Nazi Ducks?

Fintan Taite sends us in another interesting post. This week it’s about a book he thought we might be interested in having a look at.

Kwik and Kwak by Oscar Fabres is an odd little slice of social history I found on eBay a couple of years back. The premise and artwork is so weird I couldn’t resist buying it.

The Book is charmingly inscribed by Fabres:

To Mr. and Mrs. Ian Kozendall, with our best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, Alice and Oscar Fabres, New York 1942

Published in 1942 by Crown Publishers in New York the plot such as it is, tells the story of two peace loving ducks who live an idyllic life in rural Holland. One day, menacing green ducks wearing strangely familiar uniforms fall from the sky. The nasty green ducks scare little Kwik and Kwak from their home. They escape by sea in their little boat which is soon sunk in a raging storm. Luckily the little ducks are rescued by a big passenger ship and Kwak becomes a hero by driving away the green ducks when they attack their rescue ship in a submarine. To cut a not very long story short, there’s a parade in New York in their honor. Kwik and Kwak settle down to a happy life on long Island with their six new born ducklings!

Oscar Fabres (1894-1960) was a Chilean illustrator and commercial artist. He studied art in Paris and settled in New York in 1940. A collection of his papers and works are held by the New York Historical society.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Books, History, Illustration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.