Rerun: Golden Books

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts on the art of cartooning.



Every Saturday, we post one of the sections of our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA. You'll get a chance to revisit posts you might not have had time to fully explore and discover gems that you might have missed the first time around. Click away! -Steve

GOLDEN BOOKS
Over the past six months, we've collected and digitized an amazing library of images from the classic Golden Books of the 1940s through the 60s. Some of the finest artists in the business worked for Western Publishing on this series, including Gustaf Tenggren, Mel Crawford, Mary Blair and J.P. Miller. We are still working on digitizing the collection donated to us by John Kricfalusi, but so far, we have scanned the following books...

Tibor Gergely: A Day In The Jungle / Gustaf Tenggren: The Little Trapper / Mary Blair's Baby's House, Little Verses Part One and Part Two, The New Golden Song Book Part One, Part Two & Part Three / Al White: Rocky & His Friends & Huck Hound Builds A House / Mel Crawford: Rootie Kazootie Joins The Circus / 50s & 60s Album Covers Part One and Part Two / Early 50s Disney Christmas Cards / Disney's Uncle Remus Stories Part One and Part Two

HOW MUCH IS THIS WORTH TO YOU?

Please donate whatever you can to support this important project. Your generosity is what keeps the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive going. If you aren't financially able to contribute or if you already made a donation, please tell your friends about the Archive Project Blog. Link to this post from your website or blog, tell everyone you know about the ten good reasons to contribute to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Tangent: Live The Fabulous Lifestyle Of A Hollywood Cartoonist

John Kricfalusi posted a blistering post this morning about popular culture and the upside down meaning of the words "liberal" and "conservative" today. If you haven't read it yet, check it out. Here is my own take on a similar theme...

LIVE THE FABULOUS LIFESTYLE OF A HOLLYWOOD CARTOONIST

The other day, a student at Woodbury volunteered to help build out our database. His name is Jo-Jo. He told me how much this blog, along with Eddie Fitzgerald's and John K's, has opened his eyes to how great cartoons were in the 30s, 40s and 50s. He had a sketchbook full of Preston Blair drawings and enthusiasm for Fleischer, MGM and Warner Bros cartoons. So I asked him what kinds of music he listens to...

"David Bowie mostly."

My jaw hit the floor. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I gave Jo-Jo the best tip he'll ever get...

Cartoons aren't the only things that were better back in the first half of the 20th century.

Mike Fontanelli stopped by later and pointed out that somebody should write a book titled "The Golden Age of Everything". Sure, there are things today that are incredibly great... computers, the internet, iPods, frost-free refrigerators, etc... but music, dance, illustration, writing, movies and cartoons were all better back then. Cartoonists should be aware of this, and they should absorb all of the greatness of the past. It will make them better cartoonists.

Today, I'm going to talk about music...



I know that someone out there is going to post a comment saying that there's still great music being made, it just isn't mainstream. I'm fully aware of the fact that there are talented musicians working today. But in the 30s through the 50s, incredible talent was a given. Performers, from the top of the heap to the bottom- from most popular to least- were all capable of making you do a double take and say "wow!".

When I ask kids what kinds of music they listen to, I usually get the response, "All kinds." But "all kinds" usually turns out to mean a million shades of the same color... current rock music. There are so many names today for the same kind of music. For the life of me, I can't tell the difference between rave, techno and electronica. In the past, there really were a million kinds of music... pop vocals, hot jazz, country western, big band swing, folk, rhythm & blues, bluegrass, mambo, dixieland, rock n' roll, sweet orchestral, be bop...

I could talk for hours about this subject, but the best proof is seeing what I'm talking about...

JAZZ
Lucky Millinder & Sister Rosetta Tharpe
"Four Or Five Times" (Soundie/1941)
(Quicktime 7 / 5.5 megs)

COUNTRY MUSIC
Larry Collins & Joe Maphis
"Under The Double Eagle" (Tex Ritter's Ranch Party/1959)
(Quicktime 7 / 5 megs)

THE BLUES
Leadbelly
"Gray Goose" "Pick A Bale Of Cotton"(1950s)
(Quicktime 7 / 10 megs)

POPULAR MUSIC
Les Paul & Mary Ford
"The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" "Amuka Riki" (Grand Old Opry/1959)
(Quicktime 7 / 12 megs)

If you are a student planning to be a professional cartoonist, listen to music that relates to your work- read books that inspire cartoony ideas- watch movies to learn cinematic techniques that can be applied to cartooning- LIVE THE FABULOUS LIFESTYLE OF A FAMOUS HOLLYWOOD CARTOONIST!

By the way... Jo-Jo is a big Fats Waller fan now!

Let me know in the comments if you'd like more posts about other tangential subjects related to cartoons.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

1.27.09
.

Stumble It!

Comics: Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Dailies

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 2 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about comics.


Today, we have an exciting post for you... original artwork by Milton Caniff for the Steve Canyon newspaper strip.


Archive supporter, John Ellis is working with the family of Milton Caniff on a DVD release of the live action Steve Canyon television series, which debuted in September of 1958 on NBC. In searching through the family's collection of memorabilia, John stumbled across a batch of original inks of daily and Sunday pages that the family didn't realize that they had. The estate of Milton Caniff has generously allowed the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive to digitize the material for inclusion in our cartoon database.


John Ellis has been doing considerable research into Caniff and Steve Canyon. I asked him to write a few words about Caniff...

Milton Caniff has been referred to as "The Rembrandt of the Comic Strip", and oft by himself as "an Armchair Marco Polo", but in fact this whirlwind of a comic strip innovator and writer was essentially a sincerely nice man who loved to draw. Yes this gentleman born in Hillsboro Ohio in 1907 created and drew Terry and The Pirates from 1934 to 1946, which absolutely set the standard for the adventure comic strip. True, he raised the bar with Steve Canyon, which unlike Terry, he owned lock stock and barrel from the first daily strip in January 1947 through to June 1988, the final installment published shortly after his death. Absolutely he worked rain or shine, seven days/strips a week for 54 years, even from his hospital bed, the deadlines never ended.

Milton Caniff in his studio ca. 1947
(click for a larger view)

But beyond the art and dedication, what is true is that I've never heard an unkind word in his regard. His nephew Harry Guyton can't even remember Milton ever losing his temper. My friend David Haft, who produced the NBC Steve Canyon primetime TV series in 1958, made a comment as we watched Milton on a vintage filmclip promoting the series recently. He said "Lovely, lovely man". Happy 100th birthday Milton.

John Ellis
Hollywood, 2007

This is the first of several posts featuring the Caniff Collection. Make sure to click on the images to see high resolution versions. Caniff's amazing adventure strip from the late 40s has never looked better!
















If you enjoyed this post, see... Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One- Meet The Men Behind the Comics and Part Two- Studying Comic Strips, Dan Gordon's Superkatt, Rube Goldberg's Side Show and Alex Toth Model Sheets

STEVE CANYON TV SHOW

For info on the Steve Canyon TV show DVD, see... www.stevecanyondvd.blogspot.com

STEVE CANYON AT AMAZON

Fantagraphics has a great book on Caniff's career, and Checker has released year by year reprints of the classic Steve Canyon strip. Caniff was a master storyteller, and the first few years of Steve Canyon are examples of his genius at the height of its powers. Click on the pictures for more info.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

"Steve Canyon" is a Registered Trademark of the Milton Caniff Estate.
© 2007 Milton Caniff Estate. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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Story: The Greatest Cartoon Writer Of All Time

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts featuring animation art.



The other day, a discussion on cartoon writing erupted in response to recent posts on the subject in John Kricfalusi's blog. One of John's main points is that the golden age cartoons that we all regard as the greatest cartoons ever created were written by cartoonists as storyboards, not written in words as scripts. In support of his argument, he presented video clips of Walt Disney and Walter Lantz discussing the qualifications of the people who wrote their cartoons. (See also, Page 5 of the 1938 Disney Training Manual).

The scriptwriters dismissed John K's points as old fashioned and irrelevant to the current scene, while expressing respect of a general sort for the classic cartoons of the past. They claimed that it was just a matter of John's personal tastes, not a reflection on the effectiveness of the process itself. They never seemed to address the fact that prior to 1960 stories for cartoons weren't created and developed with words in script form- they were drawn. In listening to these arguments by current cartoon scriptwriters, I began to wonder how much they really knew about the process used to make the classic cartoons they expressed respect for. I posed a simple question...

Who was your favorite golden age cartoon writer?

It's a fair question- one that I've heard animators discuss and argue about on many occasions. Surely current cartoon writers would have golden age writer heros, just like animators study golden age animators like Milt Kahl or Grim Natwick...


Disney story man, Joe Rinaldi
But none of the scriptwriters participating in the discussion could name a single golden age cartoon writer. The only names they could mention were other current scriptwriters, or novelists, journalists and live action screenwriters who worked in totally different media. They had no idea who pioneered their profession and the process these people used to create cartoons for nearly half a century. To be fair, this sort of ignorance of the history of our craft isn't just limited to writers. I've heard the same sort of admissions of ignorance from producers and directors, as well as artists and animators.

Here is an example of a story by my favorite golden age story man... Warren Foster.

Warren Foster is responsible for writing many of the greatest cartoons ever made... He started as a gag man on Fleischer's Popeye series in New York, and moved West in 1938 to join Bob Clampett at Warner Bros. He wrote a string of classic cartoons... "Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs", "Birdy And The Beast", "Falling Hare", "Baby Bottleneck", "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery", and perhaps Bugs Bunny's most shaded performance, "Tortoise Wins By A Hare".

After Clampett's departure from the studio, he wrote for McKimson ("Gorilla My Dreams", "Easter Yeggs", "The Foghorn Legorn") and Freleng ("Ballot Box Bunny", "Bugs And Thugs", "Birds Anonymous"). Freleng said that Foster was the best story man he ever worked with. In the TV era, Foster wrote episodes of Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, The Jetsons and The Flintstones.

Here is a storyboard by Foster from his days at Hanna-Barbera. This is a model of clarity and simplicity, designed to meet the stringent economics imposed on TV animation at the time. This is a board from the pilot episode of The Yogi Bear Show.

















WHAT ABOUT ADVENTURE SHOWS
AND COMIC STRIPS?

In his article, "Detour Guide For An Armchair Marco Polo", master comic strip storyteller, Milton Caniff writes...

There has been a tendency recently for artists to automatically assume they cannot write their own stories because they see so many double by-lines. I contend that any man who can invent pictures can invent situations and dialogue. In fact, it should be easier for the artist to pilot his own action because he is not likely to write himself into one of those undrawable dilemmas in manuscripts about which illustrators have complained for years. --Milton Caniff

Sound familiar?

I'm working on a series of illustrated articles on how cartoons were written in the "golden age". For the first four installments, see...

WRITING CARTOONS

Part One- The Gag Session
Part Two- A Continuity Emerges
Part Three- Structure
Part Four: The Rough Board

If you found this post to be interesting, see also... Ren & Stimpy: Big House Blues Part One, Part Two and Part Three / The Alvin Show: The Whistler Storyboard / Chad's Design For Television / Ren & Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention Part One and Part Two / Charlie McElmurry's Year Of The Tiger Storyboard.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

2.23.08
.

Stumble It!

Rerun: Comics

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts on the art of cartooning.



Every Saturday, we post one of the sections of our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA. You'll get a chance to revisit posts you might not have had time to fully explore and discover gems that you might have missed the first time around. Click away! -Steve

VINTAGE NEWSPAPER COMICS AND COMIC BOOKS
Along with our Archive Alliance member, Digital Funnies and comic collector Kent Butterworth, we've brought you some wonderful newspaper strips, magazine cartoons, and comic books, many of which have never been reprinted. Here is just a small sampling of the material we've added to the archive database...

The Father of Cartooning: T. S. Sullivant / Virgil Partch: Here We Go Again & Man The Beast / Milt Gross: Cartoon Tour of New York, Sunday Pages Part One, Part Two and Part Three / Cliff Sterrett: Polly And Her Pals / Hanna-Barbera: Huckleberry Hound Weekly / Harrison Cady: Bird's Eye Views / Jim Tyer: Funny Animal Comics / Basil Wolverton: Powerhouse Pepper / Boody Rogers: Babe Comics Part One, Part Two & Part Three / Rube Goldberg's Side Show / Milt Stein's Supermouse Comics No. 4 / Dan Gordon's Superkatt / Milton Knight's Great Brown-Pericord Motor / Harvey Eisenberg's Foxy Fagan 1946

HELP US GROW

Please donate whatever you can to support this important project. Your generosity is what keeps the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive going. If you aren't financially able to contribute or if you already made a donation, please tell your friends about the Archive Project Blog. Link to this post from your website or blog, tell everyone you know about the ten good reasons to contribute to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Illustration: Kent Donates Colliers

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for more jaw dropping examples of classic illustration.



Yesterday, we had a wonderful surprise. Archive supporter Kent Butterworth stopped by lugging eight huge bound volumes under his arm. They were library copies of Colliers magazine from the late 1940s and early 1950s. He donated them to our library so folks who stop by can browse the amazing illustrations and cartoons. Thanks, Kent!

Here are a few images from the June 5th, 1948 issue... Check out the amazing illustrations for mundane products like outboard motors and golf balls! Magazines today can't compare.












You'll want to make a point of stopping by the archive to check these books out.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Pinups: Eldon Dedini's Satyrs and Nymphs

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 can't beat Christmas in the country.
A while back, we posted a group of Playboy cartoons by Eldon Dedini. Today, we present more of this artist's amazing work, along with a video interview of Dedini in his studio discussing how he got his start.

Eldon Dedini is best known for his magazine cartoons from Esquire and Playboy. But early in his career, he was an editorial cartoonist for local newspapers, and a story man for Walt Disney.

Archive supporter, Ken Kearney lives close to the Monterey area, where Dedini lived and worked for many years. In 2005, he produced an interview video, which he generously donated to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive for our biographical database. Here is a clip from Ken's video where Dedini tells how he got started as a cartoonist and his experiences as a story man with Disney on Fun & Fancy Free and Donald Duck cartoons like Dumbell of the Yukon.



Eldon Dedini Interview (Ken Kearney/2005)
(Quicktime 7 / 14.2 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

DEDINI IN PLAYBOY
Here is a feature on Dedini's famous "Satyr & Nymph" comics from Playboy, followed by some higher resolution images of individual cartoons...







We forgot the picnic basket!


I'd like you to meet my father,
but I don't dare. You know how
even old satyrs are!


It's not that I didn't believe in Santa Claus-
It's just that you've shattered my image
somehow...
For more info on the great cartoonists who worked for Playboy in the 1960s, see these posts... Eldon Dedini Part One, Erich Sokol, Kurtzman & Elder's Little Annie Fanny, Doug Sneyd and Phil Interlandi.

If you're a fan of Dedini, you will want to get Fantagraphic's great book, An Orgy Of Eldon Dedini. It comes with a DVD documentary called "Dedini: A Life In Cartoons" Check it out!

I'm not sure if Ken is offering these for sale, but if you would like to inquire about ordering a DVD of Ken Kearney's Dedini interview, email, kenkearneystudios@hotmail.com.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

2.10.09
.

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Meta: Visit The Archive

Gary Francis and David Hofmann study
"Popeye The Sailor With Betty Boop" (1933)
The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is open Tuesday through Friday from 1pm to 9pm. Our resources are available to the public at no charge. If you live in Los Angeles and you haven't visited the archive yet, you are missing out!

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
818.842.4691

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Illustration: N. C. Wyeth's Legends of Charlemagne

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for more jaw dropping images from classic illustrated books.


Today, we digitized a beautiful first edition of Bulfinch's "Legends of Charlemagne" illustrated by N. C. Wyeth. No illustrator of the golden age had a wider influence on the world of art than Wyeth. His son, Andrew Wyeth became a reknowned fine artist, and many of his other children and grandchildren became artists and musicians as well.

Wyeth studied under illustrator Howard Pyle, and quickly made a name for himself. His first published art was a cover for the Saturday Evening Post, a plum job right off the bat. In his early days, he was known as a Western artist. He travelled West to soak up the landscape. The trip resulted in a portfolio of images of Indians that vividly capture the light and spirit of the Old West.

Wyeth is best known for his book illustrations though. In 1911, he painted 16 color plates for Scribner's edition of Stevenson's "Treasure Island". It remains the classic version of the book. Wyeth was incredibly prolific over the next decade or so, "Treasure Island" was followed by "Kidnapped", "The Black Arrow", "The Boy's King Arthur" and many more. The book we are presenting today was published in 1924 by David McKay. It displays Wyeth at the top of his form. Even the endpapers are beautiful!












If you enjoyed this post, see... Maxfield Parrish's Arabian Nights, Frank Reynolds Paints Pickwick, John Bauer's Bland Tomtar Och Troll, Edmund Dulac's Tanglewood Tales and Gustaf Tenggren's Wonderbook

I'll be back with more great stuff later this week.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

1.23.09
.

Stumble It!

Rerun: Animation Art

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts on the art of cartooning.



Every Saturday from now on, I'll be posting one of the sections of our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA. You'll get a chance to revisit posts you might not have had time to fully explore and discover gems that you might have missed the first time around. Click away! -Steve

ANIMATION ART
Not surprisingly, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has one of the most extensive collections of animation artwork in the world- material from every studio and era, from the earliest silent cartoons all the way through current television productions. Our focus is on artwork not archived elsewhere... drawings and cels from 1950s commercial animation houses, extinct New York studios and obscure cartoon producers from the golden age of cartoons. Here is just a small sampling of our collection...

Mike Lah and Quartet Films / Ray Patin Studios Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six / Vincent Waller Spumco Drawings / Herb Klynn's Unmade Animated Feature / Ralph Bakshi Phone Doodles / Katie Rice's Designs / Chuck Jones Layouts / Grim Natwick's Post UPA Commercials / Early 50s UPA Model Sheets / Reluctant Dragon and Pinocchio Model Sheets / Jules Engel's Alvin Show Color Keys / Model Sheets by Hurter and Thorson, Mice and Duck Model Sheets, and More Disney Model Sheets / Artwork from Disney's Bambi / Terrytoons Model Sheets / Herb Klynn's Pitch For The Shrimp / MGM Animation Drawings / Alex Toth Model Sheets

HELP US GROW

Please donate whatever you can to support this important project. Your generosity is what keeps the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive going. If you aren't financially able to contribute or if you already made a donation, please tell your friends about the Archive Project Blog. Link to this post from your website or blog, tell everyone you know about the ten good reasons to contribute to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Volunteer: Thanks Gemma! / Sign Up To Help Build Out The Database

Three Cheers For Gemma!


ASIFA-Hollywood President, Antran Manoogian gets a demo of the Animation Archive Database from Intern, Gemma Ross
If you have visited the Archive over the past couple of months, you've gotten to know our intern, Gemma Ross. She's an animation student from Dartmouth, who decided to take a break from school to come out to Los Angeles to help us design and build our Archive Database. Today is Gemma's last day with us. The database structure is all built out and she has done a fantastic job of taking my structural concepts and making them a functioning reality. We all appreciate how much help Gemma has been over the past couple of months and we will miss her. Thanks Gemma!

WE Need YOUR Help!

Now it's up to our crew of dedicated volunteers to enter the thousands of images and media files into the database and specify all the cross links. If you want to help out, you'll get a front row seat to the action before anyone else has a crack at it as a beta tester/data entry volunteer. If you have a little bit of knowledge of animation, and have some time during the week (Tuesday through Friday anytime between 1pm and 9pm), drop me an email at...

sworth@animationarchive.org

...and let me know your availability.

You Don't Have To Live In The Area To Help

We need internet volunteers to help build out the biographical sketches in our Biopedia. If you have some time to do some simple html formatting of entries, or if you would like to do the research to write a biography of one of the names on our list, let me know.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Chris Allison Writes

Chris Allison writes in his blog, Katzenjammer Studios: Think Tanked about his first visit to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive...

Talk about the sweetest place ever. There are tons of old drawings all over the walls (which all these studies I'm posting are from), cases of Spumco storyboards including cartoons that were never made, and fully grown (yup, you heard me) FULLY GROWN ADULTS were sitting around watching old Oswald the Rabbit cartoons, laughing out loud...

Read the rest of Chris' post...

If you live in Los Angeles and you haven't stopped by the Archive yet, you are missing out! The Archive's hours are Tuesdays through Fridays from 1pm to 9pm.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Cartooning: Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Two

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.



BLONDIE, BRINGING UP FATHER, HENRY, MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN, DICK TRACY, GASOLINE ALLEY, PRINCE VALIANT... Studying The Comics Pages

We continue with the section on newspaper cartoonists from Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning 1950. Today, there are three articles on how to get fresh ideas, Byrnes goes through the newspaper analyzing the appeal of various comic strips, and Chic Young and Hal Foster are featured.

HOW TO GET IDEAS
By Dana Coty
I don't have much information on Dana Coty (Dec. 19, 1901 - March 19, 1962) aside from the fact that he worked at Disney in the mid-30s, and was a story man at Famous Studios.



J. N. Darling (Ding)
on EDITORIAL IDEAS
"Ding" Darling was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist for the Sioux City Journal, The Des Moines Register, the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Globe. His editorial cartoons dealing with conservation causes were a staple of the opinion sections of many papers for decades. He passed away in 1962.



IDEAS FOR ADVERTISING CARTOONS
By Sam Cobean
Sam Cobean was an inbetweener on Snow White, barely surviving on $16 a week, when he joined the strikers fighting for the creation of the Screen Cartoonists Guild. After returning to work when the contract was settled, Sam realized that Disney was not the place for him and took a job as a copy boy at the Washington Post. There, he developed an interest in political cartoons. During the war, he worked in a unit producing training cartoons and pamphlets along with cartoonist Charles Addams. Addams introduced him to the editor of the New Yorker, and Cobean's cartoons appeared there for many years afterwards. In 1950, he created a book of cartoons, titled "Cobean's Naked Eye" which was a bestseller. He died in a car accident in 1951.



STUDIES OF COMIC STRIPS
In this section, Gene Byrnes analyzes the style and appeal of various contemporary newspaper comics. The most interesting thing about the strips he features is the high level of draftsmanship, and the diverse variety of styles and approaches to the medium. Newpaper comics were once considered the pinnacle of cartooning... but today, they have plunged to its nadir. Comparing Prince Valiant to Drabble or Bringing Up Father to Cathy is a depressing task. It's shameful that so great an artform has been allowed to deteriorate so far. I hope there are aspiring cartoonists out there who are willing to take up the difficult task of restoring the comics page to its rightful place in American culture again. This overview is a good place to start investigating the forgotten art of newspaper cartooning.








SUNDAY PAGES
Featuring Chic Young & Hal Foster


Chic Young was born in 1901 and began his career as a newspaper cartoonist in 1923. His first strip for King Features was Dumb Dora and in 1930, he created the strip, Blondie, one of the longest running newspaper comics of all time. He drew it until he passed away in 1973, and his son, Dean continues to write it to this day. Blondie was hugely successful and spawned film and TV adaptations.



Hal Foster was raised in the wilds of Halifax, Nova Scotia where he was an avid boater and outdoorsman. He dropped out of school in the ninth grade and began a course of self education studying sketching and anatomy. He set art aside to become a hunting guide and gold prospector, but at age 28, he decided to devote his life to a career in art. He received classical training at the Chicago Art Institute, the National Academy of Design and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In 1927, he was contracted to do a comic strip adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes. 1n 1937, Foster introduced an original property, Prince Valiant, the most successful adventure strip of all time. Foster produced the strip for over 40 years, passing away in 1982.




Other artists featured in this section are Jimmy Hatlo, Otto Soglow, George McManus, Chester Gould and Frank King... all worthy of spending a few minutes Googling and reading up on.






The posts I present here at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog aren't intended to be the last word on any subject, particularly one as large and multifaceted as the history of cartooning. My hope is that you use these posts as a springboard for your own investigation. Take the names and examples I present here and start searching the web for more... scour bookstores and flea markets... and expand your frame of reference beyond just what is presented here. I wish I had a source of "hot tips" like this when I was first starting out. Take advantage of this great resource we're building.

Many thanks to Marc Crisafulli and David King for sharing this great book with us.

If you found this post to be interesting, see... Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One: The Men Behind The Newspaper Comics

Also see... Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part One: The History of Animation, Part Two: The Cartoon Studios, Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate. Also, see... Willard Mullen on Animals.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Join Our Mailing List And Never Miss Out

Just a quick reminder for everyone to join our email newsletter list. Every two weeks, we send out a newsletter with a capsule feature on each one of our main blog posts, so you never miss a single one.

Here's a sample newsletter that went out recently...

Click To Sign Up Now!

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Pinups: Kurtzman and Elder's Little Annie Fanny

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.



Over the weekend, an Archive Supporter stopped by to donate his collection of vintage Playboy magazines to the Archive. He mentioned that there was no need to thank him by name on the blog, his wife would be pleased that they were given away. He plans to proudly tell her that he donated his collection to a museum!

Some people have asked why we've featured Playboy cartoons by artists like Erich Sokol and Eldon Dedini. The answer is simple... Playboy employed some of the top cartoonists of the 50s and 60s. Their work exemplifies all of the attributes of good design.

Today, we are featuring the work of two giants of cartooning... Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder.

Harvey Kurtzman made a name for himself in his early years with the one page "Hey Look!" comics, as well as his work editing EC Comics' war comics. His style was detailed and thorough. His layouts and continuity breakdowns left little room for deviation. When EC decided to create a humor line, Kurtzman was assigned the job as the founding editor of Mad. Beginning as a ten cent comic book, and eventually switching to a twenty five cent magazine (to avoid review by the Comics Code Authority), Mad became a huge hit in the five years it was under Kurtzman's leadership. Much of the sensibilities of Kurtzman's work for Mad are shared by "Little Annie Fanny" for Playboy.

Will Elder worked as an artist under Kurtzman at EC and on Mad, expanding and elaborating on Kurtzman's detailed layouts. They were a great team, and the combination of Kurtzman's foreground action and Elder's background gags became a standard device for them throughout their collaborations. Other artists who worked on the "Little Annie Fanny" series were Jack Davis, Russ Heath and Al Jaffee (all former Mad alumni).

The "Little Annie Fanny" series debuted in the October 1962 issue of Playboy magazine. The comic was a parody of the Playboy image itself, vaguely based on the "Little Orphan Annie" theme, with lots of topical references and pokes at popular culture. The strip was the first fully painted comic in American magazines, and was very time consuming to produce. Kurtzman continued the series until 1988- its 100th episode- when he retired it, stating that all of the possible story ideas for the character had been exhausted.

January 1963






April 1964






March 1966




Check out these great "Little Annie Fanny" collections at Amazon.com!

We'll have more great Playboy cartoons for you soon.

If you enjoyed this post, see... Eldon Dedini Part One, Part Two (video interview!) and Part Three, Jack Cole And Other Great 50s Playboy Cartoonists, Jack Cole Valentine, Little Annie Fanny Takes A Trip, More Little Annie Fannie, Biography: Jack Davis, Early Erich Sokol Cartoons, A Passel Of Sokol, and More Sokol, Doug Sneyd and Phil Interlandi, Early Interlandi Playboy Cartoons and Meet Doug Sneyd.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

5.15.08
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Animation Art: Alex Toth Model Sheets

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts featuring animation art.



Alex Toth passed away last year at the age of 77. Along with Will Eisner and Jack Kirby, Toth is considered one of the giants of adventure comics. Today's post is just the first of several on this important artist. Toth began his career at age 15, creating illustrations for Heroic magazine. He graduated from the High School of Industrial Arts in 1947, and soon was working at DC Comics on The Flash, Green Lantern and The Atom. He left DC in 1952 and was drafted into the Army in 1954.

After his stint in the service, he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for Dell on the highly regarded Zorro comics. In 1960, he joined Hanna-Barbera as a designer and storyboard artist on Space Angel, Jonny Quest, Herculoids and Super Friends. His designs for these shows are masterful and imaginative.

The pity is that the actual animation on these shows isn't even close to being in the same league. Realistic designs like these are very difficult to animate, and require a draftsman of Toth's calibre to be able to pull off convincingly. But the late 60s was the wrong time for such a challenge. Hanna Barbera was in a mad race with Filmation to see who could put out the cheapest factory-made programming on the tightest schedule. Toth's imagination and skill were left behind in the dust. Instead of respecting what could have been, Toth's designs are now taken completely out of context and subjected to ridicule in current TV programs.

Archive supporter, Kent Butterworth brought us a few original Toth drawings to digitize, and I've supplemented them with some xeroxes belonging to the family of Carlo Vinci.

















If you found this post to be interesting, see also... Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning, Maxfield Parrish's Arabian Nights, Lotte Reineger's Prince Achmed Part One and Part Two and The Wan Brothers.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

1.22.09
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Blogs: Research Roundup 3.13.07

Al Capp's Hard Hats
(Jeffrey's Goof Button)

Walt Stanchfield's Gesture Drawing For Animation
(Leo Brodie's Punch & Brodie)

Pinocchio Drafts
(Hans Perk's A. Film L.A.)

I. Klein on Charlie Bowers Part One / Part Two / Part Three
(Michael Sporn's Splog)

Virgil Partch's The Captain's Gig
(Allan Holtz's Stripper's Guide)

Bobe Cannon Commercial
(Amid Amidi & Jerry Beck's Cartoon Brew)

1943 Article On George Pal Puppetoons
(Amid Amidi & Jerry Beck's Cartoon Brew)

Hollywood Censors Its Animated Cartoons 1939
(Amid Amidi & Jerry Beck's Cartoon Brew)

Peter Pan Sweatbox Notes
(Tinker Bell's Sacred Tree of the Aracuan Bird)

Carlo Vinci: Slow But Sure
(John K's All Kinds of Stuff)

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Opinion: Chuck Jones on Modern Animation

Here's an interesting series of quotes from the program notes for a 1964 ASIFA screening posted on Mark Mayerson's blog...

The animator today is supplying a number of drawings, as few as possible in support of a soundtrack, as tightly packed with dialogue as possible. Today's TV cartoon show can accurately be identified as visual radio. The proof is quickly at hand. Turn off the picture and listen. If you can follow the story at all, you are listening to radio and the picture is only there to justify it being on TV in the first place- a more acceptable medium in this cultured world. If you can turn the sound off, and follow such action, the chances are you are watching a good, if old movie on TV. The effect is basically visual, not auditory. If it is an animated cartoon and you can follow such action, you are probably watching either the Walt Disney show, the Bugs Bunny show, old MGM cartoons or products of the Golden Age of Animation, where the accent was on full animation.

Pantomime can only be successful by full animation- animation pure, animation simple, it is impossible to fake. You must have an educated animator, one who has done what is neccessary to become an animator, and that is a ten year minimal stint as assistant animator, junior animator, journeyman animator and perhaps master animator. It is difficult to become a competent actor, but it is more difficult to become an animator. He must be able to DRAW action, whether it be an elephant, a housefly, a pterodactyl, or a sugar-plum fairy.

The tragic aspect of all this is contained in the realization that there is no master animator in this country or perhaps in the world who is under 40, and most are over 50. Unless there is a resurgence of demand for animation, all the able artists will be gone and a great craft with a great potential will perish too. But if, perhaps, we are doomed to extinction, we will at least know the logic of why we go to join the dodo, the giant ground sloth, the pterodactyl and the whooping crane- all of these animals were obviously invented by animators in the first place.

Which brings me to the "Dinosaur" part of this little paper. I decided that if animators, like dinosaurs, were becoming extinct, then I would face it cheerfully, but sink into oblivion in character. I would rather die as a dinosaur than live as a fox. The spastic cut-outs of today's "animation" are for those who can stomach them, but do not, I ask you, disgrace a great craft by calling what you do "modern" and do not call yourselves "animators". It is a proud name and should be reserved for those who find pride in it. -Chuck Jones, 1964

Read the rest of the article by Chuck Jones.

Stephen Worth
Director

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Biography: The Father of Cartooning- T. S. Sullivant

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.



T. S. Sullivant is one of the most important cartoonists in the history of the medium. He pioneered many of the elements of anthropomorphism that we now take for granted. The general public may not be familiar with his name, but animators sure appreciate his work. (See Eddie Fitzgerald's first article on Sullivant and his second.) The influence of Sullivant's animals (along with the work of Heinrich Kley...) can be seen in many of the Disney features.

Sullivant was born in 1854, and didn't begin cartooning professionally until the age of 32. His cartoons appeared in Life and Puck during the 1890s, and in Judge around the turn of the century. William Randolph Hearst signed him to an exclusive contract in 1904, and his mastheads populated by cartoony animals appeared on the top of the Hearst comics pages until 1907. Sullivant returned to Life magazine in 1911, and remained there until his death in 1926.

Sullivant's pen and ink style doesn't really suit itself for reproduction on a computer screen, but I have made large versions available of all of these images. Just click on the picture to see it larger.


















For more on pioneering cartoonists, see... Cliff Sterrett's Polly & her Pals Part One and Part Two; Milt Gross Sunday Pages Part One, Part Two and Part Three; Harrison Cady's Birds' Eye Views and Rube Goldberg's Side Show

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

1.21.09
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Animation Art: MGM Animation Drawings

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts featuring animation art.



Today, we digitized a collection of animation drawings from MGM. Can anyone out there name all the cartoons represented here? Post your guesses to the comments below. Have fun!


















If you found this post to be interesting, see also... Cartoons: Tail of Two Bulldogs

For more sketches to study, see... Reluctant Dragon and Pinocchio Model Sheets, Two Disney Concept Artists, Mice & Duck Models and More Disney Model Sheets.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

1.20.09
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Cartooning: Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.

REG'LAR FELLERS, LI'L ABNER, FLASH GORDON, TERRY & THE PIRATES, GAGS & GALS, STEVE CANYON... Meet The Men Behind The Comics

Today, we began digitizing an important book... Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning 1950. Marc Crisafulli and David King generously lent us a copy of this amazing collection of capsule features on all of the major cartoonists of the early 50s for digitization. It's said that Ralph Bakshi learned to cartoon from this book.

In the coming weeks, I will be posting more from this book, along with a little biographical info on the featured artists. Today, the cartoonists profiled are all newspaper comic strip creators... Gene Byrnes, Jefferson Machamer, Alex Raymond, Louis Eisele, Charles Voight, Al Capp and Milton Caniff.

REG'LAR FELLERS
By Gene Byrnes
Gene Byrnes intended a career in sports, but after being laid up from a leg injury in 1911, he took to copying cartoons by Tad Dorgan and decided to take a correspondence course in cartooning. He began his career as a professional cartoonist with the help of Winsor McCay, who got him a job with the New York Telegram as a sports cartoonist around 1915. In 1917, he created his most famous strip, Reg'lar Fellers. which ran for over thirty years. He wrote several influential books on cartooning and illustration in the 40s and early 50s. He passed away in 1974.



RIP KIRBY
By Alex Raymond
Alex Raymond is best known for creating the comic strip, Flash Gordon in 1933. He was responsible for several other important strips as well, as creator or ghost artist, including Rip Kirby, Jungle Jim, Tim Tyler's Luck and Tillie the Toiler. His strip, Secret Agent X9 was created in collaboration with Dasheill Hammett. He died in a car accident in 1956.




JEFFERSON MACHAMER
Thomas Jefferson Machamer began as a staff artist on the Kansas City Star in the early 1920s, and soon moved to New York, where he secured work with the New York Tribune. He made his name with his cartoons of pretty girls in Judge magazine in the late 1920s. In 1932, his strip, Gags & Gals debuted in the New York Mirror. He continued to be active in both newspaper cartoons and magazine illustration throughout the 40s and 50s, and passed away in 1960.






LOUIS EISELE
I don't have any information on Louis Eislele. If anyone out there knows his biographical details, please post them to the comments below.



CHARLES VOIGHT
Charles Voight was known as a "girl specialist" with illustrations and comics in the New York World and Life magazine in the early decades of the 20th century. His strips included Petey Dink and Betty. He passed away in 1947.



ON THE WRITING OF CONTINUITY
By Al Capp
At the age of nine, Al Capp lost a leg in a streetcar accident. He became the youngest syndicated cartoonist in the country at age 19 with his strip, Colonel Gilfeather. He ghosted the strip Joe Palooka for Ham Fischer for a while, before striking out on his own with Li'l Abner in 1934. The strip was among the most popular of all time, entering the popular culture with Capp's creations like "Sadie Hawkins Day", "Kickapoo Joy Juice" and "The Shmoo". Capp's strip inspired a Broadway musical and feature film and ran until 1977. Capp died two years later.





DETOUR GUIDE FOR AN ARMCHAIR MARCO POLO
By Milton Caniff
Milton Caniff was born in Ohio in 1907. He took a job as a staff artist with the Associated Press in 1932, and soon inherited Al Capp's strip Colonel Gilfeather when Capp left the syndicate. In 1934, Caniff created the comic strip he is best known for, Terry and the Pirates. The series was hugely popular throughout the war years, but Caniff didn't own the copyright- it belonged to The Chicago Tribune/New York Daily News. He left the comic behind to create a new one, Steve Canyon, which spawned a short-lived television series and ran until Caniff's death in 1988.





I'll have more from this book soon.

If you found this post to be interesting, see... Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Two: Studying Comic Strips

Also see...Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part One: The History of Animation, Part Two: The Cartoon Studios, Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate. Also, see... Willard Mullen on Animals.


Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Instruction: Clair Weeks Animal Studies 1940

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great art instruction posts.


Today, I'm proud to present more amazing treasures from the Clair Weeks collection. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Weeks was born the son of a missionary in India. At DIsney, he was often teased about his resemblence to a village parson or pilgrim. (See caricature to the right.)

Around 1940, Disney Studios was at its peak. Several animated feature films were in production at once, and the staff numbered at an all time high. Disney instituted a comprehensive training program for the artists at his studio, which included life drawing, animal studies and action analysis classes under the direction of Don Graham. Today, we scanned animal drawings by Clair Weeks from these classes.


Archive supporter, Mike Fontanelli was in last night when I was scanning these beautiful sketches, and he expressed his admiration for Weeks' skill. It's difficult to draw animals and capture any kind of natural pose because they are always moving. Weeks not only exhibited mastery of construction and posing, but also the ability to embed the spark of life that makes a drawing come alive. His technique allowed for both analytically realistic depiction and cartoony stylized caricature.

Aspiring cartoonists and animators should look over these drawings carefully and make a trip to the zoo to study the animals themselves the way the artists did at Disney in 1940.
















If you found this interesting, you'll want to check out our previous posts about material from the collection of Clair Weeks... Clair Weeks Goodbye Book and the 1938 Disney Artists Tryout Book. Also, see... Willard Mullen on Animals.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

1.14.08
.

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