Michael Sporn Animation - Splog

- - Last week I posted the first part of this Walter T. Foster art book: Animated Cartoons for the Beginner. Here’s the second half of the book done in a very retro style. I’m surprised it survived the 1960s, when I first got a copy of it. The artwork looks like it comes from the 1930s and could hardly have survived the War (never mind been drawn after it.) The book was first published in 1946.

The animation in the book is certainly odd, not least because the pages are out of order and the flip book imagery doesn’t properly flip. I’ve placed the images in the correct order and have made a small QT movie of the piece for your entertainment if not your edification.

Here are the pages of remaining:

1617

1819

20

2122

2324

25

2627

2829

30

3132

33

Here is the flipbook that rests on the outer edge of every other page.
I’ve maneuvered them a bit to make it work properly. Registration is
impossible given the size shifts and placement of the drawings on the pages.
i’ve done what I could.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- We all know that Walter T. Foster art books published the grandaddy of modern How-To-Animate books, Preston Blair’s Animation. But there was another book from the same publisher, and I don’t know, to this day, who put it together. I think it might have been Walter T. Foster, himself.
Animated Cartoons for the Beginner.

When I was young - 10 or 11, somewhere in there - a guy who lived in my building, Norman (I don’t remember his last name), worked for NY’s largest art store at the time, Art Brown. My father broached him and told him of my obsession for animation and asked if the guy, who was an “artist,” could help me. Norman came down to my apartment and spent a lot of time talking with me and encouraging me. He gave me a copy of both Walter T. Foster books on animation, and he won a fan forever. He soon moved out of the building but was replaced by a woman, who I guess took over his apartment, Norma
(I don’t know her last name either.)

She brought some colored pencils, watercolors and a 5×7″ drawing pad with rough surface. She wanted me to draw/paint a story. I filled that book with illustrations of a Russian fairy tale called “The Prince and the Dragon.” I liked the dragon part. As I did it, she spent time guiding me in using the materials.

There’s nothing good or notworthy in that pad (which I still have), but it put me on a path after spending so much time whining about wanting to be an animator. The kindness of strangers.

Anyway, that other book, Walter T. Foster’s Animated Cartoons for the Beginner, was always a poor and distant cousin to the Blair book. Even when I was 12, I looked down on it. I mean who draws like that? Except Nat Falk and Walter T. Foster. When I pulled the book out to show my guys in the studio, Matt Clinton’s first comment was, “Who draws like that anymore?”

I guess they used to draw like this. Connie Rasinski and the folks up at Terrytoons perfected it, and copyists like Walter T. Foster turned it into something else.

But looking at the book today, it sure is something. It always irked me that the drawings on the right hand side (the even numbers, below) included walk cycles and movement that could be flipped. But the pages of the book weren’t correctly assembled, so the animation doesn’t flip without some big problems. It’s crazy.

Next week, I’ll post the other half of the book and try to make some QT movie flipbooks of the pages - those I’ll have to put into proper flipping order.

- By far one of my favorite writers was the British author, John Fowles. I enjoyed The Magus, but with The French Lieutenant’s Woman he had me as more than a fan. His language, his intellectual arguments, his absolute respect for his reader all brought me back again and again to follow his every word. I spent time with a specific retailer in New York who specialized in Fowles’ books to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything that he published.

In 1985, on a vacation in London, I found a translation Fowles did of a French play, Martine by Jean Jacques Bernard, playing at the National theater. I hastily bought a couple of tickets to the show at the last preview, just prior to the play’s opening. Arriving early, there was an hour to kill before going into the theater. Fortunately, some vendors had set up book stalls selling used books, and I pleasantly sorted through the wares. Looking up from a book of Edmund Dulac’s illustrations, I saw John Fowles an aisle away. I was too timid back then to introduce myself and shake his hand. I just gloried in the knowledge that he was a brush away. The play was not memorable, but the evening was.

For a short while, Fowles wrote the text for a number of books which were really photographic essays. One of my favorites of these is one called Shipwreck. Featured throughout the book are historic photos of ships that crashed on the coasts of the Scilly Islands and West Cornwall. (Fowles was always dedicated to his home town of Lyme Regis.)

Here, I’m posting a few of the photos in the book because they are inordinately interesting to me, and I think you may also find them such. The text is by Fowles.

Seine
Ran ashore in Perran Bay (Perranporth), December 28th, 1900.
This beautiful ship was a French ‘bounty clipper’ - so called because
a government subsidy to French ship-owners allowed them to build
for elegance rather than more mundane qualities. The crew got off
in heavy seas. By dawn the next day she was dismasted and on her
beam-ends, and broke up on the next flood-tide. Two weeks later the
hulk of this celebrated barque was bought for only £42.

Mildred
Struck under Gurnard’s Head in thick fog at midnight, April 6th, 1912.
She was carrying slag from Newport to London. When she began to
pound broadside on, the captain and crew launched a boat and rowed
along the cliffs to St Ives. The Mildred, Cornish built and owned,
was launched in 1889.

River Lune
Struck in fog and at night just south of Annet (Scillies), July 27th, 1879 -
the same day as the Maipu. The master later blamed a faulty
chronometer, since he had believed himself fifteen miles to the west.
The ship heeled and sunk aft in the first ten minutes. The crew took
to their boats, but returned in daylight to collect their belongings.
This barque was only eleven years old. She broke up soon afterwards.

Jeune Hortense
Stranded near St Michael’s Mount, May lyth, 1888. The foreground
carriage is for the Penzance lifeboat. This sturdy brigantine lived
to sail another day.

Mohegan
Struck the Manacles, October 14th, 1898. One of the most dreaded of all reefs,
the Manacles (from the Cornish ‘maen eglos’, rocks of the church, a reference
to the landmark of St Keverne’s tower) stand east of the Lizard promontory,
in a perfect position to catch shipping on the way into Falmouth — and before
Marconi ‘Falmouth for orders’ (as to final North European destination) was
the commonest of all instructions to masters abroad. But the Mohegan was
outward bound, and hers is one of the most mysterious of all Victorian sea-disasters.
She was a luxury liner on only her second voyage, from Tilbury to New York.
Somewhere off Plymouth a wrong course was given. A number of people on shore
realized the ship was sailing full speed (13 knots) for catastrophe; a coastguard
even fired a warning rocket, but it came too late. The great ship struck just as
the passengers were sitting down to dinner. She sank in less than ten minutes,
and 106 people were drowned, including the captain and every single deck officer,
so we shall never know how the extraordinary mistake, in good visibility, was made.
The captain’s body was washed up headless in Caernarvon Bay three months later.
Most of the dead were buried in a mass grave at St. Keverne.

Blue Jacket
Stuck fast - and surely a classic example of the expression-on the
Longships lighthouse rocks off Land’s End, December 9th, 1898. This
tramp was in ballast from Plymouth to Cardiff. The captain went below
to his cabin - and his wife - at 9.30 p.m., leaving the mate on watch.
He was woken near midnight by a tremendous crash, and came on deck
to find his listing ship brilliantly illuminated by the lighthouse only a few
yards away. Captain, wife and crew took to their boats and were picked
up by the Sennen lifeboat. How the mate managed to play moth to this
gigantic candle-the weather was poor, but provided at least two miles’
visibility-has remained a mystery. The Bluejacket sat perched in this
ludicrous position for over a year.

Hansy
Wrecked in Housel Bay near the Lizard Point, November 13th, 1911.
Sailing from Sweden to Melbourne with timber and pig-iron, she missed stays
while trying to come about in a gale. The crew were brought ashore by
breeches-buoy. Two days later a salvage party boarded - to find a pair of
goats lying happily in a seaman’s bunk. Local fishermen did a thriving trade
in timber for weeks afterwards; and the iron pigs are fished up for ballast
to this day. The Scottish-built Hansy (formerly Aberfoyle) had had an
unhappy history. In 1890 the bulk of the crew jumped ship in Australia,
after a bad voyage out - only to be returned on board following a fortnight
in jail. Jail must have been more agreeable, for eight men jumped ship again
at the next port of call. In 1896 a steamer found the Aberfoyle drifting helplessly
off Tasmania. The captain had been swept overboard, the first mate had
committed suicide by leaping into the sea and the rest had given up hope.
Similar stories of low morale - and often of insane bitterness between
officers and crew - are manifold.

Susan Elizabeth
Driven ashore at Porthminster Beach (St Ives), October 17th, 1907.
A gale blew this collier’s sails out off the Mumbles. Less than three months
later the Lizzie R. Wilce and the Mary Barrow also had to beach here.

- Last week I posted the first part of this display of comic book covers (front and back) drawn by the inimitable Walt Kelly in his pre-Pogo days.

As he completed the series of Fairy Tale covers, he moved into Mother Goose and then The Brownies. There’s a charge I get looking at the brilliant draftsmanship on display here. The man could draw. We knew this from the quality of the art in Pogo, but these covers give us a different light in which to view this artist. It’s a great trip to waltz through the years 1942 - 1948 with Walt Kelly seeing the progression of his comic art.

As I mentioned last week, these covers were copied in the 1980’s by Bill Peckmann from the great collection of John Benson. Bill has loaned them to me, and I’m sharing.

Front cover__________________________ Back cover
1a 1b
(Click any image to enlarge.)

2a 2b
Mother Goose develops after the Fairy Tale comics.

3a 3b

4
Mother Goose becomes a holiday item.

5a 5b

6a 6b
An Easter version of Mother Goose

7a 7b
The Brownies debuts

8a 8b

- I’ve not paid much attention to Errol LeCain lately, so I thought it might be amusing to revisit a book that I only touched on in the past. Le Cain illustrated two books out of T.S. Eliot’s book of poems, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. See the first post here.

In one of the two books, Growltiger’s Last Stand, three of the poems are illustrated. In my initial post, I only offered the illustrations from one of the the three. To amend for that, this post will include illustrations from the other two.

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

.
Of the Awful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles

The Song of the Jellicles

- Last week I posted the first part of a two-part article written by John Canemaker for the magazine, Cartoons, the International Journal of Animation published by ASIFA Int’l. The two part article appeared in the Winter 2006 and Spring 2007 issues. (See Part 1 here.)

John Parr Miller worked at the Disney studio from 1934 to 1942 as part of the Character Model Department run by Joe Grant. After Miller’s service in WWII, he designed and illustrated many children’s books and he continued in that field for the remainder of his life.

This is an extraordinarily well-researched article by John Canemaker, and I’m pleased to post it here for all those who don’t have access to the magazine, Cartoons. Thanks go to John for his permission to post both parts of the article.

With more of a focus on his children’s books, this is part 2:

1 2
(Click any image to enlarge.)

3 4

5

6 7

8 9

1011

12

1314

- This is the final chapter of the book I’ve been posting these last five weeks. It is a drawn diary kept by Tanya Usvayskaya while she worked for Yuri Norshtein’s studio. The close-knit and personal relationship of all the members of the studio comes through, and we get to share some intimate moments with the animation master, Yurij Norshtein.

Richard O’connor, whose Asterisk Productions does wonderful animation of their own, gave the book to me as a gift, and I’m pleased to share it with you.

Note that the translation by the Japanese publisher isn’t always the clearest, yet something of the original Russian seems to come through. I’m transcribing the book without changing anything.

The first five parts of the book can be found here:
Norshtein Comics - 1
Norshtein Comics - 2
Norshtein Comics - 3
Norshtein Comics - 4
Norshtein Comics - 5

Here we continue with a chapter on “The Artist”:

58
“Artist”

59
“I am the leader of the art!”
Yurij Borisovich, with his wife, is dancing Flamenco.
“Yes,” agreed Francheska looking at him affectionately.

60
“Please tie me on the chair!”
For the film, “The Overcoat,” it is necessary to shoot a scene
where Arkaky is tied to a chair by his colleagues.
So he says, and sketches himself as Arkaky in front of a large mirror.

61
“It is better to tie a fool! Ha-ha-ha!”
While sketching
Norshtein slipped off the chair
and burst into a roar of laughter.

62
“I never realized that
woman’s breasts wave like waves,
and in it - there is a small ship!”
Norshtein, as with all artists,
loves to admire ladies forms.

63
Yurij searches for
wonderful expression on the TV.

He did not find “wonderful expression” and was offended.
He says: “What is the value of television?”

64
“It is outrageous! You understand nothing!”
Borisch in trousers of kimono (jinbei)
and in socks (not at all fearful)
scolds studio members.

65
“Absent heroes.”
Opening of exhibition of laureates of “Triumph” award
Yarbusova and Norshtein in Paris in 1998.
They were so tired of hanging sketches by themselves
that they were no more interested in the opening itself.

66
“What we call poetry is reality for children.”
Yurij told Nataliya Nikolaevna Abramova (his permanent heroic editor)
“Animation film is not a criterion. In art
it does not occupy any positions. I know about it.
Natasha, I am always thinking about it.”

67
“Animation - it is a continent without a support!”
Torture of Creation - Norshtein shouted to Natasha Abramova on the phone.
Any average entertainment films are much more meaningful than
what I currently am engaged with.
“I only wish that the bed will not be broken,” Tanya muttered.

68
In spite of all this
Norshtein continues working in animation films.

Drawing with a model - Norshtein looks into the eye piece of movie camera.

Norshtein, himself, wrote a short piece in the back of his student’s book:

About Tanya

Tatiana Usvayskaya is very unique artist. She has quite rear combination of very keen sense for fun and skill of sharp drawing at the same time. Her visual memory serves her fantastically!

For the very first time I was surprised by her talent seeing her drawing where I was portrayed as a giant with running line of cheering like birds students behind me. Figures on the drawing were not bigger than a finger’s nail, but all that 15 or 20 characters were with incredible resemblance. I can’t understand how she could catch the resemblance in such a miniature size! Any scene from everyday life is transfered by her fantasy.

Her beloved dog with nickname Pirat is a kind of superhero on her drawings. He is a gentleman, a doctor, a cook, her gallant cavalier and her taxi-driver.

Gratefully to her kindness the dog became one of the heros on introduction and ending of TV programme ‘Good night, children!’

A short movie can be done by any of her drawings. She doesn’t keep her drawings preciously. She scatters them everywhere, many of them are lost forever. Whenever I ask about some of her drawings, she answers: ‘I think, I have lost it… I’ll draw a new one!’

She has a Mozart’s scale talent, that’s why so easy she can part with things done already and not be saddened by lost one. For Mozart was quite easier to compose a new piece than to look for something lost already.

Tanya never corrects her drawings. If she has dislike of something, she redraws it again. She doesn’t think much of her talent, considering that to draw is very simple thing.

I hope that publishing of this book with her drawings will help her to understand that to raise a people’s laugh over your drawings is quite tough job.

Yuri Norshtein

- You’ll remember that I did a couple of pieces on the illustrator Vernon Grant. He was the original designer of Snap, Crackle and Pop for the Kelloggs Corp. back in the late ’30s, and I featured a post on the history of those characters.

I followed that with one on his Mother Goose book. There, I posted some of his uniquely styled illustrations for that book of Mother Goose rhymes.

Both those posts were heavily dependent on some great material loaned me by Bill Peckmann from his remarkable collection.

Vernon Grant was also drew Santa Claus. He seemed to love drawing St. Nick in many different incarnations. This is something we share. Whereas I confine myself to many varied Christmas cards, he has a perennial best selling picture book, Vernon Grant’s Santa Claus, that’s been on the market for many years. Bill Peckman recently sent me a copy of the book to scan and post, but I’d already had my own copy. I’ve decided, here, to post about half of the book. I’m particularly interested in Grant’s illustrations prior to the ’50s. Conseqeuntly, I’ve chosen to select only those illustrations that were done in 1953 or earlier, and I’ve placed them in chronological order.

Not all of the images are of Santa Claus. Hence in organizing them by date, we have to start off with a beauty but one that doesn’t feature Santa.

Hi-Ho! For a Merry Christmas - 1932

I got your letter - 1934

Empty pockets - 1936

How sad! The Depression hit Santa, too.

Merrie Minstrels - 1937

Santa’s Special Delivery - 1940

Season’s Greetings - 1942

Untitled - 1946

This one is untitled, but it’s far and away my favorite.

Is It My Turn Yet? - 1946

These last two are too Norman Rockwell for my taste.
But it shows the direction Vernon Grant and America were taking.

Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - 1953

The song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” written by Tommy Connor
was a smash hit in 1952. The smash singer was Jimmy Boyd (who later
grew into the role of “Jimmy” on the original Mickey Mouse Club.

Vernon Grant obviously built on the song title.
It looks like a Coca Cola ad of the period.

- We’re starting to wind down on this delightful book. It’s Tanya Usvayskaya’s drawn diary while she worked for Yuri Norshtein’s studio. This book caricartures the small family within the studio and Norshtein’s world during that period.

Richard O’connor, whose Asterisk Productions does wonderful animation of their own, gave the book to me as a gift, and I’m pleased to share it with you.

Note that the translation by the Japanese publisher isn’t always the best, but it does capture the gist of the original Russian. I’m transcribing the book without alterations.

The first four parts of the book can be found here:
Norshtein Comics - 1
Norshtein Comics - 2
Norshtein Comics - 3
Norshtein Comics - 4

Here we continue with a chapter on “Pirat,” the studio’s dog:

49
Chapter 5: My Friend, Pirat!

50
“Run! Pirat let’s go bathing!”
Spring! On trees are first leaves.
Tanya says “Let’s go to the class. It is Nazarov today!
Norshtein is hurried to a lake,
while Tanya is not.

51
“I wish he would give it to me.”
Norshtein is thoughtfully breakfasting dry “Hercules.”

52
“It’s wonderful!”
Nazarov brought cheese that smelled badly as a gift for Norshtein.
Everyone in the studio ran away to fetch gas masks.
So only Pirat shared the joy with Norshtein.
The director mumbled it
smacked it and muttered with opening his eyes.

53
“Goodbye, flea!”
Pirat washes himself
with shampoo against fleas.

54
“Yes, eh, I . . . have decided to cut my hair myself.”
Norshtein was observed in front of a mirror in a strange pose.
“Yuri Borisch, what is the matter with you?”

55
“Valya, I know you prefer a rabbit.”
Pirat, not Tanya, writes a report about the studio.
[Norshtein and Valya Olishvang are taking the rest from shooting the film.
Good night, children. They are swimming on the lake in the winter.]

56
“It is OK !”
Norshtein dislocated his leg and stretched the leg
in the corridor under the direction of Pirat all day.

57
“Good night, children !”
Norshtein says that at some moment,
characters start to live by themselves.

- For the past two weeks I’ve been posting the dummy of a book written and prepared by Bill Peckmann and Rowland B. Wilson. It didn’t find a publisher back in the 1980s when they were seeking one, but the book survives. And it’s a gem.

The first couple of pages were done in a color, as a sample, and the remaining were left as line drawings. The beautiful artwork of Rowland Wilson reads as clean and sharp as ever. This wordless book rips at a breakneck speed and tells a real animated story that would have made for a wonderful children’s book. Imagine a child sitting on a parent’s lap and the dialogue they could have had in developing this graphic story. (It also would have made a great animated short!)

I’ve really enjoyed posting this, and I thank Bill Peckmann for allowing me the opportunity of doing so. You can see Part 1 here.
You can see Part 2 here.

As with the past post, we start with the last drawing of Part 2.

66 67
(Click any image to enlarge.)

68 69

70 71

72 73

74 75

76 77

78 79

80 81

82 83

84 85

86 87

88

And just to put everything in proper perspective, here’s a letter they received from Houghton Mifflin rejecting the book. He was Rowland B. Wilson, for god’s sake!

Bill Peckmann added this background info: “The rejection slip from
Houghton Mifflen really hurt the most because our thinking at the time
was that since they were publishing Bill Peet’s books (my all time
favorites), we thought they would understand the concept of “Robert”
better than anyone else. Go figure”