I
really enjoyed Neal Thompson's A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It or Not!” Ripley. I tend
to like biographies of cartoonists, but this one, like Robert L.
Ripley himself, stands out. It's a fabulous 20th century American
Dream about a buck-toothed outcast from Santa Rosa, California who
became a world-famous cartoonist, and much more . . .
He
was also a writer, a traveler, and an undocumented anthropologist who
really knew how to cherchez le weird and present it in bite-sized
packages, first as newspaper cartoons, then in books, on radios, in
film, and on television.
He
wasn't afraid to leap into what these days we call new media.
Remember, when he started drawing Believe It or Not!, the
newspaper comic section was something new.
And
it turned out that weird sells.
Ripley
was in some ways a successor to P.T. Barnum, though rather than the
Art of Humbug, Ripley always presented his oddities as the truth and
challenged the public to prove him wrong. He even questioned
well-known “facts” – explaining that, for instance, Buffalo
Bill never shot a single buffalo (they were all North American
bison).
In
a lot of ways, he was ahead of his time. His personal, informal
approach to journalism foreshadowed the gonzo style of Hunter S.
Thompson, travel writers like Tahir Shah and David Hatcher
Childress, and mondo documentaries. His lifestyle was a like a preview of Hugh Hefner's
Playboy Philosophy. When he drifted into political commentary, he was
an early version of Rush Limbaugh.
By
today's standards, he had some racist and sexist attitudes. But he
did love Asian women, and China. He also celebrated other cultures,
and introduced them to the American public, though some may object to
the sideshow style.
But
he loved the oddities he exploited, always feeling a bit odd himself.
He managed to “create a brand” – to use a trendy term – that
went on after his death, and is still going strong.
I
must admit, he was an influence on me. My wife and I live in a house
full of masks and strange artifacts. We go on road trips, and always
cherchez le weird.
Now,
if I could just find a way to package and sell it . . .
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