Lecture: Ryan Holmberg "A History of Modern Manga: A Hundred Years in Ten Works"

 Via Duke University:

"This lecture offers a blitzkrieg history of modern Japanese comics (manga) through snapshots of the ten most important titles, from the early 20th century to the present.
 
"Ryan Holmberg is a freelance arts and comics historian and translator. He has taught at Duke University and the University of Tokyo, among other schools. Since 2014, he has been affiliated with the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in Norwich, UK, as an Academic Associate. He is the author of The Translator Without Talent (Bubbles, 2020) and Garo Manga: The First Decade, 1964-1973 (Center for Book Arts, 2010). He is a contributor to The Comics Journal, Artforum International, Art in America, and Frieze.

"Sponsored by the Visiting Artist Series of the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies."

The link to this recorded lecture will only be around for the next 30 days.

 

Video: Walt Handelsman

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for The Times-Picayune/The Advocate Walt Handelsman talks about editorial cartooning in these times. From Louisiana Public Broadcasting, this is a video address to the Rotarians. He talks about sketching up ideas, the editing process and the final drawing. 

Video: Political Cartoonist Homer Davenport

From the San Luis Obispo Coast District: Here's a Hearst Castle docent telling us about editorial cartoonist Homer Davenport:

 

Documentary: Dedini: A Life of Cartoons (2006)

 

"My name is Eldon Dedini. I'm a cartoonist. I wake up each morning and try and be funny as hell."

 

Continuing our look at Eldon Dedini. Yesterday, Dick Buchanan showed us 25 rare gag cartoons. Today, we have a documentary short.

Anson Musselman made this documentary about cartoonist Eldon Dedini titled DEDINI: A LIFE OF CARTOONS. It's from 2006, and well worth watching when you get a break today.

It's a great piece, with Dedini, alive and well in this film, talking about his art and making cartoons and ... well, see it.

If only Musselman would do this for all the cartoonists in the world!

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 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!

---



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

Video" "Three With a Pen" Gallery Show Opening: Lily Renée, Bil Spira, and Paul Peter Porges - March 11 - September 3, 2021

 Above: Lily Renée's artwork from a golden age comic book.

 

The Austrian Cultural Forum hosts the "Three With a Pen"  exhibit through September 3, 2021. It showcases:

• Lily Renée, a golden age comic book artist who celebrates her 100th birthday this year;
• Bill Spira (1913 - 2000), an illustrator who documented life in concentration camps, and
• Paul Peter Porges (1927 - 2016), known for his cartoons in The New Yorker and Mad Magazine. 

 Above: Bill Spira draws in 1938, © Wien Museum. Photo by Robert Haas.

 

Here's a preview, with "opening remarks from ACFNY Director Michael Haider and Jewish Museum Vienna Director Danielle Spera, as well as statements from Friends of Jewish Museum Vienna president Eric Huebscher, the exhibition’s curators, and the artists’ family members." It's wonderful to see and hear Lily Renée talk about her life in comics. What's especially fun is seeing Paul Peter Porges' daughter Vivette talk about watching her father draw when she was a little kid.

 

"... Three with a Pen: Lily Renée, Bil Spira, and Paul Peter Porges featuring works by the three Jewish artists driven from their homes in Vienna after the German annexation of Austria, the so-called 'Anschluss,' in 1938. On view March 11 through September 3, 2021, the exhibition showcases examples of their signature work in comic books, New Yorker cartoons, Mad magazine spoofs, caricatures, portraiture, fashion design, advertising, and children’s books, among other formats. Biographical material and ephemera amplify the artists’ personal stories of survival and, in part, help contextualize their professional achievements.

"The exhibition, organized by the Jewish Museum in Vienna, intentionally displays the artwork and biographical information separately so visitors may consider the quality of the artists’ output apart from their experiences during the war and the Holocaust. Depicting a range of subjects and using distinctive techniques, some works were intended to expose and ridicule Nazism and fascism and comment on political and historical events. Others reveal aspects of human nature and contemporary society—both in satirical terms and affectionately. Born in Vienna to Jewish parents, Lily Renée Willheim (b.1921), Wilhelm Spira (1913-1999), and Paul Peter Porges (1927-2016) each showed early promise as artists. When Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938 and the persecution of Austrian Jews began, Willheim and Porges’ parents placed them on children’s transports to what they thought were safe havens—England and France, respectively. Spira was repeatedly arrested, escaped multiple times, and finally interned in concentration camps for the duration of World War II. Willheim and Porges eventually settled in New York and Spira in Paris where they made successful careers as illustrators and graphic artists."

Above: A Peter Paul Porges cartoon.

 

The event opened virtually on March 11th. Here's a gallery tour:

 

Video: The Compleat Charles Addams Gallery Show 1994

There are some great gallery shows, but most of them you have to miss. Traveling is a no-no in COVID times. Another problem is time. Here's some video of a New York Public Library exhibit of Charles Addams' cartoons, which takes care of travel and time.

"The Compleat Charles Addams" gallery show was in the main rotunda of the NYPL (the one with the lions in front) in 1994. CBS Sunday Morning's Bill Geist hosts, with Paul Rudnick acting as tour guide. 

I was fortunate to visit this show a couple of times back in the day. And I found out that he had a special relationship with the museum.

From the February 16, 1994 New York Times:

"The library has a special connection with Mr. Addams, explained Susan F. Saidenberg, because he used the picture collection there for more than 30 years. 'He insisted on accuracy in his drawings,' said Ms. Saidenberg, the library's manager of exhibitions. Mr. Addams would stroll over to visit the collection on the main floor of the library from his office at The New Yorker on 43d Street, she said.

"Mr. Addams's first New Yorker drawing was published in 1932, she said; it was followed by 1,200 more, including 75 covers; the last drawing appeared posthumously in the magazine on Feb. 22, 1993. The cartoon, on display in the show, portrays a fatuous king saying to his subjects, 'And now, as an experiment in democracy, I'm decreeing free elections to choose the national bird.'"

Here's a chance to wander around the NYPL and look at these great original drawings -- like so many activities these days (but not for too much longer): virtually.

From the DIck Buchanan Files: New Yorker Luminaries 1937 - 1964

20th century gag cartoonists were like sharks: always moving. You had to be. You draw up ten cartoons and sell one. Then you take the remaining batch of nine and go to another market, hoping to make another sale. And you start with The New Yorker. The New Yorker is not just a prestige market, they also pay well. But if the cartoon editor doesn't buy, you peddle your wares down the street, at the next highest-paying market. Dick Buchanan has some New Yorker cartoonist regulars here whose cartoons were published by some of these slightly-less-prestigious-and-slightly-lower-paying magazines like Collier's, Look Magazine, 1000 Jokes Magazine and others.

Thanks and take it away, Dick!

---

NEW YORKER LUMINARIES
1937 - 1964


Here is a selection of gag cartoons drawn by some cartoonists who, although their work appeared in many magazines, are best known for their work for The New Yorker. The New Yorker was the top market which most every cartoonist aspired to sell. Needless to say, The New Yorker had a strong, established stable of cartoonists, so it was a difficult, if not impossible market to crack their ranks.
Here is a selection of drawings by the some of the best cartoonists who appeared regularly in The New Yorker during the mid-20th century. Although The New Yorker undoubtedly got “first look” at many of these cartoons, there was a lively market for the ones which they declined. Most of these cartoons appeared in Collier’s, Look or The Saturday Evening Post, a couple of them appeared in the pages of 1000 Jokes Magazine, the happy home for many overlooked drawings. Take a look . . .


1. CHARLES ADDAMS. Collier’s January 28, 1939.

2. PERRY BARLOW. Collier’s November 12, 1949.

3. SAM COBEAN. The Saturday Evening Post February 16, 1946.

 

4. WHITNEY DARROW, JR. Collier’s October 11, 1941.

 

5. CHON DAY. This Week Magazine October 21, 1951.

 

6. RICHARD DECKER. Look Magazine February 12, 1963.

7. LEONARD DOVE. Look Magazine August 5, 1958.

 

8. NED HILTON. Collier’s June 24, 1955.

 

9. SYD HOFF. The Saturday Evening Post September 13, 1952.

 

10. HELEN HOKINSON. Collier’s March 15, 1941.

 

11. ANATOL KOVARKSY. Collier’s August 3, 1956.

12. CEM (Charles E. Martin) 1000 Jokes Magazine June - August, 1961.

 

13. GARRETT PRICE. Collier’s February 20, 1937.

 

14. GEORGE PRICE. Collier’s November 2, 1940.
 

 

15. GARDNER REA. Collier’s April 5, 1952.

 

16. MISCHA RICHTER. 1000 Jokes Magazine September – November, 1964.

 "A diary -- quick!"

 

 

17. CHARLES SAXON. American Legion Magazine October, 1947.

18. BARBARA SHERMUND. Collier’s December 23, 1939.

 

19. OTTO SOGLOW. Collier’s January 8, 1938.

 

20. WILLIAM STEIG. Look Magazine June 16, 1964.

 

21. RICHARD TAYLOR. Collier’s September 10, 1942.

 

22. BARNEY TOBEY. Collier’s September 14, 1946.