The Lettering and Graphic Design of F.G. Cooper

by Leslie Cabarga

The Lettering and Graphic Design of F.G. Cooper is a chronicle of the life and art of Fred Cooper (1883-1961), one of America's great cartoonists and designers who was also a founding member of the Society of Illustrators. In fact, Fred designed the lettering on the plaque at the Society's Manhattan headquarters. Lavishly illustrated with many pages in 2-color, the book displays a wide variety of Cooper's versatile work. Fred Cooper s 'big-head' cartoon characters were seen constantly throughout the 1910s, 20s and 30s in many of the most popular magazines of the day such as Life, Colliers, and Liberty. His copious advertising cartoons and posters, running an amazing gamut of styles, for the New York Edison Company (now Con Edison) first brought him to fame. His posters for the first World War effort won high praise for their use of all lower-case hand lettering whose warmth and character obviated the need for additional illustration. F.G. Cooper was not the designer of the typeface Cooper Bold but his work inspired Oz Cooper (who designed the Cooper fonts) as well as a whole generation of cartoonists, letterers and poster designers. This book is very attractive and profusely illustrated with tons of 'spot'cartoons, full-page comics, illustrations, 'serious' posters, lettering examples and monograms. The book also contains family photos and some personal work of the artist's. Cooper was the original clip art cartoonist whose style influenced all the others in the field. He also designed dozens of clever monograms for people like Rube Goldberg, Milton Caniff and Dwight D. Eisenhower which are shown in the book along with his preliminary sketches. As the author describes the book's creation, "Work on this book began in 1980 when my publisher handed me a copy of an unpublished manuscript for a book on monograms and lettering that he had received for possible publication. He asked me, 'Say, have you ever heard of a guy named F. G. Cooper?' Well, I almost flipped! I'd been a huge fan of Cooper's work for years. I ended up adapting Fred Cooper's book proposal into a new book that included all his other work in addition to the lettering. When it was finally published, sixteen years later, I had no idea that the response from illustrators, letterers, sign men, and designers would be so overwhelmingly positive. There is a quote I use in the book from Oswald (Oz) Cooper, responding to some lettering samples Fred had sent him. 'That is some juicy lettering,' Oz wrote. I guess I'd have to say that this book, with its myriad examples of F. G. Cooper's work is also most 'juicy' in its way"

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Zavier Leslie Cabarga, popularly known as Leslie Cabarga, is an American author, illustrator, cartoonist, animator, font designer, and publication designer. A participant in the underground comix movement in the early 1970s, he has since gone on to write and/or edit over 40 books. His art style evokes images from the 1920s and 1930s, and over the years Cabarga has created many products associated with Betty Boop. His book The Fleischer Story in the Golden Age of Animation, originally published in 1976, has become the authoritative history of the Fleischer Studios.