I assume this isolated card is from an early edition of “Authors.”  There have been many versions over the years; they chart not only changing tastes in design, but in those authors a child was taught were canonical.  I haven’t seen any later editions that include George Bancroft; I guess he was usurped by younger […]

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[I wrote this brief appreciation of George Jean Nathan’s immortal compendium, The New American Credo, for the “Classic Bookshelf” column of “Fortean Times” back in June 2001.  I’ve pulled it from the boneyard, just so you can chew on it.] George Jean Nathan and his fellow iconoclast H. L. Mencken spent much of the 1920s collecting […]

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This sketch comes from a notebook kept by Richard Shaver’s wife Dorothy; the notebook contains recipes (both manuscript and clipped from newspapers) and miscellaneous jottings.  I can’t be certain that it’s by Shaver, since it’s unsigned.  The handwriting looks like his; and the artwork, although cruder than his usual style, resembles other sketches he made of what […]

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For 35¢ you could give your beloved the gift of sound — in the form of an Amazing Talking-Tape Card. This particular example was made by the now defunct White & Wyckoff Manufacturing Company of Holyoke, MA. Since 1889, White & Wyckoff had been part of a thriving paper industry in Western Massachusetts towns such […]

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  It’s Friday at the Ullage Group, and time for another children’s card game.  For late arrivals, or for the perplexed, we explain that we offer a sample from this most marginal, disposable, anonymous, and overlooked field of graphic design as a weekly lagniappe.  I have no date or publisher for this edition of that perennial […]

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“Microlithomania” unfurled on a drizzly Sunday; we had a nice crowd. The ullage was uncorked, and shots of Alsation pear brandy were handed to our hosts at Jalopy, Geoff and Lynette Wiley. Doug began with a few remarks, explaining the Ullage Group a bit, or trying to, and then giving credit to John Michell for […]

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About ten years ago, I discovered this Japanese cartoon while skimming through a circa-1940s scholarly journal. I don’t recall what it was doing there, or why, or that it had any particular relevance to the critical essays I was perusing, which is no doubt why it caught my attention. (Nor do I remember much about […]

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  This week brings you a bold design from “Spinner Fun Game,” an undated game from Built-Rite.  29c got you a spinner, 20 cards (showing a cowboy, a cowgirl, an Indian, a scarecrow, and a clown), and the promise that it’s “fun to do.” (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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The Ullage Group presents its second afternoon of oddities at the Jalopy Theatre: “Microlithomania,” devoted to unusual stones smaller than megaliths.  We will have mini-talks on ringing rocks, stone stars, archeological hoaxes, toads-in-holes, pseudo-roads, and other anomalies; from Doug Skinner, Anthony Matt, and Lisa Hirschfield.  There will be slides, specimens, a video of the unusual […]

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“Trail Drive,” a western themed pack from Arrco, claims to be “a game you’ve never played before.”  Once again, no indication of date. (Posted by Doug Skinner) 

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