The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward
The enchanting story of a young boy with a shotgun who adopts a bear cub as a pet, and when it grows too big and difficult, sends it off to the zoo, (not too politically correct), but insanely beautifully drawn, and the expressions on the bear's face when it comes back to the farm after being dumped in the wilderness are incredibly brilliant. Nobody has expressed that feeling of pissed-off dissatisfaction and frustration better, not in the human world or the animal. Actually, I noticed recently it was the hipster artist thing to do to paint bears, good artists like Ryden and Woodring did it, and some mailing list I'm on that I didn't ask for and they never talked to me sent me some artist's work, and it was this, the ultimate bear, staring around the wall with that expression...I wrote back saying they had touched me at my childhood core, but didn't hear back, it's not like anyone wants to have their sources discovered.
But there is a bigger point, beyond my favorite book as a child...I found out years later that Lynd Ward was one of the key inventors of comic art! Ward's wordless novels in woodcut are masterpieces, I only discovered them later, but I will always be happy that the man's work was a part of my life from the start.
