Discovering Talivaldis Stubis

I came by my love of cartoon modern in real-time as a baby boomer, and I was reminded of that recently when I picked up a copy of this 1967 book at a used book sale:


I had a paperback copy as a child (probably from a Scholastic sale) and I remember these illustrations and their style clearly:




I remember the way this hand was rendered particularly well.


The bending pencil is one of the few tricks in the book that I managed to master.

I didn't remember the illustrator's name, though: Talivaldis Stubis, who was a Latvian immigrant. According to one of his obituaries, he died in November 2009 after a long career that included designing Broadway posters for Funny Girl and Camelot:





His work for the 1962 book A Pocketful of Seasons looks delightful. And his illustrations for Real Science Riddles are particularly fun, attacking the gutter to create spreads like these:






I'm glad I have met Talivaldis Stubis and his work at this late date. I'll be on the lookout for more of it.