BFI: More Than Tracing: The Women Behind Disney Animation

"The Ogre of Merryville" by Marv Levy

 Marv Levy did not play baseball after school. 

In the early 1940s, this high school kid, this golden age comics artist, was going to Manhattan, getting work at Centaur, Timely and Harvey comics companies. After a brief interruption to enlist in the infantry (he was part of the invasion of Normandy in 1944), he received formal training at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. By 1950, Marv had set up his own advertising studio.

I knew Marv and his wife Barbara from many Berndt Toast Gang get togethers. Marv was a soft spoken fellow and he would not talk about himself unless prodded. I remember a young man sought him out one time and showed Marv his portfolio. The young man was seriously frustrated: he had been to Marvel and DC and they did not hire him. Marv said his art was fine, and it was just a matter of timing and persistence. "Keep showing up," he told the fellow. Very, very, true.

But, back to young Marv: here's a story from Alfred Harvey Comics titled "The Ogre of Merryville." Art is by Marv Levy, no writer credited. It was reprinted in the comic book reprint THE ORIGINAL BLACK CAT #7, November 1991. Since Black Cat was only around for ten years (1941-51), it's fair to guess that this is a sample of very early Marv Levy artwork.

It's a sweet, offbeat fairy tale filler story. It's the kind of assignment a young comic artist might get. He wouldn't start with the Harvey flagship character! Some of the inking is terrific, some of it is a little dubious. But look at some of the angles here. The point of view, with high angles, looking up at the ogre. You can see some offbeat panel arrangement, perhaps inspired by his mentor, Bernard Baily.

I was reading this reprint for the first time last week. (The original printing date of the story is not cited, which unfortunately is the norm with this series of books.) I read the whole thing and did not know it was Marv's until I saw his name at the end. It was terrific to see this seminal work by a true gentleman of comics.

 

- This is an edited version of a March 28, 2013 blog entry.

From the Dick Buchanan Files: Eldon Dedini Cartoons 1946 - 1964

With his lush, deep colors and wicked sense of humor, Eldon Dedini (1921 - 2006) has a well-deserved legion of fans. He sold his first gag cartoon while still in community college, and worked for Disney soon after graduation. But it wouldn't last long! Why? Well, read below. 

Here's a great assortment of 25 Dedini cartoons spanning the first 18 years of his professional cartooning career culled from the collection of gag cartoon curator Dick Buchanan. Dick has also written a brief look at his amazing life.

Thanks and take it away, Dick!

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ELDON DEDINI
1946 to 1964

Eldon Dedini began drawing at age 5 by copying newspaper comic strips his mother pasted into homemade comic books. His favorites were Popeye, Jiggs, and the Katzenjammer Kids.
He studied art at what is now Hartnell College, while drawing cartoons (without pay) for the Salinas Morning Post and the Salinas Index Journal to gain experience. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles where he attended the Chouinard Art Institute, working as a janitor to pay his tuition.
Dedini began his career in Hollywood studios, working briefly at Universal and then, from 1944 to 1946, in the storyboard department at Disney. All the while he kept freelancing his gag cartoons, and Esquire soon hired him to work in its Chicago office by doubling what Disney paid him. He was Esquire’s staff cartoonist from 1946 to 1950, the same year he sold his first cartoon to The New Yorker.
Dedini was most proud of his gag writing, which he considered to be the whole secret of cartooning. He once said “style alone will never sell a bum joke. A million people can draw. The question is are you funny?”

Dedini drew 50 roughs every three weeks, resulting in 630 drawings for The New Yorker and 1,200 for Playboy. His work also appeared in many other national magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Sports Illustrated and True Magazine, among others. He illustrated several books, including Rally Round the Flag, Boys! I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf and Anyone Got a Match? A collection of his work, The Dedini Gallery, was published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York in 1961. In 2006 Fantagraphics published a retrospective called “An Orgy of Playboy’s Eldon Dedini”
Eldon Dedini was named best magazine cartoonist by the National Cartoonists Society in 1958, 1961, 1964, and 1989.

Here is a small collection of his great cartoons, gleamed from the voluminous Cartoon Clip File . . .


1. ELDON DEDINI. Judge January, 1946.

 

 

2. ELDON DEDINI. Judge March, 1946.

 

3. ELDON DEDINI. Judge April, 1946.

 

4. ELDON DEDINI. True Magazine November, 1948.

 

 

5. ELDON DEDINI. The Saturday Evening Post January 8, 1949.

 

6. ELDON DEDINI. True Magazine March, 1949.

 

7. ELDON DEDINI. The Saturday Evening Post April 23, 1949.

 

8. ELDON DEDINI. The Saturday Evening Post September 10, 1949.

 

9. ELDON DEDINI. True Magazine July, 1950.

10. ELDON DEDINI. Esquire August, 1950.

 

11. ELDON DEDINI. Esquire August, 1950.

 

12. ELDON DEDINI. Esquire November, 1950.

 

13. ELDON DEDINI. True Magazine March, 1952.

 

14. ELDON DEDINI. Esquire March, 1955.

 

15. ELDON DEDINI.Collier's March 16, 1956.

16. ELDON DEDINI. Esquire, April 1956.

 

17. ELDON DEDINI. True, November 1966.

 

18. ELDON DEDINI. Look Magazine February 18, 1958.

 

19. ELDON DEDINI. Look Magazine May 12, 1959.

 

20. ELDON DEDINI. Look Magazine May 10, 1950.

 

21. ELDON DEDINI. Look Magazine November 7, 1960.

 

22. ELDON DEDINI. Look Magazine May 7, 1961.

 

23. ELDON DEDINI. Look Magazine April 7, 1963.

 

24. ELDON DEDINI. Look Magazine June 16, 1964.

 

25.ELDON DEDINI. Look Magazine August 11, 1964

 

Edited from an original blog entry of March 15, 2021.

How View-Master Created 3D Worlds Before Computers

When I was a kid, these View-Master toys were something that most kids had. With color photos on a disc, you could see a 3D view of travel destinations or a story from a story book or a licensed TV or movie property. There were a series of View-Master scenes that were sculpted out of plasticene and then specially photographed to create a 3D effect. While there's little known about the process, View Master Travels and Peter Dibble have a short presentation on these and invite people to add what they know. 

 

"In this video, I explore the surprisingly complex world of View-Master’s 'creative' reels, including fairy tales, television shows, movies, and cartoons. While most people think of View-Master as a simple toy, I discovered that producing these reels required an extraordinary combination of sculpture, photography, illustration, special effects, and technical craftsmanship. Because almost no documentation of the original production methods appears to survive, much of this video is an investigation into how these forgotten techniques may have worked. 

"I begin by examining the fairy tale reels that transformed miniature hand-built dioramas into immersive 3D worlds. Along the way, I highlight the work of talented artists such as Florence Thomas, whose sculpting skills helped define some of View-Master’s most memorable releases. These reels reveal a level of artistry and attention to detail that rivaled miniature effects work in Hollywood, yet most of the original models were eventually discarded, leaving the reels themselves as the primary record of the craft. 

"Next, I look at television and movie tie-in reels and investigate how View-Master adapted popular entertainment into stereoscopic images. By comparing reel images to actual television episodes and examining promotional materials from films such as The Black Hole, I reconstruct how photographers, artists, and designers may have used on-set photography, masking techniques, high-contrast film, and image compositing to create convincing 3D scenes from flat source material. 

"Finally, I explore the challenge of creating cartoon reels, where artists had to draw separate left- and right-eye views by hand to produce the illusion of depth. From the sculptors and photographers of the fairy tale era to the illustrators and stereo artists who followed, I uncover a collection of highly specialized skills that have largely disappeared. Whether my reconstruction is completely accurate or not, the story reveals just how much creativity, craftsmanship, and ingenuity went into the View-Master reels many of us remember from childhood."

 

Vintage Science Fiction Comic Art

Here are a few old comic book scans from the Bob's Comics at the Crossroads Birth of the Silver Age Facebook group. Most of them are scans of vintage DC Comics' science fiction books like Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures. There's a cover scans and then a scan of the first page of each story in that book. Lots of fun, and due to big heat wave, "The Day the World Melted" has a certain relevance. And Bob has the credits down for you, which is great.

For instance, here's:

DC’s Mystery in Space 6 Feb-Mar 1952

Cover: Carmine Infantino / Joe Giella
Knights of the Galaxy: The Day the World Melted… Robert Kanigher / Carmine Infantino / Joe Giella
Story: The Boy Who Saved the Earth… John Broome / Bob Oksner / Bernard Sachs

Story: The Man Who Hated Science… Jack Miller / John Giunta / John Giunta
Story: Cowboy on Mars… Manny Ruben / Jim Mooney / Jim Mooney

DC’s Strange Adventures 157
Sept 1963

Cover: Murphy Anderson / Murphy Anderson
Story: Plight of the Human Cocoons… Gardner Fox / Gil Kane / Joe Giella Frank Giacoia
Story: The Immortality Seekers… Ed Herron / Sid Greene / Sid Greene
Space Museum: Rescue By Moonlight… Gardner Fox / Carmine Infantino / John Giunta

 

 

What If STAR WARS Was Made Out of Cardboard?

Wonder no more. The Secondhand Movie Co. has created some STAR WARS scenes out of cheap cardboard. Cheeky and fun. More about them here.

E. Simms Campbell: A Nightclub Map of Harlem (1932)

 
E. Simms Campbell (1906-1971), an African American cartoonist, drew the above map of the places to go in Harlem circa 1932. Mike Thibault originally posted this, after a great deal of searching

"I was at my friend Jojo’s house about a year and a half ago, watching some old VHS tapes of dance stuff she had. Among the home movies she had was a taped documentary featuring Cab Calloway. He was checking out this amazing cartoon map of Harlem from back in the 30’s and remembering all the places. Since then I’ve been trying to find a readable copy of it. A while ago I found that the title is “A Nightclub Map of Harlem” and it was drawn in 1932 by E. Simms Campbell, a cartoonist who went on to great success with his drawings in Ebony Magazine.

"... Cab Calloway made a joking comment about what a deal those marijuana cigarettes seemed at the time of filming, '2 for $.25.'"

Campbell had a long list of major league clients for his gag cartoons (Esquire, The New Yorker) and this is a major find by Mike. Click to supersize.

Hat tip to Frank Jacobs at Big Think, who provides more historical background, including the fact that A Nightclub Map of Harlem was used as endpapers for Cab Calloway's 1976 autobiography.