A handsome collection of rare pin-ups from the late cartoonist whodefined Betty & Veronica's look. For nearly half a century, DanDeCarlo was the Archie comic book artist and defined the lookof every adolescent boy's wet dreams, Betty and Veronica, with theirtrademark upturned noses, tight sweaters, and barely-there mini-skirts.From 1956 to 1963, DeCarlo also produced hundreds of pin-up cartoonsfor the Humorama line of girlie digests, where his line drawings andexquisite ink-wash paintings shared the pages with Jack Cole, BillWard, and Bill Wenzel, and photos featuring Bettie Page. Cullingthrough thousands of Humorama digests, editor Alex Chun has selectedthe best of DeCarlo's ink wash pin-up work, with many featuringcaptions by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee. Along with collecting hundreds oflong out-of-print images, the book also features an introductory essayby long time DeCarlo friend and current Bongo Comics creative directorBill Morrison.

For more than 40 years, Dan DeCarlo was best known for his definitive rendition of Archie Comics' Betty and Veronica, two of comics' most beloved icons. But before joining Archie in the late 1950s and unbeknownst to many, DeCarlo was already honing his skills as a good girl artist for the Humorama line of digest magazines. Beginning in 1956, DeCarlo created hundreds of pin-up cartoons for titles such as Comedy, Jest, and Laugh Riot, where his line drawings and his exquisite ink-wash paintings shared the pages with pin-ups by Jack Cole, Bill Ward and Bill Wenzel, and photos featuring Bettie Page. In contrast to the innocence that was Archie's Riverdale, DeCarlo's Humorama pin-ups portrayed a world populated by strippers, gold diggers, buxom secretaries, lecherous bosses, cheating spouses, and even the occasional "spanking daddy." These characters, who often bore an uncanny resemblance to Archie's snooty socialite and perennial girl next door, were clearly having sex and plenty of it. Following the immensely popular The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo (which was featured in Playboy magazine and quickly sold out its first printing), this second volume once again displays DeCarlo's sexiest Humorama pin-up cartoons, and continues Fantagraphics' dedication to showcasing the best of the classic pin-up cartoonists.