Possibly the most amazing comic strip of all time

According to Don Markstein, "It's been said that Milton Caniff, creator of Steve Canyon, Miss Lace and of course, Terry & the Pirates, is the Rembrandt of the comic strip. If that's the case, then Gustave Verbeek must be comics' M.C. Escher. No other cartoonist has ever so much as approached Escher's stunning imagination, or the meticulous care he put into constructing his maddeningly fascinating images."

What was he talking about? Take a good look at this picture...



Now look at this one...





Clever, huh? Imagine doing a half dozen of these that tell the first half of a story then can be rotated to tell the second half. Now imagine doing one of these a week for over a year.

The Upside-Downs by Gustave Verbeek ran in The New York Herald, from October 11, 1903 to January 15, 1905 and has been a topic for discussion by aficionados ever since.


















The good people at Barnacle Press have more adventure of Muffaroo and Lovekins.