Today on the site, R.C. Harvey looks at the curious cartoon history of the Boy's Life magazine mascot.
In another example of how far I can stray from the presumed topic, this time we start out with Pedro, the mailburro at Boys’ Life magazine back in the 1950s. And from there, we wander off into the surrounding landscape to a fare-thee-well, meeting Reamer Keller, Lowell Hess, Dik Browne and Tom Eaton on the way.
Strolling leisurely through an antique mall one day last fall, I came upon a stack of Boys’ Life magazines. On top of the stack was the one with the cover that’s posted nearby. “Pedro,” I thought, murmuring the name of the magazine’s unofficial mascot, a donkey. Millions of other male Americans as well as I would recognize Pedro immediately. Officially, he was the “mailburro” of Boys’ Life, which was officially the magazine of the Boy Scouts, hence the vast circle of acquaintanceship with Pedro.
Elsewhere:
Here's Dan Clowes' superb contribution to the new, magazine-sized Resist!
And a few visual announcements: next weekend my beloved Spoonbill is having a little zine fair in the shop. If you live in Brooklyn and haven't been to this iteration of Spoonbill & Sugartown, you're missing out.
And Kim Deitch recently posted this great and little-seen ad for his great Boulevard of Broken Dreams, published over a decade ago.
