Every day this week, a new mini-adventure in anticipation of the new DOCTOR WHO Series 7 premiere on Saturday.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Friday, August 31, 2012
Video: MAGAZINE MAGIC with Norman Rockwell and Ted Key (1945)
Curtis Publishing presents this 1945 look at the Saturday Evening Post in its MAGAZINE MAGIC. This 40 minute featurette shows us the whole process of creating and publishing magazines like Country Gentleman, Jack and Jill, and other Curtis Magazines. Norman Rockwell and HAZEL cartoonist Ted Key have cameos.
A great find.
A great find.
Video: Chris Hedges DAYS OF DESTRUCTION, DAYS OF REVOLT
Pulitzer
Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges talks abut DAYS OF DESTRUCTION, DAYS OF REVOLT, the new book he wrote with cartoonist Joe Sacco.
Mr. Hedges talks about huge pockets of impoverished cities "on the verge of cementing a permanent underclass."
Piya Chattopadhyay is the host for this 25 minute program.
Mr. Hedges talks about huge pockets of impoverished cities "on the verge of cementing a permanent underclass."
Piya Chattopadhyay is the host for this 25 minute program.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Video: DOCTOR WHO "Pond Life Part 4"
Our Future World in 1999 According to 1966 Reader's Digest Book
Here's the Reader's Digest NEW Reading Skills Reader from 1966 with a spectacular future world painting by Fred Freeman (1906-1988). Looky them jet packs! Way cool!
Mr. Freeman was a veteran illustrator for many magazines and books. He may be best known for the 120 illustrations he drew for the book First Men to the Moon (1960), with text by Werner von Braun.
Below is a key to Fred Freeman's cover painting:
OK, you saw that there are references to some page numbers. Below is referenced When You Grow Up story, which is fun to read
And, if you don't look out, you may build some skills, mate!
I like the idea that people get to work later in the day so they can sleep in like great sloths and they don't have to work long hours. Ha ha ha!
Food is like candy! More jet packs! Clothes made of glass!
In the future, we will all wear what looks like velour jumpsuits with piping ala Lost in Space. And where's my personal robot? Can I have Andrea, from What Are Little Girls Made Of? Can I? Huh?
A labor-saving android from a 1966 episode of Star Trek. She's Shatnerlicious!
-- from my blog entry of July 12. 2006.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Creig Flessel DAVID CRANE
Sometimes there are comic strips and cartoonists that never get the recognition they deserve.
Creig Flessel, who was a comic book artist before superheroes were on the scene, was a journeyman cartoonist. (He studied in New York City, where his classmate was Charles Addams.) While at DC Comics, he became known for characters like The Sandman and The Shining Knight.
The son of a blacksmith, Creig went on to have a successful career in advertising and comic strips. He was also chair of the Berndt Toast Gang, the Long Island chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. Perhaps he is best known as a cartoonist's cartoonist; revered among his peers, but not as well known as the big names.
My friend Ger Apeldoorn seeks to shine the spotlight on Creig by showing us some gorgeous DAVID CRANE Sunday comic strips from the early 1960s.
I agree with Ger: there is a loose, confident, illustrative ink line at play. Well worth savoring.
Video: DOCTOR WHO "Pond Life Part 3"
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
I WANNA GO HOME by Hank Ketcham
The last week in August. The traditional time to get away from the routine. In the 1960s, Hank Ketcham took his first big trip abroad. And, Ketcham being Ketcham, he took along pad and pen. The result is a must-see.
Marcus Hamilton, who currently draws the Dennis the Menace dailies told me about Hank Ketcham's book I WANNA GO HOME. It's about Ketcham's first European tour in the 1960s. I had never heard of it. I found the book online and bought it sight unseen, on Marcus' suggestion. Boy, Marcus was right! The book is fun, sure -- but the sketches! WOW! I could not get over the sketches. So alive, so loose. All those lines -- all those 50 year old lines -- still vibrant and full of the excitement that Ketcham had for the excursion.
I like looking at the controlled messiness and immediacy of a quick sketch. You can see that Ketcham was a master.
Here, we see a self-portrait of Dennis the Menace creator Hank Ketcham as he demonstrates one of the problems with sketching ....
... people notice.
I would love to see a graphic novel with these people in it. Very characterful. Look at that assured, quick linework.
And here is Trafalgar Square, with squiggles of pigeons cascading in the London sky. How Ketcham is able to make amorphous loopy blobs appear to be flying birds, I don't know. It's some kind of magic from a master, isn't it?
Wonderful to see this. Thanks again, Marcus!
From a blog entry originally published August 17, 2006.
Marcus Hamilton, who currently draws the Dennis the Menace dailies told me about Hank Ketcham's book I WANNA GO HOME. It's about Ketcham's first European tour in the 1960s. I had never heard of it. I found the book online and bought it sight unseen, on Marcus' suggestion. Boy, Marcus was right! The book is fun, sure -- but the sketches! WOW! I could not get over the sketches. So alive, so loose. All those lines -- all those 50 year old lines -- still vibrant and full of the excitement that Ketcham had for the excursion.
"This is the story of my maiden voyage, the first time I ever ventured beyond friendly U.S. shores. I was pretty 'gee whiz' about everything and my head was on a perpetual swivel."
I like looking at the controlled messiness and immediacy of a quick sketch. You can see that Ketcham was a master.
Here, we see a self-portrait of Dennis the Menace creator Hank Ketcham as he demonstrates one of the problems with sketching ....
... people notice.
I would love to see a graphic novel with these people in it. Very characterful. Look at that assured, quick linework.
And here is Trafalgar Square, with squiggles of pigeons cascading in the London sky. How Ketcham is able to make amorphous loopy blobs appear to be flying birds, I don't know. It's some kind of magic from a master, isn't it?
Wonderful to see this. Thanks again, Marcus!
From a blog entry originally published August 17, 2006.
Video: DOCTOR WHO "Pond Life Part 2"
Every day this week, a new mini-adventure in anticipation of the new DOCTOR WHO Series 7 premiere on Saturday. Part 1 is here.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Video: DOCTOR WHO "Pond Life Part 1"
Every day this week, a new mini-adventure in anticipation of the new DOCTOR WHO Series 7 premiere on Saturday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho Pond Life is the new 5 part mini-adventure, with a new part every day, featuring the Doctor, Amy, Rory and some surprise familiar faces! En route to visit the Ponds the TARDIS' Helmic Regulator malfunctions, leaving the Doctor popping up everywhere in time and space. Will he ever make it back to them?
Watch Asylum of the Daleks, the new Doctor Who adventure, on BBC One on Saturday 01 September at 7.20pm, and on:
BBC America on Saturday 01 September at 9pm ET
Space (Canada) on Saturday 01 September at 9pm ET
ABC1 (Australia) -- Coming Soon
Prime (New Zealand) -- Coming Soon
Comic Book and Cartoon Advertisements
Above: art for the 25th anniversary of STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION. Copyright 2012 CBS.
Here are some comic and cartoon advertisements that I have collected either because they are visually interesting, bring back memories or are just odd.
Below -- A promo for the PBS TV show 3-2-1 CONTACT. Kids: while sinking to the sea bottom don't play with an electronic device while a shark and monkey look on:
Some cereal-related characters do not catch on: "The Adventures of Apple and Cinnaman in 'Defenders of the Sprinkles #2'" from a 1992 Cheerios box:
TOONERVILLE TROLLEY's Fontaine Fox for Post's 40% Bran Flakes:
Fruit Stripe Gum 1980:
Some cool Justice Society bookends circa 2001!
One of the may Marge's LITTLE LULU ads for Kleenex. This one is from 1950:
There was a Kool-Aid Man video game in 1983? News to me:
Post Pebbles cereal, 1997:
More proto-video game ads: Q-Bert, 1983:
O.J. Simpson for Spot Bilt shoes, 1980:
"Get the Official Medallion!" for the 50th Birthday of Superman, 1988:
Friday, August 24, 2012
German PEANUTS Paperback 1971
My friend Ralf Zeigermann shows us a German PEANUTS book from 1971. This is a the kind of book he grew up reading in Europe. Smaller and more square-sized than American volumes, with a wonderful cover.
Segar: POPEYE Hires a Cartoonist 1934
Here's a 1934 daily sequence from E.C. Segar's THIMBLE THATER, wherein the Popeye has decided to run a newspaper. Chaos, as only Segar can do it, obviously follows.
This was, at least, the second time Segar poked fun at newspaper cartoonists. The first such story appeared in 1928, a year before Popeye appeared in the strip.
The sequence was pulled from Rick Marshall's NEMO #3, October 1983.
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