Frost (1851-1928) has the reputation of the great Unknown of his generation of American cartoonists. His drawing texhniques are always richly inventive, and he has in the long saga of the Cat that eats Rat Poison the capacity to extend a visual proposition well beyond what can be reasonable expected of it. Tending to the permanent grotesque, he pushes and pulls the envelope of the human body in many unusual directions, here in the igure running down stairs. He was capable at depicting pain at its most intense, a veritable anti-Laocoon. I do admire his characteristic lettering, used here for the contents pages where each letter appears to have too much unused energy. It makes for an agitated page. |