2007 Review: 10 Milt Gross

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. (View the complete list.) Click on the pictures to see lots more on this topic.


From "Milt Gross Sunday Pages Part Four" May 18th, 2007
NUMBER 10: MILT GROSS

Thanks to Archive supporters Mark Kausler, Marc Deckter, Kent Butterworth and Marc Crisafulli, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has a fantastic collection of comics by Milt Gross.


From "Fulfilling The Milt Gross Challenge" October 17th, 2007

Milt Gross is one of the greatest cartoonists who ever lived, but most of his work has been out of print for many years. He was a master of both words and images. His books Nize Baby, Dunt Esk De Night In De Front From Chreesmas are classics of ethnic New York dialect humor. His masterpiece, He Done Her Wrong, which Gross described as "The great American novel- and not a word in it- no music too", tells a story entirely in funny pictures.


From "Banana Oil!" August 21st, 2007
Milt Gross began his career as an animator in New York, and his comics reflect the same sort of baggy pants humor and keenly observed exaggeration that one might find in a Fleischer cartoon. His style appears loose and free on first glance. Every frame bursts with new and interesting ideas. But behind the energy and fun are carefully thought out compositions and expressive posing. Like Chaplin and Keaton, Gross was a master at making hard work and concentration look easy and natural. Students of animation can learn a lot from studying these techniques.


From "Dave's Delicatessen" July 24th, 2007
Currently, the only book by Gross that remains in print is He Done Her Wrong. This is a shame, because as great as this book is, there's a lot more to Milt Gross. The humor in Gross' comics is timeless. Thanks to Mark, Marc, Marc and Kent, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has become one of the best places to study his work. Stop by and view the Sunday pages and daily strips in our archive database sometime soon.

Go To Number 9 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

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Comics: Fulfilling The Milt Gross Challenge

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 print cartoonists.


Here's the conclusion of the Marc Deckter Challenge Sunday pages. This gluttonous orgy of Milt Gross goodness comes to you courtesy of Amir Avni, Dragan Kovacevic, Michael Webb, Anonymous, Charlie Judkins, Alexander McCarron, James Middleton, Enrique May, J. Todd Constantine, and Greg Checketts. These folks stepped up to the plate and supported the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive so we can continue bringing great material like this to you for the rest of the year. We all owe them our thanks. The Archive is only as good as you make it. We appreciate your support.

And as I always say... if you're one of those folks who don't click on the images because you don't think it's worth the time it takes to read... YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING!

Count Screwloose & Babbling Brooks Sunday Pages (1930-31)














And Two More Dave's Delicatessens...



For more Milt Gross cartoon goodness, see... Milt Gross Sunday Pages and Dailies Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six and Part Seven. Also see... Milt Gross' Cartoon Tour Of New York Part One, Part Two and Part Three; Chic Young's Blondie, Rube Goldberg's Side Show; George Lichty's Grin and Bear It, Cliff Sterrett's Polly & Her Pals Part One, Part Two and Part Three; and Harrison Cady's Birds' Eye Views

Many thanks to Marc Deckter for sharing this wonderful stuff with us.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Comics: Milt Gross Courtesy of Will And Marc

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 print cartoonists.


Today's post is brought to you through the courtesy of Marc Deckter and Will Finn. These two great guys dug deep into their collections and pockets to ensure that the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is able to continue to bring you the great inspiration you have come to expect. We all owe them a debt of gratitude for their generosity.


The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive isn't one of those stuffy institutions financed by huge corporate endowments. It's a grassroots resource that is supported by the artists and animation fans that directly benefit from it. That means you. Every penny that comes in gets rolled right back into making the Archive even better. But if the people who benefit from it don't support it with their donations, it will cease to exist. What would you do if you woke up one morning and found that animationarchive.org came up as "Server Not Found"? Please contribute using the PayPal links at the top of each post.


And as I always say... if you're one of those folks who don't click on the images because you don't think it's worth the time it takes to read... YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING!

Banana Oil Dailies (1925)






Count Screwloose & Babbling Brooks Sunday Pages (1930)







For more Milt Gross cartoon goodness, see... Milt Gross Sunday Pages and Dailies Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five and Part Six. Also see... Milt Gross' Cartoon Tour Of New York Part One, Part Two and Part Three; Chic Young's Blondie, Rube Goldberg's Side Show; George Lichty's Grin and Bear It, Cliff Sterrett's Polly & Her Pals Part One, Part Two and Part Three; and Harrison Cady's Birds' Eye Views

Many thanks to Marc Deckter for sharing this wonderful stuff with us, and to Will Finn for stepping up to the challenge.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Biography: Milton Caniff and Norman Rockwell in Coronet

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.


The Milton Caniff Estate recently loaned the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive copies of two issues of Coronet magazine from 1942 and 1947 to digitize. Here are three articles of interest to cartoonists and illustrators...



AMERICA'S PIONEER JAP FIGHTER
By Howard Whitman








NORMAN ROCKWELL: The People's Painter
By Jack H. Pollack






CONFESSIONS OF A COMIC STRIP ARTIST
By Milton Caniff





Thanks to John Ellis and the estate of Milton Caniff for sharing this with us!

If you enjoyed this post, see... Coronet Magazine December 1945, Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Sunday Pages, Steve Canyon Dalies, People On Paper, Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One- Meet The Men Behind the Comics and Part Two- Studying Comic Strips, Dispatch From Disney's Part One and Part Two, Propaganda Part One and Part Two, Dan Gordon's Superkatt, Rube Goldberg's Side Show and Alex Toth Model Sheets

STEVE CANYON TV SHOW


The Steve Canyon Special Edition DVD is out now! To order it and for more info on the Steve Canyon TV show, 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.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Milt Gross: Banana Oil!

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 print cartoonists.


The hoi-polloi are out in droves tonight to celebrate this great day!

It's Marc Deckter Appreciation Day!


All of Marc's fans and admirers are jumping on the bandwagon, writing appreciative blog postings. Here's John K's.

For the past couple of weeks, we've been working on digitizing a batch of nearly 200 Milt Gross Sunday pages and dalies that Marc generously loaned to us. That adds up to over a million laughs!


Three cheers for Marc Deckter!


And as I always say... if you're one of those folks who don't click on the images because you don't think it's worth the time it takes to read... YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING!

Banana Oil Dailies (1924)







Count Screwloose & Dave's Delicatessen Sunday Pages (1930-1933)






For more Milt Gross cartoon goodness, see... Milt Gross Sunday Pages and Dailies Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five. Also see... Milt Gross' Cartoon Tour Of New York Part One, Part Two and Part Three; Chic Young's Blondie, Rube Goldberg's Side Show; George Lichty's Grin and Bear It, Cliff Sterrett's Polly & Her Pals Part One, Part Two and Part Three; and Harrison Cady's Birds' Eye Views

Many thanks to Marc Deckter for sharing this wonderful stuff with us!

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Comics: Milt Gross' Dave's Delicatessen

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 print cartoonists.


Archive supporter, Marc Deckter stopped by today with a pile of deteriorating Milt Gross Dave's Delicatessen dalies. The newsprint had become brittle and brown and the strips were fragmenting into chips. I put them carefully on the scanner and digitized them before they had a chance to turn to dust.


Milt Gross is one of the underappreciated cartoonists that the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is dedicated to documenting. Between these wonderful early examples courtesy of Marc Deckter, the Sunday pages lent to us by Mark Kausler and the great book A Cartoon Tour of New York from Kent Butterworth, our collection of Gross is second to none. If you haven't seen any of our previous articles on Gross, check out the links at the end of this post.

And as I always say... if you're one of those folks who don't click on the images because you don't think it's worth the time it takes to read... YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING!



























Read John K's comments on this post...

For more Milt Gross Sunday pages, see... Milt Gross Sunday Pages Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. Also see... Milt Gross' Cartoon Tour Of New York Part One, Part Two and Part Three; Chic Young's Blondie, Rube Goldberg's Side Show; George Lichty's Grin and Bear It, Cliff Sterrett's Polly & Her Pals Part One, Part Two and Part Three; and Harrison Cady's Birds' Eye Views

Many thanks to Marc Deckter for sharing this wonderful stuff with us!

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Comics: Kurtzman's Comic Books

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, Kent Butterworth stopped by on his lunch break to watch Terry Bears cartoons featuring eye popping Jim Tyer animation. I realized that it's been a while since I posted any comic book scans from Kent's great collection of golden age funny animal comics. I'm righting that wrong right now with some great examples by Harvey Kurtzman. Enjoy! (Thanks Kent!)




















If you enjoyed this post, check out our first article on Kurtzman & Elder's Little Annie Fanny Part One and Part Two. Also see... Milt Stein's Supermouse Comics No. 4, Milt Stein's Supermouse (Coo Coo Comics No. 7) Dan Gordon's Superkatt, Jim Tyer's Comic Books, Harvey Eisenberg's Foxy Fagan and Boodi Rogers' Babe Comics.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Comics: Dudley Fisher's Right Around Home

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 print cartoonists.



You might remember an earlier post I did on the "Bird's Eye View" comics from Boy's Life magazine by Harrison Cady. (If you haven't seen it, by all means, check it out!) Here is a similar format comic, courtesy of our friends at Digital Funnies... "Right Around Home".

Dudley Fisher was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1890. He studied to be an architect, but dropped out to take a job as a layout artist at the Columbus Dispatch. After returning from WWI, Fisher created a comic strip called "Jolly Jingles". Year after year, he cranked out rhyming verse until he couldn't stand it any more. In December of 1937 he decided to take a break from jingles and draw what Christmas on his grandmother's farm would be like (if he had a grandmother and she lived on a farm!) He drew it as one big full page panel and readers immediately took to it and clamored for more. King Features picked up the strip and titled it "Right Around Home". These great Sunday pages date from early in the run- 1939.












When asked by a young artist what sorts of pens and paper to use to draw cartoons, Fisher recommended not worrying about things like that, saying "I feel certain that Michaelangelo could have done a masterpiece on meat wrapping paper with a toothbrush and shoe polish. It's all got to come out of the artist- not the ink bottle."

These fabulous scans of original Sunday pages were provided to the Archive by Jonathan Barli of Digital Funnies. Jonathan is hard at work on an important project- documenting and restoring early cartoons and comics in digital form. He offers a wide variety of fascinating material for sale on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. Please take a moment to visit the Digital Funnies website, and let him know that the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive sent you.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Biography: Milton Caniff: A Remembrance

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.


Milton Caniff with Jack Benny
UNCLE MILT
By Harry Grant Guyton
I would like to share some of my special memories about my uncle Milton Arthur Caniff.

Bunny (My aunt Esther) and Milt never had children, so my older sister, brother and I were their kids for years. But they also adopted many, many other children. One is Hesper Anderson, the screenwriter of Children of a Lesser God. They put a number of young adults through school and college, so in this way they were parents to many. Unfortunately, none of us were artistic in the same sense he was, at least not to my knowledge.

I recall that when I was twelve and living in Los Angeles in 1936, Milt gave my sister, brother and I yellow slicker raincoats that he painted large pictures of the characters from Terry And The Pirates on the back of. I believe my sister had a large black drawing of Pat Ryan on her slicker, my brother had Terry and I had Connie. I often wonder what happened to those raincoats.


Milton Caniff with Joan Crawford,
the inspiration for the "Dragon Lady"
Milt had narcolepsy and could- and did- fall asleep anywhere and at any time. In the old days when he was smoking, drawing and watching TV, he would fall asleep, drop his cigarette, and burn his drawing. When he burnt a hole in the strip, he always hoped it was in a spot he could cover; if not, he had to redo the whole strip. Speaking of Milt's smoking, after Milt quit, he always used to light up women's cigarettes so he could get a few puffs.

Milt had the habit of falling asleep while talking to you. We were in a chauffeured Limo in Panama. The chauffeur, Milt and I were in the front seat with the girls in the back. Milt, talking, fell asleep and awakened about five minutes later, still continuing the conversation. Needless to say, the chauffeur was amazed. Milt had bought Bun a 1959 Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce for her 1958 Christmas present. When Milt drove, he put the back part of the seat down so far, it appeared he was sleeping. Alas, one day en route to the Racquet Club in Palm Springs, he did fall asleep while driving like this. After that incident, Bunny would not let him drive unless he had just awakened from a nap.

Milt and Bunny spent money like it was water. they enjoyed their life and lived it fully. When they lived in Palm Springs, Bun sent their dry cleaning to New York because no one in California could do it right. Bun always had Milt on a diet, such as eating celery and carrots and having just one drink before dinner. In Palm Springs they had a main house and three blocks away they had a duplex. One side of the duplex was Milt's studio with the other side for guests. Milt would spend half of a 24 hour day or more in the studio. The first time we stayed in the guest part, Bun always had "goodies" such as food and liquor in the kitchen. We had a favorite cookie, so she had four or five packages of these laid out on the kitchen counter. The next morning they were gone. While Milt was working, he wandered over, saw the cookies and devoured them. Needless to say, we always left some goodies out for Milt, and no one ever said "boo" about them.


Caniff with Bob Crane of "Hogan's Heroes"
Milt had the ability to talk to you and remember almost everything you said. He picked the brains of everyone he spoke with and was able to fit almost any conversation into his strip in one form or another. It mattered not if you were a general or a private. He could elicit information from either and use it. When he visited a base and found a military person he liked and wanted to have in the strip, he would use the person's first name as his last name, such as Sgt. Andy Trone became Sgt. Andy. The character Charlie Vanilla was Charles Russhon, a US Army photographer who was on the first US plane to land in Japan. To my knowledge Milton never put any idea down on paper that went into his files. It mostly came from his head and went into the strip as he drew it. I found no notes or other papers that would give a clue as to what Milt had in mind or what future strips would show.

Of course Milton Caniff was a stickler for accuracy, but his fans were eagle-eyed. I was with him at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. He climbed into the cockpit of a fighter plane (an F-104 I believe), and spent maybe five minutes in it. That evening, he used it in Steve Canyon. He had committed the control panel in that cockpit to memory, and months later when the strip was published, he received numerous letters saying that had Steve been flying as high as Milt implied in the strip, one of the gauge readings was wrong.

He loved to get letters of criticism as well as praise because this meant people were reading the strip. One time an editor who was a friend of Milton's said he had sent back a letter of criticism to the writer. Milt asked him not to do that in the future. He wanted them forwarded to him because maybe he had made a mistake and he wanted to correct it if he had. When he was doing Terry and the Pirates, he had once put Terry's insignia on wrong, and got hundreds of letters pointing out the error. His eyes would twinkle as he said, "See! They're following the strip!"


Japanese newspaper cartoonist
Yoshirou Kato with Milton
Milt told me when he was switching from Terry And The Pirates to Steve Canyon that he had to get William Randolph Hearst's OK on certain aspects of the strip. Milt said he flew to Los Angeles, took a plane to near San Simeon and was driven up to Hearst's "castle". He was shown into the dining room where Hearst sat at the opposite end of a long table drinking a cup of coffee. Hearst asked Milt questions such as what he had in mind for Steve and how much money he wanted. Milt said to himself, "You ungracious bastard!" and told Hearst what he had in mind for the strip, asking for double his present salary and all the fringes- plus ownership of the copyrights to his strip. He related how Hearst said, "You're a high-priced son of a bitch." and got up and left the room. Milt left and two weeks later was informed that Hearst had agreed to the terms.

Milt told me that in the early 30s and 40s, he sent his original strips to the syndicates, instead of sending photostat copies. One day they cleared out the storeroom and sent him back what was left. A lot of Milt's original Terry art had been taken from that storeroom by a person or persons unknown. So Milton decided to bequeath his alma mater, Ohio State University, his files, art and memorabilia. Ohio State has a great many of Milt's original pieces that he drew from the beginning of his career. After Milt passed away, when I was going through the file cabinets and belongings in New York, I came across some things that I really wanted to keep but couldn't. I donated everything Milt had to Lucy Caswell and the Milton Caniff Reading Room at Ohio State University, including the #2 pop-up book of Terry And The Pirates which I loved so much.

One time whoever took his weekly strips to the photo engravers had lost them and he had to do the whole week over. As I was taking the strips to be copied he jokingly told me, "Do not lose these." When I returned, I told him I was going to wash the Rolls Royce and found the lost strips under the passenger seat. He said, "Since you found them, they're yours." He always gave me strips and items he had done for various organizations, because of the Terry And The Pirates originals that had been taken. He instructed me to not give them away, because someday they may become valuable. So I kept them and forgot I had most of them. Earlier this year John Ellis and I were going through boxes of papers and files and we found them.


Dean Fredericks (TV's Steve Canyon),
Harry Truman and Milton Caniff
During the 1954 National Cartoonist's Society convention in Washington, D.C., I had been invited to join the group and was to present the Silver T-Square Award to President Eisenhower and Secretary of the Treasury Humphries. However, there was a military officer who belonged to the NCS who said that since I was only a Master Sergeant, he should be the one to present it. In the end, Milton presented it himself. Walt Kelly was trying to fix me up with any and every girl we ran into. I heard that he and Al Capp got into it, but I was not present when they did and I don't recall what it was about.

Here's an interesting side note to all of this... I was stationed at Fort Eustis, Virginia at the time and had been loaned a Major General's plane to get to the NCS convention in Washington D.C. When I reported to Bolling AFB for my flight home, a Lieutenant Colonel was waiting to fly me back to Fort Eustis. As we were walking down the ramp to the plane, a paratroop Major from Fort Bragg, NC with his combat boots bloused and his ribbons shining, asked the Colonel for a ride. The Colonel stated, "You'll have to ask the Sergeant- it's his plane." The Major finally swallowed his pride and asked me if it was OK, I said yes. The Major tried to get into the co-pilot's seat, but the Colonel said. "No way. That's the Sergeant's seat." As we arrived at Fort Eustis, the Major jumped out and ran into Flight Operations. As I entered they were all trying to figure out how a Master Sergeant in the Army could have a Lt. Colonel type fly him around! Milt tried for years to fit this incident into Steve Canyon but couldn't come up with a good story that would fit.

Over the years Milton would use my name in the strips, usually on signs or on soldier's uniforms. I always got a big kick out of that. You can see the name "Guyton" clearly in the last panel of the December 24th, 1961 Steve Canyon Sunday page. My son, Terry Wayne Guyton was named after the comic strip Terry. My sister has two daughters who Milt used in Steve Canyon, Dianne was the model for "Doodly Bixenshoos", and Sandra was the model for "Orbs Corbs" in the mid 60s. I had a wonderful relationship with my uncle and saw him usually six times a year. On each visit he would talk to me for hours while drawing and watching sports on TV. He always said I took care of him. Bunny kept him on that diet and I always left treats in the kitchen. Often, I would find a thank you note on the table. Every day with him was a holiday, and I learned a lot. I miss him.

If you enjoyed this post, see... Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Sunday Pages, People On Paper, 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.

Stumble It!

Media: Milt Gross Sunday Pages Part Four

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 print cartoonists.



Do you love Milt Gross yet?



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