Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Bill Peckmann sent another strong piece by Harvey Kurtzman.
Here’s Bill to introduce it:

I came across my stash of Harvey Kurtzman‘s HELP! magazines that I haven’t looked at in 45 years. Surprise, surprise, what a wonderful comic cornucopia is in those forgotten books. There’s all of our favorite cartoonists and then some. As always, Harvey was ahead of the curve in format and style, there wasn’t quite anything like HELP! when it came out those 50 years ago

Here’s Harvey Kurtzman’s and Bill Elder’s series “Goodman Beaver” from the magazine. The series started in 1961, towards the end of the run of HELP!.

This is the cover of the paperback that came out in 1962 which reprinted four of the “Goodman” stories. In it were also capsule bio’s of Harvey, Bill and Goodman.

Cover

2
Bios

3

Here are the “Goodman Beaver” stories as they appeared in HELP! magazine. (The paperback reprinted the stories in a one panel per page format, art was also added to fill out the page.) The pages are written an laid out by Harvey and finished off in black and white by Bill Elder. Bill’s finished art is beautifully done, especially his hand crafted grays. I believe Bill’s “engraving like” style was influenced by the terrific “antique/recycled” cartoons Harvey use to run in his early MAD magazine and in HELP! The combination of Harvey’s fluid, animated lay outs and Bill’s meticulous final art make for something quite unique.

4

5

6

7

8

9

There are two more stories to follow:

10

11

12

13

14

The last story is hilarious – especially if you’re an Archie fan.

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22
The back cover of the paperback

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing this great material.

- Sam Norkin was a theatrical caricaturist in the mode of Hirschfeld. Norkin was the house cartoonist for the NY Daily News for many years. Bill Peckmann recently sent me two articles from the Dec. ’76 and the March ’91 issues of Cartoonist Profiles.

I thought, before posting the CP article, I’d give you the obituary published in Playbill last year when he died.

Sam Norkin, Theatre Caricaturist and Drama Desk President, Dies

By Robert Simonson
31 Jul 2011

Sam Norkin, who captured seven decades of stage performance with fine-lined caricatures, died July 30. His age could not be learned at press time, but he was born in 1917.

Mr. Norkin’s drawings of theatre, opera, ballet and film stars appeared in Variety, Back Stage, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and other publications. From 1940 to 1956, his illustrations were a regular feature in the New York Herald Tribune. Then for the next 26 years, he covered the performing arts for the Daily News.

Late in his career, he contributed sketches to the weekly magazine InTheater.

Like his more-famous contemporary, Al Hirschfeld, Mr. Norkin used a collection of swirling and angled pen-and-ink lines to express stage presences of his subjects. While his and Hirschfeld’s styles were very similar, Mr. Norkin’s were perhaps less airy and more corporeal, and he was fond not just of line, but large swaths of black.

“A Norkin caricature is often densely packed with detail and may feature a great deal of solid black space,” wrote David Barbour in the 1994 book, “Sam Norkin, Drawings, Stories.” “He also is more daring in his drafting; many of his pieces, in particular one from the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera, feature steeply raked lines which plunge vertiginously from top to bottom, to highly dramatic effect.”

He also provided illustrations for “Theatre in a Barn” (1957); “Actors Talk About Theatre; 12 Interviews With Lewis Funke” (1977); and “Four Plays by Eugene O’Neill” (1980).

Mr. Norkin began studying art at age nine. He received a scholarship to the Metropolitan Art School after his high school graduation, and he later attended Cooper U nion, the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the School of Fine and Industrial Art. He began his career as a caricaturist in 1940.

He was also employed as a journalist at times. He was art critic for the Carnegie Hall house program and a cultural reporter for the Daily News. For a time, he was president of Drama Desk, the award-giving theatre critics organization.

The following is the article from the Cartoonist Profiles of Dec. 1976:

The magazine cover.

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

This is the second article from the March 1991 issue of Cartoonist Profiles.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Here are a few more pieces I found on line:

1

2

3

Caricatures of some other cartoonists.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann.

- Bill Peckmann sends along more examples of Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis‘ movie spoofs. It’s all great artwork, of course. Here are Bill’s comments:

Nothing could bring a smile faster to your face than when Harvey Kurtzman took out his sharp writing and layout pencil and starting bursting Hollywood’s bubbles with it. Add to that Jack Davis‘ powerhouse perfect pen and brush work to finish off the job, and there my friend, you had in your hands one of the best duos in comic books doing their funniest stuff! Then and now!

Since most cartoonists seem to be movie buffs, the following pages must have been a labor of love. The first story “Cowboy!”, is from MAD comic book #20, Feb. 1955. The unique coloring sets up the story beautifully, Harvey in full creative mode!

1
Here’s the cover of MAD #20.

2

3

4

5

6

Here are a few panels from “Cowboy!” in Jack’s
original black and white, to show every lovely line.

9
HUMBUG #5 cover
Two years later, 1957, in HUMBUG magazine #5,
Kurtzman and Davis continue their wonderful riffs on Hollywood movies.

10

11
Here’s the cover by Bob Blechman.
The next three pages are from HUMBUG #9, 1958.

12

13

14

15
HUMBUG #10 cover

16

17
The cover of HUMBUG #11, the last issue.

18

A double page spread

20
A small back cover bonus, Jack’s cowboys with a HUMBUG subscription offer.

And Jack’s thank you note for getting a HUMBUG subscription.

There’s a nice and long audio interview with Jack Davis by Drew Friedman on The Comics Journal site.

- Last week we saw thje first half of Alex Toth‘s comic book adaptation of the Stewart Granger film, Gun Glory. Here, we post the remainder of the story. Bill Peckmann is to be thanked for opening up his archive to us. Here’s his comment:

I’d venture a guess that the quality of Alex’s original pages in “Gun Glory” has to be the same as it was in the original pages of his “Land of the Unknown” Dell comic book, meaning outta sight! (See earlier Splog posting of that art.) Unfortunately, so much just gets lost in the “pulp” printing, arrrgh!!!

His earlier Dell/Western Pub. movie adaptation titles, like “Gun Glory”, are still by far the best of his tenure at Dell. The later titles towards the end of his run there, because of many reasons, mainly lack of appreciation, creativity, monies, etc., seemed like they were just being phoned in.

His best stories for Dell give an inkling of what was to come down the pike a few years later with the black and white pages he would do for Warren Publishing, which was some of the best continuity art that he ever did.

Also after leaving Dell, in the early 1960′s, was just about the time Alex would start to dabble in the art of animation, lucky for us!

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

- Last May, I posted a number of cartoons from Ronald Searle‘s book of illustrations from The Female Approach, a collection of cartoons and illustrations from a number of different sources (including many from “The Bells of St. Trinian’s.”) With Mr. Searle dying this past week, I think it’s only appropriate to return to that book and post a few more of those great pieces.

For a wonderful obituary and commentary, I encourage you to go to Matt Jones‘ piece posted on Cartoon Brew this week. I also can suggest you spend some time visiting Mr. Jones’ tribute blog to Ronald Searle – Perpetua.

The book’s dust cover

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

Gun Glory is a 1957 film starring Stewart Granger and Rhonda Fleming. Alex Toth in one of his adaptations to comic book brought some small beat of immortality to this movie, directed by Roy Rowland.

Here is the first of two installments of Toth’s magazine. Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing this cowboy classic.

Comic book cover

Inner cover

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Bill Peckmann offers another collaboration between the two great cartoonist/illustrators, Jack Davis and Harvey Kurtzman. Over to Bill:

“Gary Cooper”, an affectionate handle that was given to Jack Davis by his fellow EC Comics staffers back in the early 1950′s. The nickname fit well not only because of good looking Jack’s lean and lanky frame but also because of his impeccable easy going, gentlemanly manners. I’d take it one step further and say that just like Mr. Cooper who gave credence to any genre role he played in the movies (contemporary, sports, westerns etc.), so did Jack by excelling in any genre (crime, horror, humor, war) he drew in comic books!

What better way to bring the two together than in Harvey Kurtzman‘s spoofs of two very popular western movies of their day. “High Noon” and “Vera Cruz”.

So, with the help of Mr. Kurtzman, Mr. Davis and Mr. Chickencooper, here is “Hah! Noon!” from MAD comic book No. 9, 1954.

The cover

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Here is “Vera’s Cruz” from the first MAD magazine, No.24, 1955. Both Harvey and Jack are in tip top form, (as always) in this, their first western movie spoof in the new black and white magazine format. (Funny,”Hah! Noon!” was the first caricatured movie send up that Kurtzman and Davis did together a year earlier in the comic book MAD.) In this new magazine format, our favorite funnymen duo were able to do a 10 pager compared to the usual 7 and 8 page stories they did in the comic book format, how they must have relished that!

The cover

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Many thanks, again, to Bill Peckmann for sharing his great collection with us.

- It’s Christmastime. The perfect time to fall under the spell of Carl Barks for a few moments. Here’s the second and final installment of the piece started yesterday, “A Letter to Santa”, published in 1949 as the comic book titled, A Christmas Parade. This comes courtesy of Bill Peckmann who scanned the cover from the original magazine, but the story was taken from the reprinted and recolored version. Many th\anks to Bill for sharing this treat.

The cover, pencilled by Walt Kelly.

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

Merry Christmas

Bill Peckmann offered a holiday treat. A Carl Barks, Donald Duck story. It’s a bit on the long side, so I have to break it into two posts; I’ll complete the piece tomorrow. It’s a cliff hanger. Meanwhile, many thanks to Bill who writes:

Here’s the cover of original comic book, “Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade” No. 1. It came out in 1949, it was one of the first 25 cent Disney comic books that I can remember. The price really put a dent in a kid’s pocket from that era, but at over 100 pages it was worth every cent!

The biggest gift in the first issue of “Christmas Parade” was of course Carl Barks’ 24 page Donald Duck “in Letter to Santa” story. There’s nothing more natural than having Scrooge McDuck in a Christmas story and fortunately nothing more natural than Carl being at the top of his game in 1949. It’s one of the best of the best!

(Note, I’m not scanning the story from the original comic book, I just didn’t have the heart to break the square binding of the old comic book. The scanning will be of a Gladstone Publishing reprint. Purists and anti-gradationists will probably be unhappy with that but it still is a handsome job when seen on the computer screen and Carl’s line work sings.

Second note, there’s also some Jesse Marsh art in the issue. He illustrated the text of “So Dear To My Heart”. Seven illo’s. I’ll see if I’ll be able to scan those without damaging the book.)

The cover is listed as being penciled by Walt Kelly.

1

2

3

4

5
This is one of the very early appearances of
Uncle Scrooge McDuck in a Barks story, so he
isn’t quite the character yet that we came to know and love.

6

7

8

9

10

11

Another excellent post from the collection of Bill Peckmann. Here, I turn it over to Bill:

“King of the Cowboy Cartoonists”. If there was ever such a title, Jack Davis would garner my vote!

Here are two westerns by Jack that ran in EC Comics’ title “Two-Fisted Tales”.

In “TFT” No. 34, July-Aug 1953, the first story “Betsy”, was not only drawn by Jack but also written by him. The usual editor/writer of the comic book Harvey Kurtzman, was laid up with a serious illness, so Jack and the rest of the cartoon crew jumped in and wrote their own tales.

Jack’s story “Betsy” is a riff on “High Noon”, a very popular movie of its’ day. (Gary Cooper even makes a cameo appearance in the story. More on that in a later post.) It’s a labor of love for Jack and it shows. It’s laid out by him in that wonderful Kurtzman lay-out style and the coloring by Marie Severin is really exceptional.

Jack also seems to be ahead of his time with this story because it’s done quite a few years before the gritty, gnarly noir western movies of Clint Eastwood, but it certainly has the feel of one those films.

(Here’s the cover of the comic, which we’ve posted already, but you might want to run it at smaller size, ala “Ben and Me” today. I hope your readers enjoyed “Ben” as much as we did.)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Here’s Jack’s second western story titled “Gunfire”. This appeared in “The New Two-Fisted Tales”, No. 36, Jan. 1954. With this issue, Harvey Kurtzman was not at the writer/editorship helm of the comic any more, the success of Mad comics took up all of Harvey’s time, and the running of “The New TFT” went to John Severin and writer Colin Dawkins.

“Gunfire” was written by Dawkins and illustrated by Jack, and Jack’s in his best Kurtzman type lay-out mode, beautifully constructed pages and panels.

(Even though Clint Eastwood was only 23 years old at the time when this story came out, and not a movie star yet, somehow Jack was able to come up with the perfect prototype of a Clint Eastwood western hero. It’s all there, looks and costume and action! It makes ya wonder.)

Here’s the cover of #36.
This cover of “The New Two-Fisted Tales” no. 36
was penciled by John Severin and inked by Bill Elder.
It’s not a Jack Davis cover.

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Here are a couple of ruffs Jack did for Western illustrations.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing his collection with us.