Here are some photos from last week's Berndt Toast Gang get together. We bring a spooky drawing (I offered up my Let Me Out original.) and raise some money for charity. That's Bunny Hoest, me and Karen Evans.
When I just started drawing strange cartoons that I thought were funny, that was when they began to sell. Here’s an example of a cartoon of mine that was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
I will be away for a while from this here blog. Just a short time and then I plan to be back.
Original illustrations by the artist Albert Schweitzer, who drew the Weatherbird until 1986 when cartoonist Dan Martin took over. Photo: Whitney Curtis for The New York Times
The Weatherbird cartoon has appeared The St. Louis Post-Dispatch front page every day for almost 125 years.
"The Weatherbird, considered the oldest, continuously running daily cartoon in American journalism, is the subject of an exhibit, 'Behind the Feathers: A Century of Weatherbird History,' which opened in June and runs through Feb. 15 at the Field House Museum in downtown St. Louis.
"The exhibition includes drawings of the Weatherbird over the decades, profiles of the artists who have drawn him, Weatherbird collectibles, fan art and instructions on how to draw the Weatherbird on your own." -- A St. Louis Bird That Crosses Divides Gets His Own Show, New York Times, by Valerie Schremp Hahn. I have gifted the article so it's free from its paywall and you can read it.
It's the longest continuously running newspaper comics feature ever. Dan Martin currently draws the Weatherbird. He's been doing it for the past 27 years.
Sometimes I'm asked if I am a political cartoonist. I was just asked this last week. I say I am more of a person who comments on society. Like all cartoonists, I would like to make a point but I also want the cartoon to be funny. I don't get to decide that. Only the editor and then the reader does. But since this here blog is editor-less, then it's all up to you, the reader.
Selling $10 postpaid in continental US: Bennett Cerf’s Pop-Up Silliest Riddles, a 1967 Random House hardcover. Some wear but intact and the pop-ups work. Fun graphics, but uncredited. Email me to claim.
I have A LOT of kids' books that I have collected through the years because I like the art. I need to downsize!
Carl Rose Illustrations from TRY AND STOP ME by Bennett Cerf
Via SeanTheAchivist, here is a compilation of clips of cartoonists working:
George Wilson (1929 - 1999) was a prolific cover artist for Dell and Gold Key comic books, working mostly during the 1960s.
"His main output was for titles about Stone Age/jungle heroes like 'Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan' (23 covers), 'Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes' (64 covers), 'Turok, Son of Stone' (53 covers) and 'Edgar Rice Burroughs Korak, Son of Tarzan' (34 covers). Among his many other credits are adventure, sci-fi and mystery comic books like 'Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom' (13 covers), 'The Phantom' (13 covers), 'The Twilight Zone' (20 covers), 'Magnus, Robot Fighter' (12 covers), 'Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery' (32 covers), 'Mighty Samson' (23 covers), 'Ripley's Believe It or Not!' (24 covers) , 'Star Trek' (32 covers), 'Dark Shadows' (22 covers), 'Space Family Robinson' (14 covers), 'Space Family Robinson Lost in Space' (23 covers), 'Space Family Robinson, Lost in Space on Space Station One' (17 covers) and many others." - Lambiek
If you love comics of this time, then you have seen his work. But little was known about the man. Anthony Taylor's The Art of George Wilson is the first book collection and biography. Here are some cover samples and a video preview of the book.
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Video via Rave Sensation:
There is the old story of one of my favorite cartoonists, Jean-Jacques
Sempé, who was trying to sell gag cartoons from his studio in France
after WWII. He worked hard at it and was successful. And he was even
more successful when he hit on the simple idea that wordless cartoons
had no language barrier and could cross borders. He specialized in
pantomime cartoons, and was selling all over Europe.
Wordless cartoons are not common. At least not now. I think so many
cartoonists (me included) concentrate on the quip or the wisecrack,
instead of just letting the picture tell the story.
My friend
Dick Buchanan has scanned in, and now shares, some great examples of the
truly wordless and the mostly wordless cartoons. By "mostly," I mean a
cartoon with a label or a sign you have to read.
-- Edited from an original blog entry of October 12, 2017.
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