George Crenshaw & Belvedere

George Crenshaw was a Disney animator, ghost for Hank Ketcham, a comic book artist, as well as a gag cartoonist. He drew a number of syndicated features, including: Nubbins, Nerdley and Simpkins -- but his claim to fame is Belvedere.

Belvedere is a know-it-all dog, inspired (so the story goes) by Crenshaw's own little pet.

Belvedere is a gag-a-day panel. Belvedere, being not-your-average-dog, results in a variety of gags. The one above is wonderfully surreal! And we also learn that in order to insert an explaining hand (see my "The Explaining Hand" entry in the Andertoons blog), Crenshaw has taken out the glass and screen in the window!

Crenshaw had a number of assistants on the panel, including fellow Ketcham employee Al Wiseman. I can't tell which panels Wiseman may have had a hand in, but Bill Alger has a site devoted to Mr. Wiseman and maybe one day he can show us the way.

The idea of a dog persistently shooting stuff at the waterbed with a slingshot is so odd. I can understand a dog's antipathy towards, let's say, a cat or a mail carrier -- but a waterbed? Regardless, marvelous style, with the shadows under Belvedere (and his puffs of zoom smoke), and that lovely Hawaii-Five-0 wave. At this point we see that being Belvedere means never changing your expression!

Ahh! Now, you see? I was wrong. Here is a panel wherein Belvedere has become a typical dog, and his tongue is hanging out. He can change his expression. But that pouty lower lip expression lives -- in the expression of the woman of the panel.

Like I said, this is a gag strip and the gag rests on Belvedere somehow constructing that woman's leg out of a saw revealed in panel 2. The conceit that if a guy sees a single silhouetted leg in the window, said man will then RUN to the door with lust, ripping open the door for the leggy owner, is pretty dated by now. I like that exterior door handle shape.

Mr. Crenshaw also penned a very good book with a great title: How to Draw Cartoons Editors Will Buy! Take a look at cartoonist Randy Glasbergen's review of it here.