- Bill Peckmann sent another strong piece by Harvey Kurtzman.
Here’s Bill to introduce it:
I came across my stash of Harvey Kurtzman’s HELP! magazines that I haven’t looked at in 45 years. Surprise, surprise, what a wonderful comic cornucopia is in those forgotten books. There’s all of our favorite cartoonists and then some. As always, Harvey was ahead of the curve in format and style, there wasn’t quite anything like HELP! when it came out those 50 years ago
Here’s Harvey Kurtzman’s and Bill Elder’s series “Goodman Beaver” from the magazine. The series started in 1961, towards the end of the run of HELP!.
This is the cover of the paperback that came out in 1962 which reprinted four of the “Goodman” stories. In it were also capsule bio’s of Harvey, Bill and Goodman.
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Here are the “Goodman Beaver” stories as they appeared in HELP! magazine. (The paperback reprinted the stories in a one panel per page format, art was also added to fill out the page.) The pages are written an laid out by Harvey and finished off in black and white by Bill Elder. Bill’s finished art is beautifully done, especially his hand crafted grays. I believe Bill’s “engraving like” style was influenced by the terrific “antique/recycled” cartoons Harvey use to run in his early MAD magazine and in HELP! The combination of Harvey’s fluid, animated lay outs and Bill’s meticulous final art make for something quite unique.
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There are two more stories to follow:
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The last story is hilarious - especially if you’re an Archie fan.
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The back cover of the paperback
Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing this great material.
Bill Charmatz is a cartoonist/illustrator whose work has graced many high volume magazines: Playboy, the NYTimes, Harpers and the Saturday Evening Post. Bill Peckmann sent a number of pieces from Charmatz as wwell as an article in Cartoonist Profiles about him, and I’m glad to post them. Here’s Bill:
Here is Bill gracing the pages of CARTOONIST PROfiles No. 100, Dec. 1993.
My only complaint about the wonderful article, is that it is way too short,
with not enough illo’s!
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When Walt Reed’s exceptional book, “The Illustrator In America” came out in 2000,
I was delighted to see that Bill Charmatz made the honor rolls of the book,
couldn’t happen to a more deserving talent!
Here’s Bill’s listing.
The next 3 illustrations are from a 2001 Society of Illustrators auction catalog.
The following illustrations came from Bill Charmatz‘ web site.
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In his early years Bill did some personal paintings in France.
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He’s illustrated for Sports Illustrated.
5 No Perching - The NY Times Book Review
6 Cat Chews on Fish - NY Times Book Review
7 Construction Worker Eats Lunch - NY Times Book Review
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One of a number of children’s books he’s written and illustrated.
There’s a lot of art on view at Bill Charmatz‘ website. I encourage you to visit it.
- Did I ever tell you that I love 101 Dalmatians? This film hit me hard at just the right time in my life; I was susceptible. Here was a new way of animating humans, almost a caricature but not quite. Those opening scenes of Roger playing the piano and Pongo looking out the window in search of two mates (one for him; one for Roger) are just first rate.
Milt Kahl did Roger, the human, and I have four scenes all used within the first fifteen minutes. They’re good. This is the first of them, Sequence 1 Scene 45. He’s turned to look at the clock, yawns and checks his watch. We’ll take it up to the yawn today. The animation is all on twos. The assistants were told to leave the line a bit rough, so some of Milt’s scratches were left to be xeroxed onto the cels.
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The chair pops to its own level behind Roger.
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The following QT incorporates all the drawings from this post
All posts will be combined in the final piece.
All drawings were exposed on twos as indicated by the numbers.
The registration is a bit loose. Sorry but, these are
copies of copies and there’s some shrinkage.
More of the scene will come next week.
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For more on 101 Dalmatians check out the animator drafts on Hans Perk’s great and resourceful site,A Film LA. Hans also noted, in the comments section below, that he had posted Bill Peet’s story treatment for the film several years ago. See it here.
For a look at the art direction of the film including some beautiful reconstructions of the BGs as well as some of the BG layouts go to Hans Bacher’s great site One1More2Time3. Andreas Deja has one of the more extraordinary blogs to visit. He just posted some beautiful drawings by some of the key animators on 101 Dalmatians as they set about to find the characters. See them here.
- Sam Norkin was a theatrical caricaturist in the mode of Hirschfeld. Norkin was the house cartoonist for the NY Daily News for many years. Bill Peckmann recently sent me two articles from the Dec. ‘76 and the March ‘91 issues of Cartoonist Profiles.
I thought, before posting the CP article, I’d give you the obituary published in Playbill last year when he died.
Sam Norkin, Theatre Caricaturist and Drama Desk President, Dies
By Robert Simonson
31 Jul 2011
Sam Norkin, who captured seven decades of stage performance with fine-lined caricatures, died July 30. His age could not be learned at press time, but he was born in 1917.
Mr. Norkin’s drawings of theatre, opera, ballet and film stars appeared in Variety, Back Stage, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and other publications. From 1940 to 1956, his illustrations were a regular feature in the New York Herald Tribune. Then for the next 26 years, he covered the performing arts for the Daily News.
Late in his career, he contributed sketches to the weekly magazine InTheater.
Like his more-famous contemporary, Al Hirschfeld, Mr. Norkin used a collection of swirling and angled pen-and-ink lines to express stage presences of his subjects. While his and Hirschfeld’s styles were very similar, Mr. Norkin’s were perhaps less airy and more corporeal, and he was fond not just of line, but large swaths of black.
“A Norkin caricature is often densely packed with detail and may feature a great deal of solid black space,” wrote David Barbour in the 1994 book, “Sam Norkin, Drawings, Stories.” “He also is more daring in his drafting; many of his pieces, in particular one from the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera, feature steeply raked lines which plunge vertiginously from top to bottom, to highly dramatic effect.”
He also provided illustrations for “Theatre in a Barn” (1957); “Actors Talk About Theatre; 12 Interviews With Lewis Funke” (1977); and “Four Plays by Eugene O’Neill” (1980).
Mr. Norkin began studying art at age nine. He received a scholarship to the Metropolitan Art School after his high school graduation, and he later attended Cooper U nion, the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the School of Fine and Industrial Art. He began his career as a caricaturist in 1940.
He was also employed as a journalist at times. He was art critic for the Carnegie Hall house program and a cultural reporter for the Daily News. For a time, he was president of Drama Desk, the award-giving theatre critics organization.
The following is the article from the Cartoonist Profiles of Dec. 1976:
The magazine cover.
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This is the second article from the March 1991 issue of Cartoonist Profiles.
The film started with some nicely drawn animated credits which were done by John Wilson’s studio. Until recently I hadn’t known that Wilson also produced an animated short promoting the feature for the Mirisch Company. I have some preproduction art from that short as well as the color storyboard. The board is large enough that I’ve decided to break it into two parts. We’ll see part one today and the second part next week.
Each section of three images is long enough that unless I post one drawing at a time, it’ll be too tiny to see unless enlarged. I’d like to post each storyboard sketch a nice viewing size and still give you the option of enlarging it.
Let’s start with some production and post production stills so you can see what it looked like.
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A couple of pre-production drawings:
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Then, there’s the storyboard. I’ll give an example of the three panel pull out and follow that with each individual image.
You can see why I’ve decided to enlarge the images.
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The remainder of the storyboard will be posted next Monday.
- Steve Fisher has been sending an assortment of great photos these last few weeks, and I haven’t posted much in the way of recent photos lately. So I’ve chosen some architectural beauties from the past number of pictures he’s sent and will post them today. Enjoy.
- I must say I was happy with a couple of the posts this past week. The John Wilson piece on Monday can only be bettered by this coming Monday’s piece on Irma La Douce. On Tuesday, the 1953 magazine article on Geoffrey Martin’s designs for Animal Farm made for an excellent piece. Many thanks to Chris Rushworth for that. I also have wanted to combine all four of the walk cycles from 101 Dalmatians and have thought about it for over a year. I’m glad I finally got around to doing it. And, naturally, the fine posts from Bill Peckmann’s collection rounded out the week. So, in all, I was pleased with what I got to post. Sorry to boast, just thinking aloud. It’s day to day here, so I’m often surprised with what shows up.
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BAFTAs
The BAFTA nominations were revealed on Tuesday morning. The award for Best Animated Short includes the following three nominees:
Abuelas (Grandmothers) by Afarin Eghbal, Kasia Malipan & Francesca Gardiner is a mixed-media short.
Bobby Yeah by Robert Morgan is a stop motion animation film that looks like it came out of the hands of David Lynch.
A Morning Stroll by Grant Orchard & Sue Goffe is a film that’s been out there for a bit, seen at many film festivals and on the Oscar short list. (This is the film I like most.)
Congratulations to all the film makers.
The BAFTA nominees for Animated Feature include: TINTIN, ARTHUR CHRISTMAS and RANGO. Let’s hope for RANGO to win, but I expect the Brits to give it to ARTHUR CHRISTMAS. (Please, not TINTIN!)
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NAACP Nomination
- Speaking of nominations, I learned on Thursday that I was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Children’s Program. My show, I CAN BE PRESIDENT, was nominated. This is big for me, and I’d love to win it.The show had such a low budget and was such a problematic schedule that it was a terror to get through production. I’m pleased it came out so well. Congratulations also to the guys that helped make it: Matt Clinton, Katrina Gregorius, and Christine O’Neill.
Outstanding Children’s Program
A.N.T. Farm - Disney Channel
Dora the Explorer - Nickelodeon
Go, Diego! Go! - Nickelodeon
I Can Be President: A Kid’s-Eye View - HBO
My Family Tree - Disney Channel
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Mars Needs Moms
- The Oscar watch was down to the last (and I do mean the last) animated feature. MARS NEEDS MOMS was better than Hoodwinked and Chipwrecked, and I also think it was better than TINTIN - another MoCap film. Simon Wells directed MARS, and his work is reliably stable. (He directed PRINCE OF EGYPT, BALTO and WE”RE BACK.) He and Wendy Wells also wrote the script from Berkeley Breathed’s book. Like TINTIN, the film had a breakneck pace, but unlike TINTIN it didn’t ignore some of the basic rules of cinema. No annoying swooping spins around the characters, with an endlessly moving camera; it also didn’t feature lots of busy work (as if to prove it was animated)l nor did it have a breathless pace (as if to create Action! Adventure! and Tedium!). No, unlike TINTIN, MARS NEEDS MOMS was more craftily observant of the audience’s reaction. It knew when to stop the action, then go back to the danger. It knew when to add humor instead of just running, running, running.
However, like TINTIN the dead eyes were hard to get into, and the graphics were horrible to look at. Sure, it’s MoCap and tied to the live action, but does it have to have a faux-realistic look to it? Couldn’t it have been more cartoon? (Couldn’t TINTIN have been flattened to look like the comic strip, despite the MoCap?) The lead boy looked to have 5 o’clock shadow on his face in all the scenes on Earth.
The filmmakers want it to be called animation, but under the end credits they include footage of all the live actors doing key lines and being shot with all the tennis balls and helmets. Maybe it should have been live action with just the martians and sets done with MoCap. The film didn’t work, but it worked better than the Spielberg’s animation effort, TINTIN. Unfortunately, it won’t get an Oscar nomination or a Golden GLobe, like TINTIN. Neither film deserves one.
In voting for this award, I sat through:
PUSS IN BOOTS,
CARS 2,
RIO,
WINNIE THE POOH,
TINTIN,
HOODWINKED TWO,
HAPPY FEET 2,
RANGO,
ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED,
WRINKLES,
A CAT IN PARIS,
CHICO & RITA,
ARTHUR CHRISTMAS,
KUNG FU PANDA 2,
ALOIS NEBEL,
GNOMEO & JULIET and
MARS NEEDS MOMS.
The only one I couldn’t sit through to the end was HOODWINKED.
It was worth it to see CHICO & RITA, A CAT IN PARIS and even WRINKLES.
I also didn’t mind RANGO, KUNG FU PANDA and HAPPY FEET 2.
None of them compared to Sylvain Chomet’s THE ILLUSIONIST.
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Gene & Zdenka
- Gene Deitch has added two pieces to his blog, his first arrival in Czechoslovakia being met by “Lulka” the emissary from the Czech studio. Then the second post details the meeting with Zdenka, who soon became the love of his life and his wife.
They’re both warm and wonderful reads.
The surprise and the gem of the Zdenka piece is a long video (scroll all the way down) which gives the history of their studio and their relationship. It’s quite a sweet film that’s well worth watching to see if only to see what changes the animated studio has undergone in the years that Mr. Deitch has been in charge. You also get to feel more at home with this great animation director and almost feel as though you know him by the end of it. It’s a really good piece that I don’t think you’ll regret viewing. (I was surprised at how quickly the one hour video downloaded.)
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- John Dilworth reported this week that his last film, Bunny Bashing, is now available on YouTube. So I’ve embedded it, above.
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And here’s an interesting use of animation in this video designed to
inform Liberals why they shouldn’t despair over the work by Obama -
which, in fact, is remarkably good despite the unyielding criticism
from the Left and the Right.
- Bill Peckmann sends along more examples of Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis‘ movie spoofs. It’s all great artwork, of course. Here are Bill’s comments:
Nothing could bring a smile faster to your face than when Harvey Kurtzman took out his sharp writing and layout pencil and starting bursting Hollywood’s bubbles with it. Add to that Jack Davis‘ powerhouse perfect pen and brush work to finish off the job, and there my friend, you had in your hands one of the best duos in comic books doing their funniest stuff! Then and now!
Since most cartoonists seem to be movie buffs, the following pages must have been a labor of love. The first story “Cowboy!”, is from MAD comic book #20, Feb. 1955. The unique coloring sets up the story beautifully, Harvey in full creative mode!
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Here’s the cover of MAD #20.
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Here are a few panels from “Cowboy!” in Jack’s
original black and white, to show every lovely line.
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Two years later, 1957, in HUMBUG magazine #5,
Kurtzman and Davis continue their wonderful riffs on Hollywood movies.
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Here’s the cover by Bob Blechman.
The next three pages are from HUMBUG #9, 1958.
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The cover of HUMBUG #11, the last issue.
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A double page spread
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A small back cover bonus, Jack’s cowboys with a HUMBUG subscription offer.
And Jack’s thank you note for getting a HUMBUG subscription.
There’s a nice and long audio interview with Jack Davis by Drew Friedman on The Comics Journal site.
- Bill Peckmann sent me a number of scans on Hilary Knight, the noted illustrator who had gained fame in illustrating the Eloise books authored by Kay Thompson. On receiving them I suddenly remembered that I had animated a commercial done in the style of Mr. Knight’s poster for the Broadway show, Meet Me In St. Louis.
I had completely forgotten about that job which we did back in 1989. We’d been employed by a South African art director of the Broadway show to do an Overture and an Entr’acte for the musical play. The Overture would play to a Currier & Ives type animation we produced, then the scrim would lift revealing the town. For the Entr’acte, we would end with a group of people ice skating on a pond. It would be lit from behind, and our drawing would turn to live action as the actors skated on a simulated pond on stage.
With the job came a 30 sec. spot animating the poster that Hilary Knight had illustrated. I can remember just about nothing about the spot. The entire job, spot, musical and the entire experience was a horrible one. The client was nasty and moody and continually changed his mind about what he wanted. He thought of himself as an auteur and kept pulling ideas out of his hat while we tried to fight the low budget and tight deadline.
The one positive memory was going to see the rough film projected on the Broadway stage. While waiting for them to find the projectionist, I noticed one older man sitting across from me in the theater. I walked over to him and asked if he was Hugh Martin. He was, and I told him how glad I was to meet him. We spoke for another couple of minutes until the theater went dark and projection started. Martin was the composer of the show; he’d written all those great, original songs for Judy Garland and the others in the movie. I was pleased to have recognized him and met him.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Hilary Knight, but I did have some of his original artwork in hand. He drew some models for us. They’re somewhere in our storage, and a quick search wasn’t able to turn up anything. Time is moving on, and I wish I had put more emphasis on preserving some of my art materials back when.
The parting note on that job was that they spelled my name incorrectly in the Playbill. How appropriate. They promised to correct it in future copies, but I didn’t even bother to see if they’d done the correction.
Here’s the material Bill Peckmann had sent me, starting with a comment from Bill:
In 1999 a collection of four of Hilary Knight’s “Eloise” books was published. Aside from it having all those great books between two covers was the fact that it also had Hilary’s eight page autobiography in it! And here it is.
. - When I was young, as I’ve pointed out many times, there were few books available about animation and as few illustrations and photos which ellicited the art of animation. Hence, it was always a treat when a Disney feature was released. The adjoining publicity would provide a trove of material, some worth saving. An encyclopedia my parents bought at about the time of release of 101 Dalmatians included several key images of Pongo running. One of those photos of many cels overlayed to detail the cycle. I loved that picture and frequently looked at that encyclopedia under “Cartoons, Animated” to study the photo of the cels.
At the very beginning of 101 Dalmatians, Pongo looks out onto the street to search for a good mate for both himself and Roger, his owner. At this point we’re treated to a number of walk cycles that I think are brilliant. A number of women are perfectly matched to the dogs that they walk.
Now with DVDs available to us, we can see that the characters originated in the storyboard drawings, and we can study these walk cycles. I’m determined to take these animated bits apart to watch them a bit closer.
Art Student Walk
The first of these is the “girl art student” as described in the drafts (which can be found on Hans Perks’ excellent site A Film LA.) Oddly, from my very first viewing of this film back in 1961, I identified her as a “beatnik,” which was the fashionable joke back then. Now I find out she was an “art student.” I guess that makes sense.
Here’s the pan BG that this scene employs.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
And here is the walk cycle animated by Frank Thomas and Blaine Gibson.
Gibson handled the following scene which pans across the bodies of the pair as they walk.
Animation note: The two separate feet are divided by a short space. The left foot is on one plane, and the right foot is on another. This is a BASIC precept for animators to follow, and it’s something that is not appearing in a lot of the recent walk cycles I’ve been seeing. It’s annoying.
French Girl Walks French Poodle
Here’s scene 21 “French girl walks French poodle” animated by Blaine Gibson. It employs the same BG as scene 14, the art student (posted Apr 3), but it extends, beyond what we’ve seen before, to include a telephone booth.
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This is a slightly faster walk than others, and I’ve been able to grab all of the drawings. It’s animated on “ones.”
The “French girl” walks her French poodle on “ones.”
This walk is an absolute gem !
Once again, check out Hans Perk’s excellent site A Film LA to get the drafts for this film to be able to identify who was behind what. Then go to see Mark Mayerson’s arduously constructed and informative mosaics as well as his detailed commentary about the film and its animators.
Check out Floyd Norman’s story about Blaine Gibson on Jim Hill Media.
Young Child With Puppy
Here’s the young child with her puppy. She not only walks, but she licks her lollipop. The pup is just an absolute innocent. It’s another great walk by Blaine Gibson.
The piece, in the film, includes a zoom into the cycle. I’ve tried to adjust for it but don’t think I was wholly successful. There’s a marginal enlargement of the drawings as it goes on - noticeable only in motion. It’s actually interesting in the walk.
Buxom Girl and Bulldog
Here’s Blaine Gibson’s animation for what is labelled in the drafts “Buxom Girl and Bulldog”. I left the backgrounds in this one for you to get an idea of the BG movement.
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