I never owned a Cluster Puzzle when I was kid, but it was carved into my memory as strongly as Mad Magazine and Wacky Packages. My best friend's family had one that they kept in a corner hutch in their kitchen. The two things I remember the most from those days, besides his mom's good cooking, was playing the Barnabas Collins Dark Shadows Game (those skeletons and that coffin were so cool!) and putting together this very strange picture puzzle illustrated with all kinds of bizarre characters.

About fifteen years later I'm at an outdoor antique market filled with hundreds of vendors displaying goods in a huge field. I looked down at one display and saw a small blue plastic box with a clear lid. I picked up the box. "I know you!" It was the Cadaco Cluster Puzzle No. 4 - "Make-Up". It's funny how things stay shoved in the back of your head and then get pushed right back up front again. It was even the same puzzle! I started collecting them online and today, I have a fairly complete collection with a couple rare items, variations, and all six from the original series.  But who was the master-mind behind these great puzzles?

Alex D. Palmer, engineering tool designer and technical artist, first conceived of his puzzles in 1964. The puzzles were similar to the interlocking artwork of M.C. Escher and tessellation art. Produced under the name Jumble-Fits, Palmer sold and manufactured the puzzles through his own corporation, Tek Method Company in Chicago, Illinois. He started out by going from store to store, contacting catalog distributors, and even enlisting his son Kelvin to sell them door-to-door. The business was very small with packaging and office functions all happening out of Palmer's home.

In 1966, he approached Cadaco, Inc., in Chicago about licensing his puzzles. Cadaco manufactured a wide variety of board games and puzzles. Palmer negotiated a distribution and royalty deal and, in 1966, Cadaco released Cluster Puzzles to the world with the original line-up of six puzzles: No. 1 - "Animals", No. 2 - "Figments", No. 3 - "Sports", No. 4 - "Make-Up", No.5 - "Doodles", and No. 6 - "Whimsies".

Each puzzle came with a humorous Hint Card that would help the puzzle-challenged individual figure out each scene. The Hint Cards were every bit as fun as the puzzles themselves! With wacky character names such as Alec Zandimer Plerp, Lumpy Long Dog, Erpfrog, Hairspray Harriet, Shmonster, and Mr. Lemonsuck, Alex Palmer created an entire world, not just a puzzle. These weren't puzzles that you put together and said, "That was fun. I'm done." No, once done, you looked at them again and again, studying each character and relishing all the details.

Throughout the remainder of the sixties up to 1988, Cadaco continued to produce and sell various incarnations of Palmer's Cluster Puzzles. Cadaco, like many other big toy companies, eventually was sold, subdued and now forever gone. There's a really good in-depth article about the history of Cadaco here.

Alex D. Palmer passed away at the age of 92 in 2013. His son Kelvin Palmer runs The A. Z. Plerp Company, a website devoted to the collecting and historical information of Cluster Puzzles. You can learn a lot there. He also offers for sale, a very informative and fully illustrated book, "The Collector's Guide To Cluster Puzzles of the 1960s and 1970s". If you want to learn more about these unique puzzles, see some original sketches and more, then pick up a copy of the book!

And remember, "intelligent adults can assemble the pieces in 30 minutes. Children 5 years old or more need only 15 minutes." Thank you, Alex D. Palmer, for putting some whimsy in the world.

You may not know him by name, but you know his work. Vernon Grant (April 26, 1902 – July 9, 1990) is the creator of the Kellogg’s characters Snap! Crackle! and Pop! In 1938, Life magazine called him "America's favorite children's artist." Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, his illustrations appeared on major magazines, cereal boxes, advertising and collectible premiums such as posters and books. It's these premiums which first made me aware of this great illustrator. I hope you enjoy this very brief introduction to the art of Vernon Grant.

Years ago I found a small Kellogg's Rice Krispies flip book at an antique market. "Fold yourself a lot of pictures" it read. It delivered on that promise. I was impressed by the whimsical art and the cleverness of the booklet. I bought it. There was a very distinctive signature on it - "Vernon Grant". I thought, "This is a guy I need to see more of." I love promotional giveaways and Grant's are among the best. Since then, I have added to this collection and am always looking for more of Grant's premiums.

Then I found Flibbity Jibbit, a promotional kids book that told the tale of a key-keeper, a king, and a little bird named Flibbity Jibbit. Their journey to find the key to unlock the door that held Junket's Rennet Powder for the king's custard party is told by Grant in an illustrated 32 page fairy tale. It was adorable! It also made me want to make some custard. I guess advertising really does work!

Grant's style is very economical and not overly rendered. He often makes use of three color tones to create volume with a dark, middle, and light. But more importantly, his drawings have character. A lamp is not just a lamp, it's full of personality. It feels as if even a shoe can be your friend in Vernon Grant's world.

His compositions make use of circles and solid shapes. Buildings and backgrounds can be bold and abstract in nature, similar to the German Expressionist movement of the 1920s and 1930s, creating a world full of dream-like twists and turns. He utilizes classic design principles of color and tone to keep the viewer focused on the center of interest. A signature look of his work is the use of solid color backgrounds, often black.

Today, these commercial premiums are in the form of activity books, not story books, with puzzles, games and coloring pages replacing story driven themes.

I'll be posting an article and samples of my work in this field of illustration sometime soon. In the meantime, to see a small selection of my illustrated kids premiums and books, please visit my website.

BOOKS I RECOMMEND

• Beyond Snap! Crackle! Pop! The Story of American Illustrator Vernon Grant - 2014 by Linda Williams
• Vernon Grant’s Mother Goose - 1998 by Harry N. Abrams.
• Vernon Grant’s Santa Claus - 2003 by Harry N. Abrams.

LINKS

• The Main Street Children’s Museum, Rock Hill, South Carolina
• www.VernonGrant.org
• Vernon Grant Book Sheds New Light On Famed illustrator Newspaper article with author Linda Williams.