Filed Under: "Floraphiles"

In the Nov. 20 Wall Street Journal “Bookshelf” column, Meghan Cox Gurdon reviews Flora’s 1957 The Day The Cow Sneezed, recently reprinted by Enchanted Lion Books: “Flora’s style is about as goofily retro as it’s possible to get, with wide-eyed men in suits, amazed-looking wild animals, and an old-fashioned matte palate of red, pink, green and gray. In the story a series of wild events unfurls when a boy neglects his cow, which catches cold…

Shelf display of Flora kiddie books in the office of Cynthia Johnson, director of the Rowayton (CT) Library. The glass-enclosed office is nestled behind the checkout counter, so patrons can view the display. (The plush creatures are non-Floracentric, but companionate.) Cynthia is producing a jigsaw puzzle of a 1980 cartoon map of the town rendered by its illustrious Citizen Flora, a resident from 1946 to his death in 1998. The puzzle should be available soon…

To many who know him, our friend Takashi Okada of Tokyo is a talented graphic designer, music producer, historian, cultural connoisseur, cat lover, and gentleman. But unless you visit Takashi and his wife Tomoko‘s home, you might not know he has a deep Flora fixation. Takashi owns original art, album covers, Little Man Press artifacts, children’s books, and fine art prints. We’ve long known about Takashi’s love of Flora, but never having visited the Far…

New from P22 Type Foundry: Based on playful hand-lettering from the 1955 Jim Flora Mambo For Cats RCA Victor album cover, the set includes “Flornaments,” consisting of 72 miniature figure icons (dingbats) from Flora artworks. Samples:

We’re honored to have worked with the fine folks at Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress, producing Flora limited edition woodcut prints (including the 1951 tour de force Railroad Town and the 1957 LP-sized Jugglers) and letterpress notecards and calendars. Printmaker Brian Baker with Jugglers edition print (left) and vintage block (right) Co-proprietors Julie Belcher and Kevin Bradley, along with the Yee-Haw staff, are committed professionals and we consider them friends. We’re working with Yee-Haw on new projects,…

Some people dedicate their bodies to science. Shannon Wade, of Portland OR, dedicates hers to the art of Jim Flora. Not the first time, either. The above distended figure originally appeared on the title page of GUP, a 1942 Little Man Press publication written by Robert Lowry and illustrated by Flora.

Akiko Hashimoto sends this snapshot from her home in Japan: The Flora prints displayed are The Big Bank Robbery (ca. 1963) and Gunfight on the Roof (ca. 1951). A series of original 1950s Flora LPs sits on a shelf below.

Our Jim Flora “Plant You Now, Dig You Later” letterpress notecards are multi-purpose. One customer (whose name, forgive us, we’ve misplaced) had these 1950s jazz hepcats framed and sent us a snapshot. Others have used them as … notecards.

We recently launched our third series of alphabetical Primer for Prophets screen prints (see preceding post). Minneapolis printmaker Dan Ibarra of Aesthetic Apparatus, where the series is produced, sent us snapshots of the production process: Detail of WASHED: First inking of ECONOMIZED: Drying racks with ganged images after first ink pass: Finished, dried, stacked, untrimmed prints: We’ve now produced prints for the letters A, C, D, E, G, J, K, N, Q, S, U, and…

Nine Jim Flora illustrations, album covers, and details found their way into yesterday’s UK Telegraph Sunday jazz supplement (print edition). We were approached by one of the paper’s art directors two weeks ago and provided dozens of vintage Flora music images (several previously unpublished). Their selections give the finished layouts a visual syncopation. A pdf of the five pages can be downloaded here. (The pages will be online at Telegraph.co.uk shortly.)

… this time to a distant galaxy. Or maybe just down the block to the Moon. The genre-surfing Seattle combo has once again (third time) licensed a Jim Flora illustration for a cover, their new 7″ vinyl release Agendacide. The above element derives from the April 1963 cover of Computer Design magazine. Previously the band’s John Ewing licensed images for the Reptet’s CDs Do This! and Chicken or Beef. This helps carry the Flora mid-20th…

Eric Reynolds has worked at Fantagraphics (our Flora books publisher) for 15 years, mostly as publicist. It’s been our pleasure to conduct business with (and, in September 2007, meet) the affable Mr. Reynolds, an admitted Floraphile. He was recently booted upstairs by his bosses to the position of Associate Publisher. A large round of applause for that company move (though we’ll miss Eric on the PR end). Comic Book Galaxy’s Trouble With Comics blog tendered…