Friday, January 1, 2010

Addams and Evil. An introduction to the work of Charles Addams

When I was a little boy I enjoyed watching the weird, bizarre and funny TV series The Addams Family. What I didn't know at that time was that this series was based on the genius of the famous American cartoonist Charles 'Chas' Addams .
"Charles Samuel Addams ( January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters. Some of the recurring characters, who became known as The Addams Family, became the basis for two live-action television series, two cartoon series, and three motion pictures." (Wikipedia) There is also the recent The Addams Family new musical and Addamses: The Addams Family blog!



Chas Addams is still very popular today and inspires many modern cartoonists. People adhering the goth subculture would certainly like his work.

Let me show you some of his books. Jean-Marie helped me gathering the book covers.
I'll start with an example of the only Addams book I have in my collection: Addams and Evil (New York, 1965):





These are covers of other Chas Addams books:














Learn more:

Tee & Charles Addams Foundation (recommended)
Chas Addams & The Addams Family on Wikipedia
The Addams Family musical - sights and sounds (recommended)
The Addams Family Blog
Charles Addams book gallery on Pbase
Chas Addams cartoons

3 comments:

Topher Davila said...

Awesome post. I love Addams artwork and it also great in that I found two Addams books I don't own. I have all of them but didn't know about "Dear Dead Days" & "Black Maria".

Now I have the excitement of new books to find! thanks.

Jan said...

I'm very happy we could help you. I hope you'll find the books for your Addams collection.

Mike Lynch said...

Thanks, Jan, for the Addams links and those cover scans. I've posted links about this at my blog for sure! Happy New Year!