Pokes & Jabbs by Rob Stone

Pokes & Jabbs by Rob Stone

Vim Comedies, their predecessor Wizard Comedies and their successor Jaxon Comedies all featured the comedy characters Pokes & Jabbs as their primary comedians. Embodied by Bobby Burns and Walter Stull, the acrobat and the man in plaid led a group of comedians including Oliver Babe Hardy, Billy Ruge, Myers & Theby, Kate Price and Marcel Perez in making some very funny films. These slapstick one-reelers were shot primarily in Jacksonville, Florida and Providence, Rhode Island. POKES & JABBS take a look at how Vim was created from the ashes of Wizard and how it morphed into Jaxon, and the films those studios made. It is a story repeated many times in early film history of a studio that was quickly created and with even more speed disappeared.

Published 2022. 7x10 softcover, 480 pages.

Rob Stone is a founding editor of The Journal of Visual Culture and an associate professor of critical and cultural studies at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. He worked as an Art History lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he founded the MA program in Aural and Visual Cultures as well as the Centre for Research Architecture. He has worked as a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.