RUBE GOLDBERG 1921 DAILY STRIP ORIGINAL ART FEATURING EARLY RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE.
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Item Description
While many are familiar w/Rube Goldberg Machines, many are unaware of the man who created them and were in fact, named after - cartoonist Rube Goldberg (1883-1970). Goldberg's complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways have immortalized the artist. The character most closely associated w/Rube Goldberg Machines is Goldberg's Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, A.K., who was credited as the inventor of these outlandish devices. Professor Butts first appeared in a prose piece published Nov. 3, 1928 in Collier's story It's The Little Things That Matter. But the Rube Goldberg Machine pre-dates the good Professor, as seen in Goldberg's pen and ink original art for a Sept. 28, 1921 daily strip offered here. Approx. 7-3/8x20.5" artboard features three panels, first featuring text explaining the ten step Rube Goldberg Machine for a elaborate device to cut cigars. Steps include lightning hitting lightning rod and sending charge into home-brew to boil, which causes fumes to rise and intoxicate fly, who zig-zags down platform to sit on stool, puffing, which makes fan revolve, which rotates platform w/"Scythe-Tailed Sparrow" whose tail cuts cigar. Bottom margin has "Don't Fail To Get One Of Our Handy Cigar-Cutters - By Rube Goldberg" in Goldberg's handwritten script. Goldberg has signed at bottom left corner of second panel. Third panel features Foolish Questions "No. 74,125" companion gag panel, showing man w/earhorn giving smart reply to man when he asks if he's deaf. Artboard has inked dated at bottom right. Pin holes at top center and upper right. Staple holes at below art at left/center/right. Artboard shows obvious wear, w/upper left corner having significant insect damage and right side having large area of moisture staining, affecting majority of last panel and top right corner of main panel. VG. Pre-1950 examples of original art featuring Rube Goldberg Machines rarely come to market, let alone a piece that pre-dates the gag's "official" introduction in The Inventions of Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K.
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