Tom and Jerry’s Merry Christmas (1980s)
This Christmas-themed book featuring Tom and Jerry was first published in the Little Golden Books series in 1954. The story is by Peter Archer, the pictures by MGM Cartoons. Harvey Eisenberg and Samuel Armstrong are credited for the adaptation. Several editions followed over the decades, with various catalog numbers and changing cover designs. Shown here is an undated edition, from sometime after 1980.
The bold italic caps with shadow effect and initial swash M are from a typeface I haven’t seen in use before. It’s Fette Copra-Kursiv, Cooper Black’s brother from another mother, or, more precisely, its alternate italic from another foundry. After Oswald Cooper’s Cooper Black was issued by Barnhart Brothers & Spindler in Chicago in 1922, the design was licensed by Schriftguss AG vorm. Brüder Butter, a foundry in Dresden, Germany, who sold their version of it as Fette Cooper, or Cooper fett.
When the Germans wanted to add an italic to their library, they didn’t license BB&S’s for some reason – probably cost, but maybe also different design ideas – and rather cut their own version. Fette Copra-Kursiv (1929) is different from Cooper Black Italic (1926) in various details: some of the caps like H M N (but also r) have an uptick at the bottom right, A has a flat roof, G is bearded, t is pointed, g is single-story. The forms for V and W with vertical stems as well as the 7 with crossbar are more in tune with the German lettering tradition that was infused with blackletter traits. See also the visual comparison at the end of this post.
Fette Copra-Kursiv must have been adopted for phototypesetting at some point, but I don’t know which manufacturer takes credit for the revival and the apparent addition of swash alternates [edit: it’s Stefania, see the comments].
The title page features a bichromatic setting of Fette Copra-Kursiv in shaded caps. Credits are in ITC Souvenir (1970).
The text typeface is a peculiar one, too: it’s Icone, designed by Adrian Frutiger and issued by Linotype in 1980.
Spread from the Fette Copra-Kursiv specimen (Schriftguss, 1929). Tholenaar Collection, Letterform Archive
The book title in the phototype version of Fette Copra-Kursiv (top), compared to a resetting in Cooper Black Italic (Adobe’s digitization, bottom). In Schriftguss’s original foundry version, Y descends below the baseline.
4 Comments on “Tom and Jerry’s Merry Christmas (1980s)”
Some nice sleuthing on this rare but cool thing about this rare member of Cooper. I guess that the phototypesetting version of the display type used on the cover could be Stefania I guess?
Yes! That’s the missing link. Thanks, Jay. I have yet to find out where Stefania might have originated.
Stefania is shown in a Typeshop catalog from 1973 in three weights plus Outline and Shadow variants. That doesn’t necessarily mean it originated at this company, but at least we know that it was around this early. The same style range is also shown in Castcraft’s Enyclopedia of Phototype Styles from 1978. One shaded style is also shown in a FotoStar catalog published after 1981.
With the swashes and the extended style range, Stefania is distinct enough from Fette Copra-Kursiv. I have given it an entry on it own and adjusted the typeface credit for this post. Thanks again, Jay!
… aaand there now is a digital interpretation of Stefania. BN Rockies was released by Brandon Nickerson this week. I just wish he’d credit his source material, beyond “a retro display typeface”. Like, which showing did he work from?