Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- For about six months back in 1980 I did some free lance work for Ruby Spears on their show Plastic Man. I barely remember a thing about it except that I made a lot of money quickly. I was animating AND assisting about 150 feet of animation each week on the primary show Plastic Man as well as a couple of their adjoining series: Rickety Rocket and Fangface. The show was a real waste of my time and after a while on it, I quit. I didn’t want to get hung up on the worst of the H-B kind of work. I made a lot but was allowing my knowledge to go to waste. Just after I quit they pulled the work from New York since they weren’t able to keep a handle on the animation.

All that time and I had no idea of the source material. Now comes this comic from Bill Peckmann‘s enormous collection. It’s fun reading and gives me a hint of a catch up. So let me turn it over to Bill:

Jack Cole and Harvey Eisenberg. Two of the best cartoonists from the early years of comic book history. The last time they probably shared a venue together was way back in the beginning of the 1950′s, and that would have been in a comic book rack in a candy store.

Because they were both masters of drawing “takes” and “freeze frame” action poses, I thought it would be fun to post two of their stories together. Also remember, neither was a slouch when it came to doing beautiful page layouts and those pages always came with their excellent spotting and placing of blacks, simply terrific stuff!

Here is Jack Cole‘s super hero creation “Plastic Man”. This story was published in 1950. It will be followed by a Disney “Li’l Bad Wolf” story by Harvey Eisenberg.

Magazine cover

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Harvey Eisenberg‘s “The Li’l Bad Wolf” story appeared in the Sept. 1951 issue of “Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories”. Cover by Carl Barks.

Magazine cover

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- I have always been aware of Frank Tashlin‘s book, “The Bear That Wasn’t,” and I have never liked it. Well, Bill Peckmann sent me a copy of scans of the book, and I realize that I’ve disliked it because of CHuck Jones’ insipid animated adaptation. When you look at the actual book and the beautiful illustrations, you realize how sensitive the material is and how beautifully handled it is. The illustrations are, in a word, great.

I’m so pleased Bill sent these scns to me, and I almost disgrace the post by ending with the Jones cartoon. It’s no wonder Tashlin disliked Chuck’s work. Take a look. First a lead-in by Bill:

Grim Natwick was an admirer of Frank Tashlin, and all I can say to that is… it takes a renaissance man to know a renaissance man.

Here is the 1962 Dover reprint of Frank Tashlin’s 1946 book, “The Bear That Wasn’t”

Enjoy!

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The original cover

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This was a publisher’s ad to booksellers
that came out when the book did.

Here’s the Chuck Jones cartoon as released by MGM.

It’s got problems that weren’t in the book.
They mostly come from Chuck Jones.

Here is the third of the three adaptations of Peter Pan sent to my from the UK by Peter Hale. Since the original Barrie book is considered something of a national treasure by the Brits, and especially since I wasn’t even award of these editions, it is valuable to see these British adaptations done at the time of the film’s release. I couldn’t be more grateful to Peter Hale for sharing these finds with us.

Here’s Peter Hale’s intro to this book:

These are the scans from the hard back book. The volume is small (5½” x 7½”) as it is designed for children. It is the same size as the Hodder & Stoughton ‘Peter Pan and Wendy‘ illustrated by Mabel Lucie Attwell, but the text layout is different (although the text itself is the same).

The copy I own has no dust jacket. I have included a scan of the dust jacket from a 1956 edition, as the front illustration, at least, is probably the same.

I hope this is of some interest, although I don’t expect you will wish to post all of these scans.

Not all of the pages of the book are included here. The idea is to give you a feel for the book and to show how the illustrations were used for this edition. I think you can get that from this post. Many thanks to Peter Hale for sending them. (I doubt I’d even know that there were so many editions and varieties of text . But it makes perfect sense, and it probably was a political hassle for the Disney people to deal with in making this early adaptation.

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Lately I have been seeing a lot of theater, from the British musical, Matilda, to my wife, Heidi‘s sweet and loving adaptation of Sondheim‘s Into the Woods. From Odet‘s dark and difficult The Big Knife to so many numerous others, recently. There have been great highs and mediocre lows, both sets of shows get my excitement level high and challenges me to think key thoughts on direction, acting, music, sets and costumes.

How interesting for Bill Peckmann to send me some caricatures off the walls of Sardi’s restaurant where I’d eaten just a few nights back, and Bill reminds me strongly of the evening. This just after hearing, last night, Baz Luhrman and wife, Catherine Martin, talk about their very theatrical film, The Great Gatsby. It made for a rich and notable program. Film and theater and animation are all so intricately entwined and wonderfully connected. We need to admit it and salute these connections more often.

How wonderful for me and how grateful I am to Bill Peckmann for sharing images from the walls of Sardi’s restaurant in New York. The celebrated celebrity caricatures directly off the walls of that restaurant are all wonderful. So easy to identify the images, so beautifully defined his style which doesn’t define the drawings but blesses them gently. All of these drawings in this book are by cartoonist/illustrator, Don Bevan. I didn’t need to refer to the book to identify the celebrity for the caricature in the blog. I’d say that’s a sign of a good caricaturist.

The book’s cover

The inner flyleaf

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Sammy Davis Jr.

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Lucille Ball

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George Burns

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Carol Channing

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Johnny Carson

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Lauren Bacall

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Zero Mostel

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Paul Winchell

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Sidney Poitier

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Carol Burnett

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Yul Brenner

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Angela Lansbury

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Mitch Miller

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Maurice Chevalier

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Jack Paar

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Jackie Gleason

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Audrey Meadows

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Art Carney

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David Frost

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Lee Remick

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Joel Grey

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Robert Preston

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Glynis Johns

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Dana Andrews

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Anthony Quayle

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Robert Ryan

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Wilfred Hyde-White

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Ernie Kovaks

- John Canemaker had loaned me the final sequences of the storyboard to Sleeping Beauty, detailing the dragon fight and climax of the film. I originally posted this in three parts. I’ve combined them all here, making for one long post.

I’m not sure who did the artwork, but there’s a good chance it’s Ken Anderson‘s work.

As with past boards, I’ll post the whole photograph as is, then take it apart row by row so that you can enlarge them as much as possible. Here’s the storyboard sequence #19 from Sleeping Beauty.

The full board follows below:

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The breakdown of that full board follows:

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Here’s the next full page of storyboard as is:

(Click any image on the page to enlarge.)

Again, I follow with the board broken up into segments, half a row at a time.

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This is this photo of the next page of the board as it came to me:

(Click any image to enlarge.)____________

Here are the rows of the board broken into two so that I can post them a bit larger.

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If only he knew what he was going to face next.

I’ve decided to get the frame grabs for the sequence and post them as well. I thought the comparison of board to actual film would be interesting.
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These images come from the “Special Edition” of the dvd, not the “Platinum Edition” now on the market. Using Hans Perk‘s posts of the drafts for these scenes, on his blog A Film LA, I was able to identify the animators’ names.

sc 82 (L) Milt Kahl – sc 82.1 (R) Frank Thomas

sc 82.2 (L) Kahl & Thomas – sc 82.3 (R) George Nicholas & Jerry Hathcock

sc 82.4 (L) Nicholas – sc 82.5 (R) Nicholas & Hathcock

Nicholas & Hathcock (L) sc 82.6

Nicholas & Hathcock (L) sc 83

sc 84 (L) Ken Hultgren – sc 85 (R) Nicholas & Hathcock

sc 87 (L) Nicholas & Sibley – sc 88 (R) Nicholas & Hathcock

(L) Nicholas & Hathcock – sc 89.1 (R) Hultgren

sc 89 (L) Nicholas & Hathcock – sc 91 (R) Hathcock

sc 91 (L) Hathcock – sc 92 (R) SA sc 49 seq 8

sc 95 (L) Hathcock – sc 93 (R) Hathcock

sc 96 (L) Hathcock – sc 97 (R) Dan MacManus

(L) MacManus – sc 97.2 (R) Hathcock

sc 98 (L) Hathcock – sc 99 (R) Sibley

sc 100 MacManus

sc 100.1 (L) Hathcock – sc 101 (R) Les Clark & Fred Kopietz

sc 102 (L) Hultgren & Kopietz – sc 104 (R) Hathcock

sc 107 (L) Hathcock – sc 108 (R) Hultgren

(L) Hutlgren – sc 109 (R) Hathcock

sc 110 (L) Ollie Johnston & Blaine Gibson – sc 110.1 (R) Gibson

sc 110.2 (L) Johnston – sc 110.3 (R) Johnston & Gibson

sc 110.4 (L) Johnston – sc 111 (R) Johnston & Gibson

sc 112 Johnston & Gibson

sc 112 (cont) Johnston & Gibson

- Let’s end this post from Sleeping Beauty by posting a couple of drawings I have for the “Skumps” sequence. Again, Hans Perk on his blog A Film LA, posted the animator drafts for this sequence and I was able to I.D. the animators. (I have to say I guessed correctly in three out of four shots, so I’m pleased with myself.)

I’m posting closeups of the drawings. By clicking on any of them you’ll see the full sized animation paper. I’m also posting frame grabs beneath the drawings so you can see how they looked in the film.

This is a Milt Kahl scene, seq 13 sc 8. This drawing is undoubtedly a clean up,
so it’s not one of Kahl’s drawings – just his pose. It’s an extreme.

It is interesting that Kahl animated both characters.

This is a John Sibley ruff. Seq 13 sc 17.

It’s a very odd, uncoordinated dance number by the drunk lackey.

This is my favorite of these four. It’s a John Lounsbery ruff of King Stefan.
Another extreme from seq 13 sc 26.

I like this character.

This is also another beautiful ruff by John Lounsbery. It’s King Hubert in the
very last scene of seq 13, sc 57.

it comes just prior to Hubert’s turning and sitting on the palace steps.
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- Bill Peckmann sent a host of hilarity via email. So I have only to post it. Thanks for the smile to Arnie Levin for the great sense of humor and Bill for sending it to me.
Bill writes:

This is for Arnie Levin, a true prince of a man in the realm of cartooning, (both animation and print) and life!

Book’s cover

Back cover

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Bill writes:
Less is more, not a line or thought out of place, “P” for perfection, it all applies to Arnie!

You’ll remember that Peter Hale sent several adaptations of Disney’s Peter Pan in book form. This version is by May Byron.
Here are introductory comments by Mr. Hale:

Here are the scans from the hard back book by May Byron. The volume is small (51/2″ x 71/2″) as it is designed for children. It is the same size as the Hodder & Stoughton ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ illustrated by Mabel Lucie Attwell, but the text layout is different (although the text itself is the same).

The copy I own has no dust jacket. I have included a scan of the dust jacket from a 1956 edition, as the front illustration, at least, is probably the same.

Front dust jacket cover

Frontispiece – Title page

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Rear dust jacket cover

(I notice that there are some mix-ups going from the sincgle to the double-pages sent. The text doesn’t properly follow.) However, I did post these for viewing of the illustrations and the match to the page texts, so follow that.

A rich Alex Toth comic creation arranged and sent to us by Bill Peckmann. Bill writes:

In the new recently published “Genius Illustrated, the Life and Art of Alex Toth” by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell, there are pages, after wonderful pages, of Alex’s terrific, original comic book art. I thought it would be fun to see a couple of those original splash pages (thanks to Mr. Mullaney) followed by their stories from when they were originally printed.

Here is a 16 page Alex Toth story that appeared in DC’s “Adventure Comics” in 1972. The “Black Canary” was a super heroine that got her start in 1947 and was updated by Alex 25 years later in this two part story. Lucky for us bird watchers!

This is the Splash page of page one – “the author’s proof”

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The Splash page of the Title page for story 2.

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Here is the prologue page to Toth’s “Batman” story, the splash page follows. It was the only time he did a story of the caped crusader and what an excellent one it is. Teamed with friend, writer, editor Archie Goodwin, who was smart enough to entice Alex to illustrate, by writing a tale that came with one of Toth’s great loves, World War One airplanes!

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Prologue page
This story appeared in DC’s “Detective Comics”, # 442, Sept. 1974.

The Splash page of the Title page

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The Title page

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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for all his work in getting the story to us.

As promised last week, I have this Peter Pan strip book to post. Peter Hale sent me three book adaptations of the Disney animated feature, and I plan on posting all three. Today we start with this strip book, and I think you’ll appreciate it.

Peter writes:

I do not know who the artist was. This version does not appear to have been printed in any other form.

I originally had a copy of this book as a child, but although I kept it for a long
time it final got lost. I recently found another copy and have had the opportunity
to regain my childhood!

Here are the scans. You’ll have to click the images to enlarge if you want to read them.

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“Cartoon Movie Posters” is a book that was published by Bruce Hershenson in the 1990′s, volume 1.
Bill Peckmann sent me some of the better posters in the book, and I posted them last week.

I have to admit that I’m intrigued by the notion of scanning quickly through the history of animation via the poster art. I guess today one would more easily collect a reel of commercial spots. I’m not sure they’d be any more exciting, and the experience would probably wear thin quickly.
Although, it’s not that rare to see a poster for an animated short. As a matter of fact, posters can all too easily be produced by the film makers, themselves. At Oscar voting time we saw posters for all the potential nominees: Paperman, Combustible, Adam & Dog, The Eagleman Stag, Oh Willy!

“Adam and Dog” | “Combustible”

“The Eagleman Stag” | “Oh Willy!”

The winner: “Paperman”

Here’s post #2 featuring some great cartoon posters. Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for planning and scanning and sending.

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