The Captain's Gig

One old fifties newspaper review of a Virgil Franklin (VIP) Partch collection referred to him as “that sex cartoonist” for his work on various men’s magazines.

“Virgil Partch won world recognition as a cartoonist just before and during World War II, when his “VIP’s War” series in a national magazine endeared him to 9 ½ million fellow enlisted men, who, like Partch, never aspired to military grandeur beyond the rank of corporal. Since then, the famous “VIP” signature has become a trademark for inspired pen-and-ink lunacy converted to the level of fine art. Partch cartoons have long been familiar to readers of The Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, Look, Better Homes and Gardens, Cosmopolitan, Punch, Paris match, Maclean’s and more than 150 other outstanding magazines throughout the world.” - July 5, 1960.

Partch drew two comic strips, “Big George,” which began about May 23, 1960, and “The Captain’s Gig,” begun in 1977. Don Kurtz supplied the original letter and original sketches for The Captain’s Gig.