Michael Sporn Animation - Splog

Ferdinand Horvath was a Hungarian book illustrator, who was born in 1891 and died of a stroke in 1973. From 1934-1937, he worked at the Disney Studios in multifarious positions doing everything from painting backgrounds and doing layouts to constructing three dimensional models to designing characters and gags for over fifty Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse shorts.

Prior to working at Disney, he labored at Paul Terry’s studio on the “Aesop’s Fables” series. Once he left Disney, he designed models and layouts for “Scrappy,” “Krazy Kat” on shorts for Columbia/Screen Gems. In 1940, he sculpted puppets for George Pal’s Puppetoons.

He was a versatile artist whose work was an inspiration for many Disney artists. The following booklet was published by Graphis Gallery and put together by Bruce Hamilton. The opening material explains itself.

Bill Peckmann sent me scans of these pages, and I thank him for keeping Horvath alive.

Front cover of the catalogue.

The back cover.

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This gives information on what appears on the two covers.

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Recently, I posted a number of B&W caricatures by David Levine. They came from the book I featured, The Arts of David Levine. As promised, these are the color plates from the book which feature Levine’s paintings.

Thanks to Bill Peckmann for sending the images.

As I mentioned in the first post, I think these paintings raise Levine’s work to first class art.

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This particular painting reminds me
of the work of Joseph Hirsch.

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Bill Plympton and Biljana Labovic during the Deauville, Film Festival in France.

- Bill Plympton called to say that he finally has a NY theater date for his feature Angels and Idiots. This film has played the Festival circuit and is now about to make its theatrical presence felt.

The IFC theater in NY will screen the film beginning the week of October 6th. We have to turn out for the film to make sure that the IFC will extend the run. (They usually do that if they sense there’s an audience. We know there’s an audience - we just have to turn out.)

The film will also open in LA at the Laemmle Sunset 5 - Opening October 26th, 2010.

I hope to have an extended interview with Bill, soon, about the making of this feature. Keep watch. Meanwhile AWN features Idiots’ Diary. This is a diary Bill is keeping about the distribution of the film.

- I received a nice note from Tony Eastman the other day:

Sue and I have put together a website for my father’s books: pdeastmanbooks.com

Its purpose is to entertain/inform, and at the same time sell books. There really wasn’t a place where you could see all of his books together, plus we thought a short biography (appropriate for children) and a way to get in touch with his family would be useful. I put together the P. D. caricature on the home page from two self portraits he had done.

In case you don’t know who P.D. Eastman was, I suggest you take a look at his film resume at IMDB. After working at Warners cartoons, he became integral in the start of UPA and the story writing of many of their best films. Oh, and he competed mightily with Dr. Seuss in writing MANY best selling children’s books.

- Katrina Gregorius, an animator and artist in my studio, helped out her friend, Theresa Loong, a member of the Film Shop in Brooklyn, in making a music video. The video is mostly live action with animated bits to spark it up - and believe me it does. The song is Robert Preston singing Chicken Fat “The Youth Fitness Song” by Meredith Willson of “The Music Man” fame. The song was commissioned by President John F. Kennedy for the newly formed President’s Council On Physical Fitness in 1962. A copy was sent to every school in the United States to be played over the intercom so students could do calisthenics to it.

You can see the video here.

- Here’s the last installment of Muggins Mouse. This is a book that was illustrated by Keith Ward.

The copy I’m posting was a Xeroxed copy Rowland Wilson pulled for Bill Peckmann. They selected some to copy in color, and others they made B&W copies. Consequently, we have this mix-version of the book. Unfortunately, it’s a rare enough book that we don’t have access to the original. Regardless, there’s plenty to enjoy in Mr. Ward’s great illustrations.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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We’re missing a page here. No #53.

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- The last of the full length animated features that Mary Blair helped to design was Peter Pan. Her artwork for this film is stunning, and fortunately it’s been published in many places.

Of course, there’s John Canemaker’s excellent book, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair.
Then there’s the Little Golden Book of Peter Pan, .
These scans were all taken from the featured book, The Colors of Mary Blair

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- As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m a long-time lover of Cliff Sterrett’s Polly & Her Pals comic strip. I particularly love when it goes into a graphic surrealism. I’ve chosen a few strips that I’d like to post; they’re not only beautiful, but they’re still funny.

These all come from the 2nd volume of The Complete Color Polly & Her Pals (1927-1929), edited by Rick Marschall and printed by Kitchen Sink Press.

I post the strip followed by a couple panels viewed larger, for your entertainment.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- Of course, David Levine is one of the greatest of the modern caricaturists. His work appeared for years in the NY Review of Books, and actually became those cartoons became the figurehead for the paper.

Levine’s work has been collected in this big, beautiful book. I have Bill Peckmann (yet again) to thank for sending me some of these key pages with many great caricatures.

The juice of the book comes with some of the many and stunning paintings that are included alongside many of the B&W illustrations. Levine is a real artist and these color plates take him out of the world of illustration.

Here are some of the B&W illustrations. Tomorrow the color.

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Aubrey Beardsley

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Humphrey Bogart

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Elvis Presley

(By the way, Elvis’ head was cut off in the printing.)

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Paul Gauguin

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Georgia O’Keefe

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Pablo Picasso

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Jackson Pollack

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Gertrud Stein

Alice B. Toklas

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Orson Welles

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James McNeill Whistler

And then there are the paintings, which I’ll post tomorrow.

-Ken Priebe writes to report that he and Steve Stanchfield will be interviewed in a live chat at AnimateClay.com this week on Marc Spess‘ Live Stop Motion Chat show.

The subject will be a new DVD, Stop Motion Marvels, from Thunderbean, Steve’s company.

8pm Central on Wed Aug 11th. (9pm EST, 6pm PST)

You should also note that Ken Priebe’s new book The Advanced Art of Stop Motion Animation is on the bookshelves. When I get to see a copy I’ll review it. Given the knowledge Ken has of that medium, I’m sure the book is rich and extensive. It has to be a good companion piece to his earlier book The Art of Stop Motion Animation.

I urge you to take a look at both of them if you have any interests in the medium.

Nancy Bieman also has a new book ready to go to market. It will be available on September 15th. Once I get a copy, I’ll post a review.

Animated Performance Bringing Imaginary Animal, Human and Fantasy Characters to Life concentrates on how weight and design affect the overall movement of the characters you’re animating.

Nancy, as you all know, is a top-notch animator who’s worked everywhere from Disney to Sheridan College, where she’s currently a Professor of Advanced Animation.

It’s available from AVA Academia
AVA Academia books are distributed by
Ingram Publisher Services Inc.
One Ingram Boulevard
La Vergne, TN37086
USA
(866) 400 5351
customer.service@ingrampublisherservices.com

The Rauch Brothers, Tim & Mike, have something to crow about today. Not only have their animated shorts done with Storycorps been picked up by POV on PBS, but they made it into the NYTimes today.

They did this all without stooping to the level of Cartoon Network’s loud, crassness. Their films are cut from life.

Bas Waijers, an excellent and original designer who works in and out of animation, sent me his latest., It’s the new map for the largest marine mammal park in Europe. The Dolfinarium in Holland. It’s the equivalent of Sea World. Check out Bas’ site for other views from the Dolfinarium.

Hans Perk on his blog A Film LA has posted the original script, as drawn by Ub Iwerks, for Plane Crazy, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. This gives me the opportunity of posting an original drawing I own from this film. Below is the nearest storyboard drawing to the scene of my drawing followed by the animation drawing, itself.

Hans also points to Mark Sonntag ’s posting of the drawings two years ago as well as another posting at Neatstuff, a collectibles site.

Look for Hans to post the drafts for The Rescuers soon.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- Muggins Mouse is a book, illustrated by Keith Ward. The copy I’m posting was a Xeroxed copy Rowland Wilson pulled for Bill Peckman. They selected some to copy in color and others, to save money, they made B&W copies. Consequently, we have this mix version of the book. Unfortunately, it’s a rare enough book that we don’t have access to the original. Regardless, there’s plenty to enjoy in Mr. Ward’s great illustrations.

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- Alice. More pictures from the Japanese book, The Colors of Mary Blair. There are lots of pictures from this book that I’m not posting; I’d urge you all to buy it.

The three key feature films that were influenced by Mary Blair are Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland and Peter Pan. There’s a wealth of model drawings from each of these three available in various books. John Canemaker’s brilliant work, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, pulls all three together into one chapter and handles them beautifully.
Each of the films has a companion storybook that is illustrated with Mary Blair’s models. Peter Pan, Alice In Wonderland, Cinderella.

These Alice drawings are overexposed, but I picked a bunch I like.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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