
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Media: Eldon Dedini
This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 9 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great pinup art.

You know, I think I'm actually learning
quite a lot at my Mother's Knee, Mom.
Recently, we posted a group of Playboy cartoons by Erich Sokol. Today, we are featuring the work of Eldon Dedini.
Dedini started out as a staff cartoonist at Esquire in 1942, before coming to Hollywood to work in animation. He was a storyboard artist at Universal for a few years in the mid-1940s, and joined Disney as a story artist on "Mickey & the Beanstalk", "Ichabod and Mr Toad" and several Donald Duck shorts. He continued to do cartoons for Esquire during this period, and moved to the New Yorker in 1950. He began contributing cartoons to Playboy in 1960, joining Phil Interlandi, Jack Cole, Doug Sneyd and Erich Sokol. Dedini passed away at his home in Carmel, CA last December.
Chad Coyle was kind enough to lend us his collection of 1960s Playboys to digitize. We are working our way through the stack artist by artist. We'll bring you more featured Playboy cartoonists in a couple of weeks.

Shouldn't we be putting nuts away for the winter or something?

I hope nothing has happened to those two satyrs
who always surprise us at our bath.

What are 'morals'? Another one of your inventions?

Well, I've always looked at it as sort of
stockpiling the American Dream!

Well, I guess it just goes to prove that
not all God's children got rhythm.

Be sure to notice her dress. It's a topless.

It's become traditional. During the holidays
the country cousin visits the city cousin.

Hi!

Carl is always so interested in people

Terrific, eh? Each year we rent the old lady and come
out here and have a real underground Christmas.

Look at it this way- your medium is your message!

Wow! This is the most consciousness-expanding
plum pudding I've ever eaten!

Don't you find that some New Years
are harder to bring in than others?

Young man, you should be asleep!
If you enjoyed this post, check out these articles... Eldon Dedini Part Two (video interview!), Early Erich Sokol Cartoons, A Passel Of Sokol, Jack Cole And Other Great 50s Playboy Cartoonists, Little Annie Fanny Takes A Trip, Kurtzman & Elder's Little Annie Fanny, More Little Annie Fannie, Kurtzman Comic Books, Biography: Jack Davis, Doug Sneyd and Phil Interlandi, Early Interlandi Playboy Cartoons and Meet Doug Sneyd.
Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
6.06.08
.
Labels: eldon dedini, pinups, playboy


































10 Comments:
Absolutely stunning. Though tame by today's standard, but the humor is in a class by itself.
I completed a video interview with Dedini a few months before his death. It was shot at his Carmel CA studio in March 2005. Would like to send a DVD to the author of this site.
i love eldon stuff!!
cheers for posting them!
thanks so much for dedini's images...
he was superb
Eldon Dedini is one of the greatest American cartoonists of the 20th century. Let's hope that the forthcoming Fantagraphics retrospective is the first step in reminding our current generation of his importance. P.S. The scans on your site look beautiful!
Steve Gibson
www.filthymoods.com
Eldon Dedini was also famous for his Esquire magazine cartoon artwork. I shot video of him talking about this work shortly before his death. The Esquire art is unavailable, unless somebody out there has old issues of this magazine. Dedini's wife Virginia died six months after her husbands passing.
Eldon Dedini was commissioned by MGM to create original cartoons of Ava Gardner, Stewart Granger, and David Niven to be used in the 1957 promotional campaign for the movie, "The Little Hut." These cartoons appear on the movie poster. Does anyone know if they were published anywhere else?
JOHN SKILLIN
I met Eldon at a bar in San Jose. I was sketching, as I usually do. He sat down next to me and asked what I was doing. Sketching, I said. Why, he said. I want to be a cartoonist, I said, in playboy, or the new yorker. I have cartooned for playboy and the new yorker, he said. He went on to explain that he did the full page color cartoons in playboy and that his cartoons in the new yorker were mostly just two guys sitting in a bar....then he told me stories about working for disney, adding that the most important thing he learned was not to draw who the character was, but what the character was doing. jb.
Eldon was in a class all by himself! His humor was neverending; his generosity the same. I was blessed to spend many, many Thanksgiving and Christmas suppers with he, Virginia, Giulio, Elizabeth, Pat and all the rest of this wonderful family. RIP Eldon and Virginia. I love you both!
Fondly,
Debbie
Besides his great sense of humor, he drew some of the greatest looking cartoon women ever. Zaftig and voluptuous women, that's the style for me. Along with that, he has amazing control with watercolrs. It's simply breathtaking.
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