Here is an extremely rare large original WWI signed published comic illustration art complete 2-page story by celebrated illustrator Paul Desmond Brown (1893-1958) from 1918 about his arrival as a soldier in France (with three fellow soldiers); consisting of 17 sequential drawings laid out and pasted onto two 22" by 28" boards. Entitled An Old Dream. Signed Paul Brown, 1st Lieutenant Infantry, "one of the four." Notation on the side on reducing the image makes it clear that the comic was published (probably in a NY newspaper that year). A forgotten forerunner of Bill Mauldin's famous WWII comic art Up Front. Extremely rare early comic strip art, WWI visual reportage from the front line, and a rare collection of 17 drawings from the well-known artist. Paul Desmond Brown (1893 - 1958) was born in Minnesota. As a child, he filled sketchbooks with pencil drawings of horses. One of his teachers at the High School of Commerce described him thus: “no dreamy, sad eyed exotic type was he.... Just a plain, healthy American lad.. He had something very definite to say, and a very clear manner of saying it.” At 18, he left the school to start his own commercial art business. He worked steadily until the outbreak of World War I, when he served with the First Light Infantry Division. He finished the war at the front near St Mihiel in France, and escaped death by a hair’s breadth when a grenade missed him as he turned his head. He married Sallie Smith Brown in 1923, and they had three children. As Paul Brown’s success continued, he was often away from his family drawing equestrian events at first hand. After the war, Paul Brown set up as Black and White by Brown, continuing to do commercial illustration. He became a fixture at polo matches, helping to launch Polo magazine in 1927. Biscotti calls him “the first artist to accurately portray the polo pony in action”; it is perhaps fairer to call him the first American artist to do so. The English artist Gilbert Holiday, whom Guy Paget thought the most successful artist to tackle polo, was active at the same time. In the 1930s, Brown began to illustrate for Brooks Brothers. it was a successful arrangement on both sides. Brown said of his relationship with the firm: “we’ve never had an unpleasant word.” Winthrop H Brooks, Chairman of the Board of Brooks Brothers Inc thought Brown superb at horses and dogs; good at men but “we keep him away from women pretty much -- his women are not so hot, though he can do an occasional tweedy girl, or one in jodphurs.” It was during the 1930s that Paul Brown started to illustrate books; which he soon recognised as an excellent source of regular income. He wrote and illustrated 19 children’s books, 13 other books, and illustrated over 100 books by other authors. He retains an immense appeal. Robin Bledsoe explained his attraction thus: “Know your subject. Make every stroke tell a story or express a feeling. Show extremes of action in taut lines and diagonals. Balance the masses and spaces in your composition. Be spontaneous. Never copy.” But perhaps most important of all was Brown’s love of life, which still radiates through his drawings. 

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