IT'S BETTER WITH YOUR SHOES OFF by Anne Cleveland PART ONE

Let's visit pre-anime, pre-Naruto Japan ...!


So, the year before Raymond Burr played "Steve Martin" in GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, this book of playful cartoons, IT'S BETTER WITH YOUR SHOES OFF, written and illustrated by Anne Cleveland, was published by the Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc. of Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo Japan.


"Here's a clever book filed with cartoons and punchy captions which recount the hilarious adventures of an American family during their semi-permanent residence in Japan," said the Honolulu Star Bulletin in its review.


Hanako-San is always laughing at "The Wests." Mrs West sports a flippy hairdo ala Catherina O'Hara in WAITING FOR GUFFMAN.

Above is our cast of characters. Hubby looks like a grown up frat boy Tintin.

I saw this book in an antique store near the Manchester, NH environs. I liked Cleveland's clean brush style. And I had never heard of her or the book, despite my copy being a 20th printing from 1970.
The above paragraph sums up the whole POV of the book. This is the Baby Boomer generation's Japan.
Some lovely layout, lettering and detail here. Easy to make fun of the content, but the form is solid.

Ooh! Lower right hand corner of page 11: is that proto manga the bespectacled teen is engrossed in?





Hanako-San: always laughing at us silly Americans!

Little information on Ms. Cleveland today. The venerable Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter has more bio information on her, a list of known books, here. And Mike Rhode mentions her in a response to Tom's essay.

There' s some more of this book to scan, and, if there's an interest, I will.

UPDATE: Gee whiz, there's interest! Part 2 is here.