Video: Tom Toles

Maira Kalman: So Moved - And the Pursuit of Happiness Blog

Illustrator Maira Kalman walks through time and geography, meditating on how tolerance can work in a democracy in The New York Times' So Moved - And the Pursuit of Happiness blog.

49 Cent Cartoon Book Sale

Please take a look and consider bidding on some of my cartoon books on eBay. The items above begin at 49 cents. Thanks.

James Stevenson Drawings

James Stevenson! Now there's a guy whose cartoon work I have always admired. Here are a few cartoons from his collection SORRY LADY - THIS BEACH IS PRIVATE, a collection of New Yorker cartoons, copyright 1963 by James Stevenson.


Stevenson is one of the "illustrative cartoonists," for sure. Look at that table!

And looking at it closer, you can see that every item, the candlesticks, the glasses, the food -- every item is only a suggestion; a sketch. Stevenson, in quick pen strokes and wash, gives us just the information we need.



Above: I laughed out loud at this one.



Urban life -- particularlyUpper Middle Class NYC urban life -- is the focus of Stevenson's pen.

Below, a series of drawings for a section titled "Parents Night."















His work continues to be seen in the New York Times op ed pages. Here's a link to one he did in December.

Barbara Shermund Appreciation by Michael Maslin

Above: A Shermund original from the Library of Congress' Cartoon America exhibit, now online.

Michael Maslin profiles the career of New Yorker cartoonist Barbara Shermund (1988-1978) in his essay Revisiting Barbara Shermund.

Since Ms. Shermund passed away during a newspaper strike, her death was not noted in the "paper of record," the New York Times, or, anywhere else, except for a scant, four sentence obit in a New Jersey paper. Michael comments:

"For someone who contributed hundreds of cartoons and eight covers to The New Yorker Magazine, then went on to become a mainstay at Esquire, four sentences seems a bit slight. Here then is another notice, a little late, and a little longer."

Mr. Maslin goes on to correct the matter, 31 years on. The rest is here.

Thank you, Michael Maslin, for shining the light on Ms. Shermund!

John Sherffius Salutes His "Fallen Comrades"

Steve Greenberg writes a thoughtful reflection on this touching cartoon by John Sherffius here.

Hat tip to Daryl Cagle.

The Lego Renaissance

"Never mind the recession - Lego is now so popular that there are 62 little coloured blocks for every person on the planet. Yet only five years ago this family business was on the brink of ruin. Jon Henley reports from the Danish town where it all began."

-- from today's Guardian

Now I understand that there are more people like Mark Anderson, an adult who makes spaceships out of Legos than me -- someone who does not make stuff out of Legos.

DILBERT: Downsized & More Popular Than Ever

Colleen Mastony, Chicago Tribune reporter, writes Tough economic times fuel success for Dilbert, a Q&A with Scott Adams about Dilbert getting downsized this year, and the Dilbert site receiving record traffic (1.5 million unique visitors in February) on the eve of the comic strip's 20 year anniversary.

Related: Brenda Starr faces downsizing.

Video: The Toy and Action Figure Museum

I didn't even know about this place until today.

If you're in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, stop by at the Toy & Action Figure Museum. In a new 1 1/2 minute video, our host, Josh Kraft, manager, shows us that this place is more than action figures; it embraces comic strips as well.

He shows us some of the comic strip displays, Sunday pages, original art, and sort of a hall of fame of the cartoonists from Oklahoma: Bill Mauldin (the "Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist" if you please, not just a guy who did cartoons back in the army days, as Mr. Kraft describes him), Chester Gould (DICK TRACY) and Jack & Carole Bender (ALLEY OOP). The Benders assist in curating the museum.




My thanks to Nick for posting this on YouTube!

THE CARTOONIST! Fall 1953

In its entirety: THE CARTOONIST!, the in-house publication of the National Cartoonists Society, Annual Photo Issue Fall 1953.


The Cartoonist: a quarterly published by the National Cartoonists Society, 140 West 57th Street, New York 19, N. Y.

If you Google Map this address, you get:

.. a bus zooming in front to the frikkin' Google camera!

Oh well, back to the mag:


Mort Walker edited THE CARTOONIST, with Bill Yates as Assistant Editor.


The 1953 NCS Board:

BOARD OF GOVERNORS: Rube Goldberg, Honorary President; Otto Soglow, President; Bob Dunn, First Vice President; Willard Mullin, Second Vice President; John Pierotti, Treasurer; McGowan Miller, Secretary; Carl Rose, General Membership Representative; EXECUTIVE COUNCIL: Martin Banner, Ernie Bushmiller, E. Simms Campbell, Milton Caniff, Past Pres., Fred Cooper, Walt Disney, Albert Dorne, Ham Fisher, Hal Foster, Harold Gray, Jimmy Hatlo, Harry Hershfeld, Bill Holman, Walt Kelly, Frank King, Bill Mauldin, George MacManus, Willard Mullin, Russell Patterson, Past Pres., Alex Raymond, Past Pres., Mischa Richter, C.D. Russell, Frank Willard, George Wunder, Chic Young.


Fred Waring was a great fan and friend of cartoonists.

Above: Fred Waring reads the Sunday funnies in a photo nicked from the Fred Waring's America site.

He had a huge place in Pennsylvania and he would send a bus to Times Square for all the NCSers to get aboard and hang out at his place. Mel Casson helped start the annual visit to Waring's Shawnee Golf Resort. More here, at the Penn State Fred Waring's America site.

Back to the magazine:



Evert cartoonist should wear a hat & smoke a pipe ala Ed Dodd & Walt Kelly!

RISD's Sketchbook Journalism Flickr Stream

I'm enjoying the Flickr photo stream from RISD students here.

Hat tip to Juana Medina (whose drawing above I snagged from the site)!

Realted: Juana Medina's Flickr page.

Chuck Jones Blog

Craig Kausen, Chuck Jones' grandson, has a terrific blog, Chuck Redux, dedicated to his grandfather.

Take a look at some of these Chuck Jones Sketchbook Pages. Wow!

DEATH DRAWS THE LINE by Jack Iams

Above: the lurid cover of DEATH DRAWS THE LINE by Jack Iams, A Dell paperback #457, copyright 1959 by Mr. Iams.

"Death mysteriously strikes down top-flight cartoonist -- twelve unpublished comic strips disappear -- a nude woman holds a supernatural rendezvous in a dead man's studio -- a blue sedan roars down upon two persons in a cab ... purpose: death for two -- and murder strikes again and again in this exciting mystery which reveals some unusual trade secrets of the men who create newspaper comic strips."

Ooh! Yup, just another day in the life of a cartoonist! This is a fun paperback mystery from 1959, one of the series of "map" mysteries where (bug duh) there's a map on the back.

Now, why isn't this old Dell paperback still in print? It's got a wonderful cover by artist Harry Barton. Dig her pearls and nice hairdo! This girl's high maintenance. This guy's strip must've been in 2000+ papers for her to be that well-coifed!

From Chapter 3, "Cartoonist in a Tailspin:"

"... [I]t got so he was too drunk most of the time to do the drawing."

You see? One of those little trade secrets revealed! "Drawing While Drunk" is one of the regular symposiums at the Cartoonists Association get togethers! Why, this tale is as contemporary a story as when Mr. Iams wrote it 50 years ago!

Note: Cartoonist "Zeke Brock's" apartment is in the West Village. This ruins the believablity so far as modern day cartoonists are concerned! This is back when a cartoonist could afford to live in Manhattan!

Did you notice "Tim Costello's" bar in the upper right hand corner? This is now the Overlook Lounge, where many real-life cartoonists hung out. The Daly News was nearby then, so this watering hole was full of writers and cartoonists. There are some great cartoon murals there, one from 2005, and another from 30 years earlier. I was fortunate to help organize the 2005 event, where cartoonists from the tri-state area converged & put together the new mural.

Tim Harries blogs about his visit.

A version of this blog entry originally appeared when I was guest-blogger over at my pal's Mark Anderson's Andertoons blog, way back on March 30, 2005.

Sketchbook: Ronald Searle

Ronald Searle's Secret Sketchbook!

H/t to Comics Reporter!

The 2008 National Cartoonists Society Awards Nominees Announced

(Updating the partial nominee list of March 16, 2009.)

The Book Illustration nominees are in, and that completes the list.

The NCS gives out a number of awards, including the big one (the Reuben, for its cartoonist of the year), as well as division awards in a dozen different specialties. There are also honorary awards (the Silver T-Square, for instance) that will be awarded.

Here are the nominees for the Reuben and the Division Awards:

REUBEN AWARD
Dave Coverly
Stephan Pastis
Dan Piraro

Here is the complete list of nominees for the 12 categories of the NCS Division Awards:

TELEVISION ANIMATION
Bryan Arnett - Character Design - "The Mighty B!" - Nickelodeon
Ben Balistreri - Character Design - "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" - Cartoon Network
Sandra Equihua and Jorge Gutierrez - Creators - "El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera" - Nickelodeon

FEATURE ANIMATION
James Baxter - 2D Character Animator - "Kung Fu Panda"
Clay Katis - Supervising Animator, Rhino - "Bolt"
Nicolas Marlet - Character Designer - "Kung Fu Panda"

NEWSPAPER ILLUSTRATION
Lars Leetaru
Mark Marturello
Sean Kelly

GAG CARTOONS
Pat Byrnes
Mort Gerberg
Werner Wejp-Olsen

GREETING CARDS
Kevin Ahern
Jem Sullivan
Debbie Tomassi

NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS
Stephan Pastis - "Pearls Before Swine" - United Feature Syndicate
Mark Tatulli - "Lio" - Universal Press Syndicate
Richard Thompson - "Cul de Sac" - Universal Press Syndicate

NEWSPAPER PANEL CARTOONS
Vic Lee "Pardon My Planet" - King Features Syndicate
Mark Parisi "Off the Mark" - United Feature Syndicate
Jeff Stahler "Moderately Confused" - United Feature Syndicate

MAGAZINE FEATURE/MAGAZINE ILLUSTRATION
Daryll Collins
Bob Staake
Sam Viviano

BOOK ILLUSTRATION
Jim Benton CHERISE THE NIECE Penguin
Stacy Curtis RAYMOND AND GRAHAM RULE THE SCHOOL Penguin
Mike Lester COOL DADDY RAT Putnam

EDITORIAL CARTOONS
Mike Luckovich
Jeff Parker
Michael Ramirez

ADVERTISING ILLUSTRATION
Roy Doty
Craig McKay
Jack Pittman

COMIC BOOKS
Chris Blain GUS & HIS GANG - First Second Books
Matthew Forsythe OJINGOGO - Drawn & Quarterly
Cyril Pedrosa THREE SHADOWS - First Second Books

Congratulations to all of the nominees. The winner will be announced at the 63rd Annual NCS Reuben Awards banquet on May 23, 2009 in Hollywood, CA.

The First Cartoonist I Ever Met: Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones was the first cartoonist I ever met.

He was giving a presentation of some of his Roadrunner & Coyote shorts at a West Coast University Film Association conference in the 1960s. My Dad taught radio/TV/film production and was a member of the UFA (now renamed the University Film & Video Association). I remember being taken by the hand, lead down the aisle to the stage, and being introduced to Mr. Jones by my parents. He looked into my eyes. He was very tall. (I was very small.) He paused, smiled and shook my hand when he was told that, "Mike likes to draw."

Mr. Jones proffered a deal: I mail a letter to his MGM offices and he would mail back a drawing for me and my baby sister. After a couple weeks of my Mom badgering me, I finally sent him a letter. I didn't know what to say and I don't remember what I finally wrote. Anyway, Mr. Jones, a man of his word, replied with this:

Chuck Jones Tonight!

A retrospective of Chuck Jones' animated shorts gets kicked off tonight with a new 30 minute documentary.

Turner Classic Movies and filmmakers Peggy Stern and John Canemaker, who earned Oscars® for the animated short The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, have collected the memories of one of Hollywood’s greatest animators in a unique, half-hour film entitled CHUCK JONES: MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. This film, which combines an interview with the legendary animator with newly created animated segments, is premiering on TCM in March 2009.

Mr. Jones had a chance to view a rough cut of the new documentary before he died, "and pronounced it “delightful.”

Here's the East Coast schedule (full descriptions of each are on the TCM site):

8 p.m. CHUCK JONES: MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD (2009) – Premiere
8:30 p.m. “The Night Watchman” (1938)
8:40 p.m, “Prest-O, Change-O” (1939)
8:50 p.m, “Sniffles and the Bookworm” (1939)
9 p.m, “Elmer’s Candid Camera” (1940)
9:10 p.m, “Scent-imental Over You” (1947)
9:20 p.m. “Haredevil Hare” (1948)
9:30 p.m. “Duck Amuck” (1953
9:40 p.m. “One Froggy Evening” (1955)
9:50 p.m. “What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957)
10 p.m. “The Dot and the Line” (1965)
10:15 p.m. “The Bear that Wasn’t” (1967)
10:30 p.m. CHUCK JONES: MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD (2009) – Encore
11 p.m. The Phantom Tollbooth (1969)
12:30 a.m. “The Night Watchman” (1938)
12:40 a.m. “Prest-O, Change-O” (1939)
12:50 a.m. “Sniffles and the Bookworm” (1939)
1 a.m. “Elmer’s Candid Camera” (1940)
1:10 a.m. “Scent-imental Over You” (1947)
1:20 a.m. “Haredevil Hare” (1948)
1:30 a.m. “Duck Amuck” (1953)
1:40 a.m. “One Froggy Evening” (1955)
1:50 a.m. “What’s Opera, Doc? ” (1957)
2 a.m. “The Dot and the Line” (1965)
2:15 a.m. “The Bear that Wasn’t” (1967)
2:30 a.m. CHUCK JONES: MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD (2009) – Encore
3 a.m. The Phantom Tollbooth (1969)

Related: Chuck Jones was the first cartoonist I ever met.

A big hat tip to my pal Sean Kelly for reminding me about this! Thanks, Sean!

Video: Finding Lady: The Art of Storyboards

A 13 minute Disney exploration of the art of storyboarding, hosted by Eric Goldberg.



H/to Journalista!

Video: "Art of the Watchman" MoCCA Exhibit

The PBS Sunday morning program "Sunday Arts" showcases the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art's Watchmen exhibit in this segment, hosted by co-curators Ellen S. Abramowitz and Peter Sanderson.



Big hat tip to Lawrence Klein, Esq., Chairman Emeritus and Founder, Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art!

COLOURlovers Color Templates

One of the problems I have when coloring a cartoon is deciding on my palette. Will the cartoon be on the warm side with reds and oranges, etc? COLOURlovers has lots of sample palettes that will make my process simpler. Take a look!

Big hat tip to Paul Söderholm for this. Thanks Paul!