The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo

For more than 40 years, Dan DeCarlo was best known for his definitive rendition of Archie Comics' Betty and Veronica, two of comics' most beloved icons.

But before joining Archie in the late 1950s and unbeknownst to many, DeCarlo was already honing his skills as a good girl artist for the Humorama line of digest magazines. Beginning in 1956, DeCarlo created hundreds of pin-up cartoons for titles such as Comedy, Jest, and Laugh Riot, where his line drawings and his exquisite ink-wash paintings shared the pages with pin-ups by Jack Cole, Bill Ward and Bill Wenzel, and photos featuring Bettie Page.

In contrast to the innocence that was Archie's Riverdale, DeCarlo's Humorama pin-ups portrayed a world populated by strippers, gold diggers, buxom secretaries, lecherous bosses, cheating spouses, and even the occasional spanking daddy. These characters, who often bore an uncanny resemblance to Archie's snooty socialite and perennial girl next door, were clearly having sex and plenty of it.

Following the immensely popular The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo (which was featured in Playboy magazine and quickly sold out its first printing), this second volume once again displays DeCarlo's sexiest Humorama pin-up cartoons, and continues Fantagraphics' dedication to showcasing the best of the classic pin-up cartoonists.