"Twinkle The Star That Came Down From Heaven" by Jay Williams and Mazin

"Twinkle The Star That Came Down From Heaven" by Jay Williams (and always with the name "Mazin" on the art), from Humpty Dumpty's Magazine for Little Children, November, 1957. Copyright its respective copyright holders.

My grandmother would bring up to a dozen of these magazines when she visited during Christmas in the 1960s. She worked for my great uncle, a doctor, in California. I believe these were pulled from the waiting room. 

Anyway, I had not seen them before or since -- until I ran into a copy at a thrift shop a few weeks ago. There were a couple of different magazines: Humpty Dumpty's and Children's Digest. The Digest had Tintin reprints. That I remember. 

Everyone knows about Tintin.

But Twinkle -- Twinkle has been forgotten. A six page Twinkle story was in most issues of HD, back in the day. Here's my earliest copy, from 1957, that I got from eBay this week. The feature alternately intrigued me and terrified me when I was a tot. I mean, look at those trees: leafless, bare of most branches. The woodcut approach was none too cuddly in my little kid eyes. 

And the star of the strip was literally an anthropomorphic fallen star. So weird. 

There is little on the web about this feature, which ran from the 1950s to the 1960s I believe. The table of contents would sometimes (sometimes not) credit Twinkle as by Jay Williams, a prolific children's book illustrator. I don't know if Mazin and Mr. Williams were one and the same. 

Now that I'm older, I like the style ... but I still think it's weird that a star is friends with forest animals.
 

Cool Graphics I Saw At Antique Shops

Some great graphics seen at antique shops in North Woodstock, NH, Bridgton, ME, Freedom, NH and Cornish, ME. I didn't buy these -- just took some pics while in the store. 

Video: "Things You'd Better Not Mix Up" by Joost Lieuwma

Things You'd Better Not Mix Up from Jiek Weishut on Vimeo.

Virgil "VIP" Partch: 1961 BIG GEORGE Tour Part 2

Here's the second 1961 Seattle Times news story on Virgil "VIP" Partch's Northwest tour promoting his syndicated panel "Big George." Phil Interlandi, as well as their spouses, came along for the trip.

 Part one is here.

Left to right: Mrs. Phil Interlandi, Mrs. Virgil E, Partch, and Mrs. George Mucey. Visiting wives look over schedule for Toastmasters International Convention.

July 27, 1961 -- from a Seattle Times news story written by Walli Zimmerman:

Are the men who draw cartoons just as amusing in everyday life? "We think they're pretty funny," two loveley Seattle visitors chimed in unison. And they should know.

They are the women "behind the drawing boards" of Mr. Virgil F, Partch and Mr. Phil Interlandi, noted freelance cartoonists. (In addition to doing freelance work, Mr. Partch is the originator of the syndicated  "Big George" cartoon series which appear in in The Times.)

The wives, as quick-witted as their cartooning husbands, arrived in Seattle yesterday, accompanying their spouses to the 30th annual convention of Toastmasters International, at the Olympic Hotel today through Saturday. The Interlandis are from Laguna Beach, Calif. He is art director of the Toastmasters. Mr. Partch will be a guest speaker at tomorrow's session.

Mrs. Partch, tall and stately, broke into a smile describing "packing problems" for the trip to Seattle from their home in Capistrano Beach, Calif. "It was no problem for Virgil," she said. "He just puts his paper and pencils in a suitcase and announces, 'Well, I'm packed!'"

Video: BREAKING BAD: THE MIDDLE SCHOOL MUSICAL

Clever, funny. Its set pieces and songs make this miles ahead of anything else you've seen.  Just take a gander at the RV. The songs are great. Hard to say too many good things about this tremendous effort.

From the dynamic video duo of Rhett and Link.

Video: Harlan Ellison on the DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND Graphic Novel

Years ago, I was looking forward to the graphic novel DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND. After all, it was my favorite OUTER LIMITS episode. Heck, it pretty much was EVERYBODY's favorite. Anyway, I never bought it because I did not like the art.

I wasn't the only one.

Mr. Ellison talks about picking Marshall Rogers specifically as the artist on his adaptation of DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND. (DC editor Julius Schwartz let him pick who he wanted!) And the results were not at all what Ellison had in mind. He gets very specific in this fascinating video from 1996 Sydney, Australia convention.

OKMNX: Barney Google and The Two Ronnies

Barney Google is a comic strip character (Duh. I know most of you know that.) and a member (and one-time president) of The Brotherhood of Billy Goats. I didn't know that until I looked into the official  history of Barney Google. That's all in Brian Walker's terrific book "Barney Google & Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend."

If you are a member of The Brotherhood of Billy Goats, how do you identify a fellow member? Well, all you need to know is the password.

"OKMNX" is the secret password of the Brotherhood.

What does OKMNX mean?

In the October 9, 1927 Sunday strip, we found out what ONMNX means.

Say it out loud:" OKMNX."

Phonetically, it sounds out,"Okay, ham and eggs."

The whole Sunday strip was devoted to speaking like this.

"Hef you any eggs?" becomes "FUNX?"

"'S ve hef eggs." is "SVFX."

And so on.

Brian writes that this is an old joke, and I agree. But when I saw the British comedy team The Two Ronnies doing it, I immediately thought, "they're ripping off Barney Google!"

Here's a screen shot:

THE TWO RONNIES was a long-running British TV series with comedians Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.

So, here they are, in the 1970s, wittingly or unwittingly, pulling this material from Billy DeBeck's BARNEY GOOGLE some fifty years later:

Editorial Cartoonist Eldon Pletcher 1922-2013

Sad news. From The Times-Pacayune:

Eldon Pletcher, The Times-Pacayune's editorial cartoonist from 1966 to 1984, died Sunday of emphysema and congestive heart failure at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, Calif. He was 91.

Eldon Pletcher started sending me emails some years back. And then we began to exchange Christmas cards. He chatted to me like an old friend -- some shop talk, some talk of cats or a nice comment about the garden, which he saw on the blog. He was one of those fellows who, if I ever got to the New Orleans area, I should stop by and shake his hand. He treated me like an old friend, even though we never met in person.

Before he was at The Times Pacayune, he was at the Sioux City Journal from 1949 to 1966. And before that, he was in the army (Eldon was in the Battle of the Bulge), and a contributor to Yank magazine.

He was a traveler -- studying in Chicago, and, after the war, at the University of Scotland in Aberdeen, as well as the John Heron Art School in Indianapolis.

The funny thing about Eldon, ot "Pletch," as he signed all of his emails and notes, was that he kept in the "now." He never mentioned his editorial cartoonist career to me at all. He sent me a long personal note of comfort when our beloved kitty died in 2012. He had been there too, losing his sweet cat Callie -- but now he had a new cat named Blitzen.

He thanked me for a blog entry I wrote about coloring.

He wrote, "I appreciate your tips on using color. I'm sure in my case it would be big help if I wasn't color blind."

Pletch would only email about his past life when it was relevant. Like this email I received in 2010, which was in response to my email to him about some great gag cartoonists I admire -- specifically: Don Orehek and George Booth. Here's Pletch, talking about his days at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts:

"Don Orehek and George Booth are certainly cartoon greats, all right. I also like and admire their work.

"Martin Garrrity, now deceased, who drew gag cartoons in the better period of magazine cartooning, the 50s and 60s, also taught gag cartooning at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and [George] Booth was a student of his. Marty was a good friend whom I knew well from my Chicago days. At an earlier time, when I studied at the Chicago Academy for awhile, I had Don Ulsh, for gag cartooning and Vaughn Shoemaker, for editorial cartooning. After Marty and his wife moved to Fair Oaks, California, he stopped doing magazine cartoons and did editorial cartoons for a paper in that area. He belonged to the AAEC and when the convention was in Orlando Florida, in 1985, he arranged for me to sit in a seat with George Booth on a bus trip. We had an interesting conversation, about Missouri, where he was from and my wife being, from Kansas City etc....and about our military life. I believe his first work was printed in Leatherneck magazine, the Marine publication. Booth gave a humorous talk at the convention."

A memorial service will be held on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at the Yoder-Culp Funeral Home, 1911 S. Main St., in his home town of Goshen, Indiana. Burial will be in Rock Run Cemetery in Goshen.

I'm thankful Pletch took the time to send emails and chat. I will miss seeing his name in my in-box. What a kind and talented soul.

But I would be remiss if I didn't pass along some samples of his work through the decades.

Here's some of his cartoon work, and more details about his life. The below is from a 2007 blog entry titled "The Three Cartoon Worlds of Eldon Pletcher." It's a terrific overview of his career.





I got a note in last month from Eldon Pletcher:

"My friend Dave Carpenter has told me of your conversation, in which you expressed an interest in possibly doing a blog on me ... going from editorial cartooning to 'gag' cartooning. While I haven't felt there was anything special in doing both types, if you would like to do a blog on the subject, it's OK with me."

So it is written, so shall it be blogged!
Cartoonist Eldon Pletcher was born in Goshen, Indiana on September 10, 1922. After his first year at the Chicago Academy of Art, he went overseas, to serve in World War 2.


Like a lot of cartoonists, he started by drawing some gag cartoons, which are reproduced here. But he didn't have to buy his art supplies. Art supplies found him. Here's Pletch:

"I was in Germany when World War 2 ended. At that time I found some art materials at a bombed out artists supply store and started sending some cartoons to the Continental edition of Yank magazine, published in Paris. It was some early efforts in 'gag' cartooning. 

"I've enclosed a few of those they used while I was in Germany and while at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, while waiting for the number of 'points' I had (the Army had a point system in determining the order of when troops came home) to be enough to get me home."

When he got back to the States, Pletch attended the John Herron Art School in Indianapolis. He married Barbara Jeanne Jones in 1948. By the next year, he was the editorial cartoonist for the Sioux City Journal, a position he held for seventeen years.

The family moved to New Orleans in 1966, where he drew the editorial cartoons for the New Orleans Times Picayune for the next 19 years. Here is a selection of his editorial cartoons that he passed along for me to share:

There's Kennedy ...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. There's Romney, Sr. in the line up!

The pendulum swings back and forth.

Remember Billy Beer?


Dick Nixon piloting the capsule? Now that's a NASA disaster waitin' to happen!

So, from gag cartoonist to editorial cartoonist and now ... back to gag cartoonist. Award winning cartoonist Eldon Pletcher continues to cartoon. Here are a few recent ones.


Thanks for sending these along, Eldon. I loved the story of finding those art supplies in the rubble of post-war Germany. Keep toonin'!


Hat tip to the Wichita State University Library for the biographical info.

Dean Martin, Jimmy Stewart and Orson Welles at the Hairdresser

THE NEBBISHES by Herb Gardner

Allan Holtz' Stripper's Guide looks at the life of Herb Gardner and his short-lived comic strip (2 years) titled THE NEBBISHES.

Gardner is best known for his plays. "A Thousand Clowns" and "I'm Not Rappaport," but, starting out in life, he was a prodigy. A child actor, a prize winning sculptor, TV writer -- all of this by the time he was twenty.

Somewhere in that time, he created a little character he called "The Nebbish." This is his most popular cartoon of the time:

Go see more at Stripper's Guide. 

My Early Years of Struggle

Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book THE OUTLIERS about a principle called the "10,000 hour rule." People who train for sports events may have heard about it. The rule is: if you practice -- painting, cartooning, high-jumping, whatever -- for 20 hours a week for ten years, you will, by the end of the decade, master that skill.

It's a seductive promise: put in the time, and you will achieve the desired result. So if you really, really work hard you can (as many a teacher has told me) become ANYTHING YOU WANT.

This is, of course, utter baloney.

Talent is cheap. Persistence is all.

And the time is never right. It's never the right time to quit your regular job -- but it's never the right time to buy a house or get married. Later is always better. "It'll be better if we wait."

When I started, I failed at my first two professions. First, I was a graphic novelist. I did a script for a graphic novel, but pulled the plug on it myself because it would take too long. Then I was a comic strip artist. I did a couple of comic strip submissions that got "good" rejections. I decided to give panel cartoons a try.

I drew hundreds. I went to the library and copied out the names and addresses of the art directors out of publications, and mailed out many cartoons. I was relentless.

Months go by. No sale.

And this is a time when you wonder why you are doing what you are doing. IF maybe -- just maybe -- you are crazy.

There's a famous story that Bob Mankoff tells about when, as a young man, he told his dad that he wanted to be a New Yorker cartoonist. His father looked at him and said, "Don't they already have people who do that?"

OK. Back to me and my story:

After six months, within one week, I got five sales. 

It was a huge vindication. And, at the time, it was hard to believe. I remember I had to figure out how to format an invoice. 

And it was a huge relief to have some money coming in, of course. It was a reminder that if I had quit just a little bit before, then none of this would have happened.

The Garden As of September 15, 2013

Scraggly. That's what it is.

We're at the end of the season now. The trees are just starting to turn. We'll have a couple of nights in the upper 30s. The hummingbirds are still coming to the feeder, but soon they'll be migrating south.

The winter squash, attacked by the vine borers, is now pulled up. There are only a few tomato plants in this box.

The tomatoes in this box are weighing down the tomato cages.

Yellow squash and, behind that, sweet potatoes.

Peppers, cucumbers and a few more tomatoes.

And here are a few flower pics to round things out:

Sandra Boynton: Talking to the Animals, and Drawing Them Too

Sandra Boynton is profiled in the New York Times in an article titled Talking to the Animals, and Drawing Them Too by Edward Lewine.

The above photo, by Wendy Carlson for The Times, is of Ms. Boynton's Connecticut studio. She is not neat, she admits. The studio's organization is "quixotic," which is a lovely turn of phrase to describe it. She has produced fifty children's books, 4,000 greeting cards and then there are many songs and CDs.

"I normally come to the office around 8:30 a.m., and aside from taking a long walk or yoga and eating, I will be at work until midnight or 1 a.m. I work all the time because I really love what I do, as trite as that sounds."

A one-of-a-kind pig phone that "really works." Photo by Wendy Carlson for The Times.

"When I was a kid and there were pink phones around, I always felt that there should be pigs on them, since the cord always looked like a tail. Five years ago, I stumbled on one of these old pink phones and had a craftsman I know carve a pig for it. It’s one of a kind, and the phone works."

Head in the Clouds

The 138th annual Rochester (NH) Fair began on Friday, and goes through Sunday, September 22nd. You can see by the photo that it features a school bus demolition derby.

The Hippo newspaper, sadly, has a couple of very bad spellings -- not just typos -- on page 44 of its September 12-18 issue..

So I thought I'd correct them.

You can shoot pumpkins at a school bus from a cannon, not a "canon" as the above story states.

And, in the info. box, it misstates the admission:

Cost: $14 admission, children under 36 feet receive free admission ....

Since we all tend to meet that description, then I believe that's an error.

The Hippo is a free newspaper that deserves some decent proofreading.

Video: The Chipotle Ad Everyone Is Talking About

Hat tip to Jim Salicrup, via Gawker.

Jerry Dumas: The Bully, the Victim and the Onlooker

Veteran cartoonist Jerry Dumas has a column in one the local CT papers. Maybe you know that, maybe you don't. This week he talks about bullying -- and his memories of his no-nonsense principal at Carstens Elementary School in Detroit. Jerry is was raised there.

Anyway, the speech she gave to a school bully back in the day is such a good read. I wonder if she would have kept her job in this day and age. Here is the speech -- but also read Jerry's column to read it in context:

"If I ever see anything like this again, you will be gone from this school. I don't mean for today or tomorrow or for this week, I mean forever. Your mother and father will have to figure out what they're going to do with you around the house all day. Incidentally, I'm calling them tonight. Remember, we'll be watching you. Both inside here, and outside on the playgrounds. And don't try to say I'm sorry. Apologies don't work with me. What I'm looking for is you being a nice guy."

The whole story is here.

Video: Stephanie McMillan

Editorial cartoonist Stephanie McMillan talks to Dan Crow about the need to end capitalism. This is part of a series of recorded talks titled "Earth at Risk."

Cosmic Geek Out: Doctor Who 50th Anniversary

Run, do not walk, to the Cosmic Geekout Tumblr for lots of these animated GIFs of the various Doctor Whos through the years. They are drawn by Chang or Tumbles or Tumblebuggy. There are several names at the site. Lots of fun.

Japan: French Fukushima Cartoon is 'Inappropriate Media Coverage"

The French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaine published cartoons on September 11, 2013 by its editorial cartoonist Cabu poking fun at Tokyo hosting the 2020 Olympics. 

Citing the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Cabu depicts sumo wrestlers with extra arms; an aftereffect of the radiation. The commentator's line is:

“Thanks to Fukushima, sumo has become an Olympic sport.”

The story is here.

Cartoon Success: Money or Quality?

What do you want? Well, both, of course.

A couple of good links that deserve a click:

Tom Spurgeon opines about too much harking on the bottom line as a gauge of success.

Mark Anderson says that successful gag cartoonists are in the minor leagues of cartooning.

I am originally from the Midwest. There are a some things you don't talk about, like:

Religion
Politics
Sex
Money

But thank goodness we're in blogland, where every little thought can be put out there. So, let's touch on money, and the religious aspect (!) of cartooning in today's rambling essay. And there will be sex and politics before the end.

It's nice to feel successful.

Some people think it's money. Money impresses people. Ostentatious possessions impress people; "look at my Hummer, my designer clothes, my $200 haircut, etc."

But cartoonists?

I do think that there is something in the personality of the person -- something in his/her chemistry -- that makes he/she a good cartoonist. Sure, you got to be able to write and to draw -- but how do you handle the rejection, the lonely hours of working, having to come up with ideas?

Sometimes I hear that cartooning is a calling, like the priesthood. It's not for everyone.

I think doing what you like to do -- and making money from it -- is success. And not a lot of people are able to do what they like. Most people don't like their jobs. Maybe that's why some people consume conspicuously.

But, yeah, there are times I get no respect.

Sometimes, people don't know what to say when I tell them I draw cartoons. They look at me like I have 3 heads. But, hey, this job is all about drawing silly pictures and convincing an editor to part with good money for them. Most people have never had the experience of getting just one thing they've done published. What cartoonists do is a square peg kinda endeavor.

This was a conversation I had last week.

"What do you do?" I get asked.

"I'm a magazine cartoonist." (I used to say "gag cartoonist," but magazine is more apt. I stole this idea from my friend, magazine cartoonist Benita Epstein.)

"Oh. You're an editorial cartoonist then?"

"No. Magazines," I say. "Those little square cartoons that are in magazines like Reader's Digest." Sometimes I emphasize, making a little square shape with my fingers.

"Oh." Silence. "My grandma used to get Reader's Digest."

There was very little beyond this except a long pause, and then me asking this person what she did for a living (school administrator). Anyway, a total disconnect about what I did, and the conversation died. But it didn't bother me. It happens. At least she didn't ask me to draw Garfield.

Anyway ....

If some people think that drawing magazine cartoons is not as cool as strip cartoonists or Web cartoonists or graphic novelists or whatever -- phooey on them. That elitist junk is a waste of time. Like buying Hummers.

The glory of the job (and the scary part too) is the fact that it's just you and that piece of paper and your brain.

And a cartoonist can make fun of religion;

politics;

sex;

and money.

All the time making a point while making a joke.

I would like to say that all my cartoons are quality and all my work just brilliant, thank you very much -- but it's up to readers to decide if it's IMPORTANT and all.

In the meantime, I'm just going to try to make it GOOD.

-- The original version of this post appeared February 9, 2007.