Man-Cave-iana: The Birth of the Drool

Renewed interest in and appreciation of so-called genre illustration art has resulted in the growth of colorful and not-so-colorful descriptives for this type of material: Pulp, Pin-Ups, Nudies and Calendar Girls, Fantasy and Sci-Fi, Bodice-Rippers, Weird Americana, Beefcake and Sports, Comix and so on. In the interest of consolidating all of these in a pithy catch-all, we propose a new collecting category for the illustration art enthusiast: “Man-Cave-iana.”

Lot 61: Howell Dodd’s pulp fiction illustration epitomizes the “girl in distress” genre.

Lot 77: Frank Frazetta’s Lord of the Rings drawing no doubt appeals to an entire generation of men (and women) who grew up reading the Tolkien books.

Lot 67: Merlin Enabnit’s oil on canvas of a nude pin-up dates from the 1940s–his WWII “Merlin Girls” were popular among British GI’s, i.e. Tommies.

Lot 81: Bernard Fuchs’s oil on canvas of a 1970s-era tennis player captures the excitement and dynamism of the sport–not to mention the cool hairstyles.

Lot 82: John Gannam depicted the wanton characters involved in Suburban canoodling in this circa 1950s watercolor.

Lot 38: Al Capp’s satirical comic Li’l Abner poked fun at the counter culture in this series of four strips from October 1970.

Lot 251: One of Richard Taylor’s amusing magazine illustrations in the sale, this one for Playboy, shows three men nervously waiting outside a hospital maternity ward. The punchline: “We’ve only got one patient here!”

Lot 263: Torchy creator Bill Ward’s ironic–and sexualized–twist on women’s lib comes with two captions, including, “why shouldn’t a gal express her natural aggressive tendencies.”