Specializing in historical drama, the women of the Townswomens' Guild of Sheffield aren't afraid to get their hands dirty when it comes to promoting their craft.
Specializing in historical drama, the women of the Townswomens' Guild of Sheffield aren't afraid to get their hands dirty when it comes to promoting their craft.
Above: Polly and Her Pals Sunday page by Cliff Sterrett.
Merry Christmas from some great cartoonists and their creations!
Katy Keene comic book cover by Bill Woggon:
Steve Canyon and cast by Milton Caniff:
A 1967 Dennis the Menace comic book cover by Hank Ketcham (or, more likely, by one of his talented assistants):
Joe Palooka and Santa on the cover of Big Shot comics!
Otto Soglow's The Little King with a Christmas card:
1975 Mad Magazine cover by Norman Mingo:
Vintage Charles Schulz Peanuts comic strip wrapping paper via christopherkosek.com:
Stan Lynde's Rick O'Shay:
A 1960s Walt Disney Christmas Parade comic book cover:
Walt Kelly's Pogo Possum, back when it was a Dell comic book:
-- From a blog entry of December 2, 2017.
Rick Parker talks about his new graphic novel Drafted in this News Center Maine video.
British cartoonist Peter Maddocks, whose career spanned 65 years, passed away on November 20th. He was 96 years old.
Via Paul Gravett:
Some people say that cartooning is a calling. The people who do it just do it because they want to -- more than anything else.
The cover to SO YOU WANT TO BE A CARTOONIST by Peter Maddocks, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.
British cartoonist Peter Maddocks
is of the most prolific cartoonists of the 20th century. He was a very
busy man, whose cartoons graced all of the major publications.
By his own admission, he took cartoons seriously. Yes, one can take those funny little pictures very seriously. Maybe too seriously!
"I took my life as a cartoonist very seriously – to me it was everything, holidays were a bore, my poor wife would watch me mooch about walking up and down anywhere but the beach, passing away time until I could return to my drawing board in Fleet Street." - Peter Maddocks, from his interview in Crikey! magazine #12 Nov/Dec 2009
There is a special place in heaven for those patient souls who choose to love and live with cartoonists!
Here is a small collection of some of Mr. Maddocks' incredible output, with emphasis on his gag cartooning.
The thing about Peter Maddocks is that he makes it look easy. Above are 2 bums, in an alley. There's a night sky, so we know when it is. Peter has drawn an alley, so we know where it
is. But that's not all. Look at the little touches: the clutter that he
lovingly draws, the choice of having the second hobo cross his legs as
he is settling down to the paper, the last remaining bottle of cheap
hooch by his elbow. This all looks effortless - but those little touches
are by choice and add to the value and character of the drawing. They
are extra work. Those little touches take thought and consideration and
that's what places Peter above the run-of-the-mill cartoonist.
If you are of a certain age, you grew up with Peter Maddocks' cartoons in the Daily Sketch or the Daily Express.
Peter
obviously loves to draw, which is one of the reasons I wanted to
highlight him. Here, in the classroom scene, where he could have gotten
away with drawing just a few students, he's committed a good half dozen
to the picture, plus their desks.
A former Merchant Navy man, the list of Maddocks cartoons and publications is large. Here are but a few:
FOUR D JONES newspaper comic strip (10 years)
NO. 10 newspaper comic strip (21 years)
Features Editor, King Magazine
Creator: Family Ness, Jimbo and the Jet Set, and Penny Crayon
Peter ran the London School of Cartooning Correspondence School (1977-90)
Animated films for the BBC since 1984
Co-founder and current Joint President of the British Cartoonists’ Association
"I was a huge fan of the Goons on the radio and I suggested it would make a great cartoon for the [Daily] Sketch–Julian Phipps became very interested and contacted Spike Milligan about giving permission and writing a script. I went to The Goon Show rehearsals and met Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers. Sellers was very enthusiastic and we sat together drawing some of the characters, like Bludnock and Morriarty. I drew up some strips to show the famous three, all was going well until the Daily Star and Spike couldn’t agree on a contract, I never did find out what happened but the idea fell through."
As D.D. Degg writes over at the Daily Cartoonist:
"Back before Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson became the mega comic strip hit it was to become the first appearance was seen in the Universal Press Syndicate press kit sent to newspaper editors. Connor Ratliff presents the entire Calvin and Hobbes press kit from the mid-1980s on his Bluesky page."
Here are a few of those pages from the Universal Press pitch way back in 1985.
Six months into Bill Watterson's comic strip launch, I wrote him a letter. I asked probably what many people were asking: How do I do what you do? What's the path? And then I suggested we meet. (I had learned he lived nearby. How I got THAT information I don't know.) Anyway, it was 1986 and I was a kid and Calvin and Hobbes was the best new strip out there. I had no idea if he would write back, but in June 1986, he did. Declining my lunch offer, he then went into what he felt the key was in developing a good comic strip: character development. "Just practice, and have a lot of patience, " he wrote.
I am very fortunate to have become a professional cartoonist. By the next decade, I had done some professional cartooning including a magazine cover and a book. By the 2000s, I was off and running, with lots of clients and I was on the board of the National Cartoonists Society, as well as teaching and lecturing. A big change. Mr. Watterson was right. Patience and persistence were key.
This letter is currently up for auction at ComicLink.