Art: French Cartoonist in the U. S.

Oscar Fabrès has a Gallic wit, honed to an international cutting edge by cartooning in half the countries of the world. Last month short, balding Cartoonist Fabrès came to try his metal in the U. S. Last week his first impressions of life in Manhattan appeared in the New York World-Telegram. In his Adventures of Oscar, Oscar is himself, drawn much smaller than in his European comic strips. His explanation: “I am bewildered. I feel like a very little man in New York.” In one strip (see cut) he is frisked in & out of his overcoat by a tall, indifferent U. S. doorman.

No little man in France, Cartoonist Fabreès, 45, was onetime art editor of Le Petit Journal in Paris. He has globetrotted enough to feel that humor is everywhere much the same. The kind he likes is good-natured. Caption of his Scandal in a Nudist Colony: “They have put potatoes in jackets on our table! What fools!”

Flattering, if coy, is Foreigner Fabrès’ reason for visiting the U. S. Says he:

“. . . Time I die I come to Paradise. Dieu say to me, ‘Know you America?’ Then I must say, ‘Non.’ So He will say to me, ‘Alors, then you must go back.’ So now I come to America first.” He also offers a more reasoned reason: “In Europe it is rather annoying to live now.”