Review: Old Jewish Comedians

Old Jewish Comedians

By Drew Friedman

Published By Fantagraphics Books. $14.95

I don't have all that much in common with Howard Stern, but we do both love Drew Freidman's work. One of my favorite books when I was finishing high school was Any Similarity To Persons Living Or Dead Is Purely Coincidental, which featured Drew and brother Josh's vicious, bizarre and yet somehow affectionate looks at colorful showbiz figures great and small, from The Three Stooges and Arthur Godfrey to William (Fred Mertz) Frawley and Tor (Plan 9 From Outer Space) Johnson.

Since that time, Drew became a successful commercial cartoonist, providing spot illustrations for the likes of SPY, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, refining his style from the gritty pointillism of the early years to something more realistic and yet more grotesque, utilizing the added element of color to portray another dimension of physical corruption.

Old Jewish Comedians, though lacking the comedic bite once provided by his brother's scripts, is still part of Drew's unique brand of deeply felt, searing affection, recalling the bygone era when Jewish vaudevillians and the generation who watched them spread their humor to the clubs, movies and television, often with a then-necessary name change such as Jerome Levitch to Jerry Lewis or Benjamin Kubelsky to Jack Benny. But typical for Friedman, this collection of portraits doesn't show these performers in their heyday but in their decline, the oily Buddy Hackett, a portly, post-stroke Larry Fine, and the absurd face-making of Messrs. Dangerfield, Caesar, Kelly and Ritz. The images are exaggerated slightly for effect--extra shine to the skin, extra depth to wrinkles, the age spots perhaps darker--but it only serves to make these images representative, exposing these mirthmakers as they really were in their latter days, how they would've looked offstage and offscreen and without makeup. Without text, the reader is left to ponder the meaning of the pose of each portrait and what that performer meant to Friedman. It's no surprise to see Al Lewis as a robust lecher on the city streets at night, but what to make of a manic, intense actor like Danny Kaye shown in a contemplative state, looking away from camera's eye? Knowing the majority of these performers by name at least, Friedman can make one curious about the others. Even in a mundane pose, chewing a sandwich in a deli, Mickey Freeman calls out to be remembered again, while Mousie Garner in his shabby room, blanket over his lap, has a look of such internal squalor as haunting as a photo essay on mistreated nursing home residents. Tremendous.