Jumpin' Jucika!
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. An awkward incident, inventively solved.
Resuscitating an old post for a refreshed purpose. I’m teaching in our semi-new beginning drawing program in a unit called Drawing as Story.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Boss in a foul mood as you walk in late? Pretend you’ve been here all morning!
As I have been wrapping up the manuscript on my forthcoming illustration history, Reading Pictures (more on that before long) I have been thinking a lot about literacy and images. Not only looking with reading, but also looking as reading. Comic strips without speech are perhaps the purest form of this.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Party runs too long? Flirt with your clueless guest, to get him booted
A few years back I came across an obscure but wonderful comic strip titled Jucika, published in Hungary from 1957 to 1970. Pál Pusztai drew the strip, which focused on the exploits of its title character, an enterprising young woman with comedic gifts, a curvy profile, and a rotating set of jobs which set her up for social-sexual hijinx of various sorts. She is comely, enterprising, dogged, witty, and decent. She lives in a world of variously grumpy, clueless, kind, oafish, and endlessly manipulatable men.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Boyfriend makes a move on the maid? Dismiss the lout, not the help!
Her problems are posed and resolved in a relentless three-frame format, always wordlessly. She is late for work; her apartment is cold; the sun comes out when she goes skiing, causing the snow to melts; while giving a tour, her clients are distracted by attractive women passersby; she catches her mesh bag on the button of a coat worn by an unhappy man; she is tired and her guests won’t leave; on an on, ad infinitum.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. It’s cold in here! Let’s go the tropics…
I find the strip captivating due to the purity of its problem and restrictive means. No words, in and out, a three panel gag. The character drawing has a designed quality to it, like a lot of midcentury cartooning, but also a kind of Balkan exoticism.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Lose a stocking, gain an urn. (And vice versa!)
Pusztai’s strip came to light via the Internet, and has blown up into a cult of sorts. There is a Twitter feed @JucikaDaily and an imgur gallery by CatnipHip. A TV Tropes entry offers this publishing context, among other information: “Originally circulated in the social magazine Érdekes Újság, it moved to the country's sole officially sanctioned satirical newspaper Ludas Matyi in 1959, where it became an iconic part of Socialist era pop culture.”
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Here we go full-on pin up to solve a rather flimsy plot problem. My favorite aspect of this strip is the photo-collage. Welcome to Budapest!
Okay, so now the assignment part: Students, please pick two of the prompts below.
Mistaken Identity
Faux Pas
Narrow Escape
Stormy Weather
Ugly Baby
First Date
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. From snow bunny to sunbathing surf-boarder
Work on two solutions for each prompt to create a three-panel strip. That is, four sketches of possible strips. Your job is capture a concept clearly and effectively, not to make a super finished version, so we can review and select one or two to take to finish. The sketches should be legible, but do not need to be fussed over.
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Out of style? There’s a fix for that! (Nice break in the frame between 1 and 2 to compress time.)
Have a blast. Please bring your sketches to class on Monday, November 18. Note: remember that you will have to pin them up, so if they are in a sketchbook, please photocopy them rather than tearing them out!
Pál Pusztai, Jucika. Undated. Okay, one more. It’s cold today! This seems fitting.