Thank You and Please Consider Helping This Blog

I'm just starting my 9th year on a blog that I was sure wouldn't last.

I'm happy to be mistaken. And glad to share my knowledge of cartooning with all of you.

The blog is a one-person operation and takes time. You know that. And the blog traffic, tells me that there are people interested in cartoons; how to be a cartoonist, how to find markets, how to come up with ideas, how to persist in the face of rejection, what makes a good cartoon, etc.

Please help. I appreciate you considering making a donation today.

The amount you give is up to you. 

Lost Art: Original Hand-Drawn Store Signs

Above are samples of some of the hundreds of hand-made store signs from the Honest Ed's store. The store was recently sold and these will be up for auction on Monday. All proceeds go to charity. More here.

The hand-made sign look is, for all I know, pretty much gone from the grocery store landscape. It's a remnant of another time, replaced now with computer fonts.

Related:

Go look at Tom Tomorrow's blog for a great find: hand-made title cards for presentations!

Cleveland Heights, OH: Lake Erie Ink

PAJAMA DIARIES cartoonist Terri Libenson gives a presentation and a workshop for kids at Lake Erie Ink's 2nd Annual Kids' Comic Con, tomorrow, March 8th. Other area cartoonists will be there, making comics with the kids as well. Sounds like a great time!

Tyne Lowe: Comic Convention Table Rookie

Tyne Lowe draws about funny/sad 12 panel tale of her tabling at a convention as a small, independent cartoonist.

Drew Friedman's Old Jewish Comedians

NEW YORK, NY: The reception for The Society of Illustrators gallery show Drew Friedman's Old Jewish Comedians is tonight. Wish I was there!

WHAT'S NEW MISTER MAGOO? by Pete Alvarado

I almost did not pick this book up. "MAGOO?," I said to myself.  "No thank yoo!"

Ha ha ha.

But I was wrong.

OK, when I was a kid I did watch the UPA MR. MAGOO cartoons after school. I was never that fond of them. I mean, the main joke is that the guy can't see. It's not like you can't see it coming. The only thing that surprised me was that somehow, things would work out despite all odds.

Another surprise was that there was a MAGOO comic strip -- and how sleekly drawn the feature was. This artist could ink and layout like nobody's business. Although no credits are on the book, except for the copyright of 1977 by UPA Pictures, Inc. and the "Henry G. Saperstein Presentation" notation on every strip, the Internet had the answer to who it was that produced this: Pete Alvarado.

Pete Alvarado (1920-2003) was an Academy Award winning cartoonist. His career began in the 1930s, at Walt Disney, creating storyboards for Disney's SNOW WHITE. But he may best known for his "Termite Terrace" years at Warner Brothers. He worked on some legendary cartoons (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck,  Porky Pig and others). He received two Academy Awards. He also drew comic books beginning in the Golden Age. At first, for Funnies, Inc., then for Timely, and finally a long stint with Western Publishing where he produced books based on Walter Lantz, Hanna-Barbera and Disney properties.

The rule in the comic book industry back then: he collected a check, but was never credited or allowed to sign his art in the comic.

He also drew the Roy Rogers and Gene Autry newspaper comic strips for a while. Somewhere during this time, he was also dong Big Little Books and coloring books. From 1964 to 1866, he did the MISTER MAGOO comic strip.

When I looked at the strips, I admired the art so much. I knew that the person who had done them had some serious artistic chops, but had no idea that the person behind those lines had such an amazing résumé; over half a century of comics and cartoons. Take a look at this wonderful technique by the one and only Pete Alvaredo:

Creig Flessel: "This Week In Astrology"

The "This Week in Astrology" feature by Carl Payne Tobey was distributed by NEA from 1969 to 1977. Allan Holtz shows us some samples, and reveals that the artist who signed the art "Valentine" was, in fact, Creig Flessel.

Video: H.A. and Margret Rey and CURIOUS GEORGE

(Above: H. A. Rey, unpublished drawing, United States, c. 1950s-60s, pencil on paper. H. A. & Margret Rey Papers, de Grummond Children's Literature Collection, McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi via the Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H. A. Rey site.)


From a September 16, 2012 episode of CBS Sunday Morning: here's the story of H.A. and Margret Rey, who fled the Nazis in 1940, on bicycle, with the first CURIOUS GEORGE manuscript. Included is an interview with Margret from 1996.

"We did only what we liked, and by nice coincidence the children liked the same thing."

Matt Jones: Drawing San Francisco

Above sketch copyright Matt Jones.


Look around. If you are in San Francisco, and if you see a guy who is sketching, go over and say hi for me. It'll be Pixar's Matt Jones. How can you tell? If his sketches are amazing. That's how.

Matt shares some of his sketches as he walks around town. Great work, as ever. Dig that vibrant line! Thanks for this, Matt.

Post-War Gag Cartoonists

Above cartoon by Tom Hudson for  Collier's. 

My friend Ger Apeldoorn shows us some samples of the post-war "mid-range" gag cartoonists.

"Dependable, but maybe a bit safe. They were often not classy enough for The New Yorker and not dirty enough for the girlie magazines (although most of them ended up there in the late fifties)."

Well, I don't know if they were classy or not. Take a look at the above link and see for yourself. But these guys -- Colin Allen, Bo Brown, Tom Henderson, Tom Hudson, Henry Syverson -- were major hitters, with their recognizable cartoons appearing regularly in high circulation, mainstream weekly and monthly magazines like Colliers and The Saturday Evening Post. 

Stanley Kubrick Photographs Cartoonist Peter Arno (1949)

Kubrick was a child prodigy photographer and was employed doing photo features for Look Magazine in the 1950s when he was just 16 years old. Did you know that? I did not until my friend Paul Giambarba sent me a photo of Arno that was taken by the teenaged Kubrick last week.

Here are a few of the many photos of Peter Arno from the Museum of the City of New York site. Click on that link for what looks like all of the photos (and some of the proof sheets) that Kubrick took that day and that night of this seminal New Yorker cartoonist.

These photos are © 2014 MNY all rights reserved:

Related:

Paul Giambarba on "The Irreverent Genius of Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr."

Mike Lynch: Peter Arno's Favorite Part

Mike Lynch Cartoon in SEARLE IN AMERICA Exhibition Catalog

Above: the cover of the exhibition catalog.

The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco has another month left to go for its "Searle in America" exhibition. The show runs until Saturday, March, 30, 2014. It's a stunning collection of original art pieces that Ronald Searle created for US publications and it was curated by Matt Jones. Matt not only does good things over at his day job at the animation studio Pixar, but he also runs the great Ronald Searle Tribute blog. 

The costs to ship all of this to San Francisco were high. Matt decided an art auction should be held to help. When the call went out to artists to contribute their own original works in the style of Searle, many contributed for a large eBay sale this past fall.

It was my pleasure to send on an illustration. Matt kindly decided to include some of the artists' work in the catalog. Here's mine, on the upper right:

If you get a chance, make the trip to see this.

And Matt promises a bigger coffee table book of Searle's little-known American work soon.

Above: a closer angle on my Searle tribute sketch.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. SEARLE -- born this day in 1920!

Graphic Novel Preview: CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT? by Roz Chast

Cartoonist Roz Chast writes:

"This week's issue of The New Yorker has an excerpt from the graphic memoir about my parents' decline. Here's a link."

It's a graphic memoir titled “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?,” and it will be published this May. Roz has been a cartoonist at The New Yorker since 1978.

Rochester, NH Girl Scouts: Please Learn to Spell

This is a real photo I took at the Lowe's hardware store. This is a real sign that was outside the doors on Sunday, March, 2, 2014. The girl scouts were inside, selling their cookies at a table.

It reads:

Girl Scout
Cookies!
$4.00 a box
We except
credit cards!
They are delicous!

Aside from the implication that credit cards are delicious to eat, there are two spelling errors here that no good girl scout should make.

Video Pop-up Book: DICK TRACY: THE CAPTURE OF BORIS ARSON (1935) by Chester Gould

From the Cooper-Hewitt Museum exhibition "Wall Stories: Children's Wallpapers and Books," which ran from October 3, 2008 to April 5, 2009. But, thankfully, they made some videos, including this one, of these great old pop-up books. 

From the description:

Pop-up book: Dick Tracy: The Capture of Boris Arson
The popular comic-strip character Dick Tracy was created by Chester Gould for the Chicago Tribune in 1931. Harold Lentz, the paper engineer for this as well as for several other Blue Ribbon Books and Pleasure Books publications in the 1930s, was a master of beautifully crafted pop-up scenes.
Written and illustrated by Chester Gould (19001985)
Paper engineering by Harold Lentz
Published by Pleasure Books
Chicago, IL, 1935
Smithsonian Institution Libraries. PZ7 .G68Di 1935
Wall Stories: Children's Wallpapers and Books
On view: October 3, 2008 to April 5, 2009
This exhibition will explore the relationship between wallpapers and books created for children through works from the permanent collection and the National Design Library. From their beginning in the 1870s, children's wallpapers have been strongly influenced by literature and popular culture. Works on view will include papers illustrated with nursery rhymes and designs inspired by works of fiction and adventure, such as Peter Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, and Cinderella. The exhibition also will trace the evolution of children's books from instructional to fictional and include developments such as movable and pop-up books, which added an interactive element to children's reading.
Wall Stories: Childrens Wallpaper and Books is made possible in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency. Additional support is provided in part by Esme Usdan, Margery and Edgar Masinter, The Liman Foundation and The Walt Disney Company.

MALE CALL by Milton Caniff

Milton Caniff gave away his MALE CALL comic strip.

MALE CALL was developed as a morale-booster for the troops and it was distributed to 3000 military camp papers from January 24, 1943 to March 3, 1946. The racy feature was a spin-off of his TERRY AND THE PIRATES strip, but without Terry. "Miss Lace" was the protagonist; a sexy and sweet innocent. She would get into humorous scrapes from week to week.

He offered it for free.

The Hairy Green Eyeball blog has the fist half of the original 1945 collection here.

EDIT: Here's the rest of the book. 

The Opening of the Rijksmuseum

Ten years of renovations have passed and the Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam's museum of culture and art, is reopening to the public. This is major!

Google Doodle: André Franquin's "Gaston Lagaffe" Spirou Magazine

Today's Google Doodle: from Spirou Magazine, it's Belgian cartoonist André Franquin's "Gaston Lagaffe" feature.

The Gaston comic strip is about an accident-prone office janitor. It first appeared in Spirou in 1957. While popular in many countries, only Fantagraphics has reprinted it in the US -- and even then it was a few pages in the 1990s.

I don't see this here in the States, but if you use the French, Belgian or Norwegian version of Google, you get to see the above graphic.

More here.

Video: Dedini: A Life of Cartoons

"My name is Eldon Dedini. I'm a cartoonist. I wake up each morning and try and be funny as hell."



Anson Musselman has made a documentary about cartoonist Eldon Dedini titled DEDINI: A LIFE OF CARTOONS. It's about six years old, but well worth sitting down and watching while eating some lunch today.

It's a great piece, with Dedini, alive and well in this film, talking about his art and making cartoons and ... well, see it.

If only Musselman would do this for all the cartoonists in the world!

Video: Johnny Hart's B.C. A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS (1981)

Christmas in February? Yes. Especially if it includes all of the B.C. comic strip characters and Bob and Ray!

New Bill Watterson Art for STRIPPED Documentary

For the first time in 19 years, CALVIN AND HOBBES' creator Bill Watterson draws cartoons!

He did the above poster for the new documentary about (newspaper and online) comic strips titled STRIPPED. The NY Times has more here.

Related: Michael Cavna interviews Mr. Watterson for the Washington Post here.

MUTT AND JEFF: "The Extra-Quick Lunch" (1918) Directed by Charles R. Bowers

From the description:

Charles R. Bowers (June 7, 1877 or 1887 -- November 26, 1946), the director of "The Extra-Quick Lunch", 1918, was an American cartoonist and slapstick comedian during the silent film and early "talkie" era. He was forgotten for decades and his name was notably absent from most histories of the Silent Era, although his work was enthusiastically reviewed by André Breton and a number of his contemporaries. As his surviving films have an inventiveness and surrealism which give them a freshness appealing to modern audiences, after his rediscovery his work has sometimes been placed in the "top tier" of silent film accomplishments (along with those of, for example, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd). In comic style, he probably modelled himself after both Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton and was known to the French as "Bricolo."
The son of Dr. Charles E. Bowers and his wife, Mary I. Bowers, Charles Raymond Bowers was born in Cresco, Iowa. His early career was as a cartoonist on the Mutt and Jeff series of cartoons for the Barré Studio. By the late 20s, he was starring in his own series of slapstick comedies for R-C Pictures and Educational Pictures. His slapstick comedies, a few of which have survived, are an amazing mixture of live action and animation created with the "Bowers Process." Complex Rube Goldberg gadgets also appear in many of his comedies. Two notable films include Now You Tell One with a memorable scene of elephants marching into the U.S. Capitol, and There It Is, a surreal mystery involving the Fuzz-Faced Phantom and MacGregor, a cockroach detective. He made a few sound films such as It's a Bird and Wild Oysters, and wrote and illustrated children's books in his later years. For eight years during the 1930s he lived in Wayne, New Jersey, and drew cartoons for the Jersey Journal. After succumbing to severe arthritis, his wife started drawing them under his direction.
Following a long illness, Bowers died in 1946 in Paterson, New Jersey, and was interred in that city's Cedar Lawn Cemetery. His work, long forgotten, has undergone a rediscovery and revival of interest in recent years. His 15 surviving films were the subject of a 2004 two-DVD release by Image Entertainment and Lobster Films of France. Much more of his work is thought to exist in various film archives.
Resources: wikipedia.org, imdb.com.
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Video: Sid Couchey

PBS Mountain Lake's "Roadside Adventures" host Derek Muirden visits comic book artist Sid Couchey (1919-2012) on a past episode of "People Near Here." Mr. Couchey created the legendary comic book Richie Rich as well as many other Harvey Comics characters.