There's a new book out of those "Love Is..." cartoons, you know, the horribly unfunny vestige of the 1970s with little naked children always doing lovey-dovey things. Think Precious Moments if the figurines were nudists.
I always kind of ignored those cartoons, but I happened upon a little history of the author. New Zealander Kim Grove fell in love with Italian Roberto Casali and would leave him these little lovey-dovey cartoons.
They married, she turned her doodles into a strip, they had two sons, all seemed perfect. But then they learned Roberto had incurable cancer. He died just four years into their marriage, and Kim was one of the first women to use sperm her husband had frozen to have another child, two years after his death. She had to go to the press with how and what she did since the procedure was so new and confusing, and she wanted it known that this son was her late husband's child.
Kim Grove Casali did not have a long life herself, dying of cancer in 1997 at just 55. One of her sons helps maintain the comic.
I may still roll my eyes when I see the little naked Love Is... people, but now I'll also be thinking of the little nude dudes as a young couple who had only less than a decade together before they were torn apart.
5 comments:
Some people must love those cartoons. The early books bring pretty good prices on eBay.
I know people have used the book for wedding vows.
I had no idea. Wow.
Have you been to London? They use Love Is... Cartoons for posters, asking people to be courteous on the tube/London Underground (i.e. stepping to the side on the escalator to let people pass, letting the elderly sit, etc).
Laura? If a naked child asked me to give my seat to an elderly person, I would do it. What a good idea someone had!
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