
game logo and illustrate an updated version of the character
Mr. Monopoly (formerly known as Rich Uncle Pennybags). He was also commissioned at the time to develop and illustrate the game's special "50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition" embossed tin box packaging. The art was also carried over onto the more traditional cardboard game box which was revised especially for the Anniversary. His Monopoly design and logo is still familiar to anyone who has played the game.
Major advertising clients include: Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Budweiser, Dr. Pepper, CBS, NBC, Milton Bradley, Nikon, Sony, IBM, TWA, Clairol, Verizon, AT&T, and Exxon. His art has been animated for television by MTV, Nickelodeon, and HBO.
In 1984, he was jury chairman of The New Illustration Show at the Society of Illustrators in New York City. In 1988, he was jury chairman of the Humor '88 Show at the Society. He has served on juries for various art competitions for Atlanta Art Directors Club, Society of Publication Designers, Creative Club of Boston, and Columbus Society of Communication Arts, among others. He's been a featured speaker at various organizations and Universities. Starting in 1983, he was a guest lecturer for several years at American Illustration Weekend, New York City.
Brooks has been credited as a pioneer of infusing high-profile illustration assignments with the sensibility of
low brow comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
iconography.
Bob Staake
Bob Staake (born September 26, 1957 in Los Angeles) is an American illustrator, cartoonist, children's book author and designer. He lives and works in Chatham, Massachusetts on the elbow of Cape Cod.
After drawing editorial cartoons while at ...
, in his book ''The Complete Book of Humorous Art,'' wrote: "In many ways, Brooks's impact is similar to the effect that Andy Warhol had on the world of art. If Warhol said it was okay to call soup cans art, Brooks said it was okay to call old comic book imagery humorous illustration."
Comic art
Beginning in 1977 alongside such comic artists as
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel '' Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines ''Arcade'' and '' Ra ...
and
Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman (; October 3, 1924 – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and editor. His best-known work includes writing and editing the parodic comic book '' Mad'' from 1952 until 1956, and writing the ''Little Ann ...
, Brooks was a charter contributor to ''
Playboy Magazine's'' monthly color feature ''Playboy Funnies'' with his comic strips "Teasers" and "Sweet Dreams," among others. His various top-of-the-page Funnies logo panels that exclusively opened the feature each month ran continuously for over a decade. Several of his comics as well as a Funnies logo are included in the 2004 anthology, ''Playboy: 50 Years: The Cartoons,'' edited by Hugh Hefner.
From 1976 to 1979, his comic strip "Banana Bob, Boy Inventor of Harding High" was featured monthly in each issue of ''
Bananas Magazine.'' He was also a regularly featured illustrator and occasional writer for the magazine. Bananas was edited at the time by the now-legendary horror author
R. L. Stine
Robert Lawrence Stine (; born October 8, 1943), sometimes known as Jovial Bob Stine and Eric Affabee, is an American novelist, short story writer, television producer, screenwriter, and executive editor.
Stine has been referred to as the "St ...
.
Special projects
In 1980, Brooks was a founding member, performer and songwriter with the all-cartoonist comedy band, Ben Day & the Zipatones. Other band members included
Bill Plympton
Bill Plympton (born April 30, 1946) is an American animator, graphic designer, cartoonist, and filmmaker best known for his 1987 Academy Awards-nominated animated short '' Your Face'' and his series of shorts featuring a dog character starting wit ...
,
Mark Alan Stamaty, Elwood Smith, and Skip Johnston, art director of ''
National Lampoon.'' The band headlined at the 1981 Artists and Models Ball at Irving Plaza, New York City, to an audience of 1,500 artists for the benefit of the
Graphic Artists Guild. Brooks also produced the concert.
In 1982, he appeared as the voice of Mr. Hands in ''Mr. Bill in Space'', a book and record furthering the adventures of
Mr. Bill
Mr. Bill is a clay figurine star of a parody of children's clay animation shows created by Walter Williams in 1974. "The Mr. Bill Show" got its start on ''Saturday Night Live'' as a series of Super 8 films sent in in response to the show's request ...
, a character invented by
Walter Williams for the television show ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock. ...
''.
In 1988, he and Robert Zemeckis served as the opening feature events for American Illustration Weekend at Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. Brooks performed on stage and presented his animated mixed-media mock biopic, "A Guy Named Lou."
Since 2006, Brooks has been the founder and curator of The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies,
"Who Made That Built-In Eraser?"
by Pagan Kennedy. ''The New York Times'' (15 September 2013). a virtual online visual collection of nearly 700 graphic arts tools and supplies that the computer has made obsolete or near obsolete.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Lou
1944 births
2021 deaths
American illustrators
Artists from Pennsylvania
People from Warminster, Pennsylvania