Category ArchiveBill Peckmann



Bill Peckmann &Disney &Rowland B. Wilson 12 Mar 2012 05:38 am

Rowland B. Wilson’s Hunchback – another look

- When you post every day, there are gems that just don’t get long enough exposure. Bill Peckmann, at one time, had sent some preliminary artwork that Rowland B. WIlson did for a number of Disney and Bluth features. The wealth of material was enormous and it went too quickly into the past.

Given the new book coming onto the market, Rowland B. Wilson’s Trade Secrets: Notes for Cartooning and Animation, I thought it appropriate to take a fresh look at some of his brilliant art for the animated film.

This is a book that was put together by Suzanne Lemieux Wilson, and it looks to be as much about animation as about cartooning. Certainly, I think it appropriate to bring back some of this great pictorial material. NOW.

Here is the incredible cache of photostats that Bill Peckmann had sent me showing some watercolor paintings Rowland B. Wilson did while working for Disney. There are two groups of paintings: one for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, one for Hercules. These are the Hunchback images; Hercules will come next week.

These were all inspirational sketches, and they’re all extremely long. Consequently, I’m posting them in batches. The first comes from Hunchback, and I’ll post the full sized image, then break each down into a couple of parts so that you can appreciate the incredible detail Rowland did in these things.

I hope you enjoy them.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The following group of images is labelled, “The Siege” and concerns itself with the climax of the film where the people storm Notre Dame Cathedral and Quasimodo pours oil on them. These pictures are so beautiful (and large) that I can’t help but split them up so you can see some of the closeup detail.

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(Click any image to enlarge.

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Now this is a Hunchback I could love.

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These two character designs look like they were influenced
by Richard Williams’ “Cobbler & the Thief.” Since Rowland worked
with Dick in London, it’s possible.

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Errol Le Cain by way of Rowland B. Wilson. Beautiful.

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At first I wasn’t sure which end was up on this image.
It might be correctly viewed counter-clockwise.
However, the label in the lower left should be the lower left.

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Here are a couple of additions, a few sketches contributed by Suzanne Wilson.


Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for the generous loan of this material.

Bill Peckmann &Books &Comic Art &Illustration &Rowland B. Wilson 09 Mar 2012 07:36 am

Rowland B. Wilson Playboys

- Bill lPeckmann has sent a stash of beautiful cartoons by Rowland B. Wilson from the pages of Playboy Magazine.

Before getting into this artwork, let me point to a brand new book on the market. Rowland B. Wilson’s Trade Secrets: Notes for Cartooning and Animation. This is a book that was put together by Suzanne Lemieux Wilson, and it looks to be as much about animation as about cartooning.

The book is available for pre-order from Amazon, and you should line up for a copy. You’ll remember that I posted lot of Mr. Wilson’s Disney and Bluth art for the animation art direction he did. I expect to repost a lot of that material again soon, perhaps when this book gets closer to hitting the market for real.

But, now we’re talking about Playboy. They did well by their artists and cartoonists; the printing was always first class and the amount of exposure was high. Rowland’s cartoons always jumped out at me as among the more sophisticated ideas, and the artwork was always top notch. I think you’ll enjoy these, and thank Bill for sharing his collection, yet again.

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You might check out some of these spot cartoons posted by Leif Peng.

Bill Peckmann &Books &Illustration 06 Mar 2012 06:07 am

Baumgarten’s Hoppel Und Poppel

- Fritz Baumgarten was a brilliant illustrator who drew many fantasy worlds in books populated with forest animals, elves, fairies, and birds. His style reminds me a bit of an illustrated version of early MGM Harman-Ising cartoons. There’s a charming innocence in his approach, and I have to say I love all of the books of his I’ve seen. It’s fortunate for me, because Bill Peckmann has a collection of them and delights me by sending scans.

Here is Hoppel und Poppel from Baumgarten, which unfortunately is not translated. But we’re here to look at the Baumgarten pictures, not read the Lena Hahn verse. So, I hope you enjoy.


The book’s cover

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Bill Peckmann &Comic Art 02 Mar 2012 05:55 am

Walt Kelly’s POGO Comic Book Covers

- Here we have Walt Kelly finally htting his stride. The Pogo Comic Book finally appears. Bill Peckmann‘s amazing collection includes some of these beautifuls works of art, and he’s sharing them with us. These are a numbaer of the Front and Back covers with the B&W illustrations within those two covers. Many thanks to Bill for sharing. Enjoy.

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Front Cover of issue #1

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Inner cover

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Inner Back Cover

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Back Cover

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Front Cover

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Back Cover


The Pogo covers that are in the excellent
“The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books.”
We have six of the eleven that are in the book.


For a Kelly/Pogo bio, what better place to go to than to
Michael Barrier and Martin Williams‘s boffo book
A Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics!”


(Click to enlarge to read article.)

Bill Peckmann &Books &Comic Art &Independent Animation 01 Mar 2012 07:00 am

Walt Kelly’s Our Gang

Today and tomorrow we’ll focus on some of the early and brilliant art of Walt Kelly.

- Bill Peckmann has forwarded some of the covers from Walt Kelly‘s Dell comic books, the “Our Gang” series, dated 1946 & 1947. Also included in this stash are a couple of the interior stories.

Bill writes:

    I certainly wish I had more than these 7 issues of Walt Kelly’s “Our Gang” comic books published by Dell, but looking at these covers, they will give you a sense of what Kelly was up to.
    Each issue contained a 14 to 16 page “Our Gang” story done by Kelly, a “Tom and Jerry” story, a “Flip and Dip”, a Carl Barks “Barney Bear and Benny Burro” piece and ended with an appearance by “Wuff the Prairie Dog”.
    I’ll include one “Our Gang” story and one “Barney Bear” to round out the post and save the “Pogo” comics for a post by themselves.

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August 1946

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September 1946

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December 1946

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January 1947

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February 1947

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June 1947

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back cover
All the back covers have basically the same subscription ad,
but I thought I’d send one along for the “currency” shock of it.

What happens when you pour deceptively simple and totally charming into a bottle and shake ‘em up? Why out pours Walt Kelly’s “Our Gang” comics of course! What a touch he had for combining “cartoony” and “straight” in those stories, not an easy thing to pull off, he and Roy Crane were masters of it! Norman Maurer of “Boy” and “Daredevil” comics also had that wonderful ability.

This story is from the September 1946 issue.

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Here are two Walt Kelly single page gags from the same issue.

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Bill Peckmann &Illustration &Rowland B. Wilson 23 Feb 2012 07:30 am

Rowland B. Wilson TVGuide originals – 2

- Picking up right where we left off last week, here are Rowland B. Wilson‘s TV Guide illustrations. In many cases it’s the rough drawings followed by scans of the color original artwork. The roughs came from Bill Peckmann‘s wonderful collection, the colored originals came from Suzanne Wilson. I couldn’t be more grateful to both of them and thank them profusely. (See part 1.)

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Bill Peckmann &Books &Illustration 21 Feb 2012 06:45 am

Harrison Cady

- W. Harrison Cady was a well-known illustrator for over 70 years. He illustrated for The Saturday Evening Post, Ladie’s Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, St. Nicholas Magazine and the Herald Tribune Syndicate. Cady was born in Gardner, Massachusetts and best known for his works in Bedtime Stories, a daily-newspaper created by book and magazine writer Thornton W. Burgess. Burgess conceived the character of Peter Rabbit (not to be confused with Beatrix Potters creation of the same name), and each of these Bedtime Stories was illustrated with a drawing by Cady, who had illustrated some of Burgess magazine stories as early as 1911.

Bill Peckmann has generously sent me an article on Cady and the illustrations from one of his books,

    When I first came across Fritz Baumgarten, years ago, the first thing I thought was, that I was looking at the German Harrison Cady. Unfortunately, I only have this one book of Cady’s, it’s a reprint, but I also have a Cady article that appeared in Nemo magazine, together they’ll make a neat post.

    Here are Harrison Cady’s illustrations from “Mother West Wind’s Neighbor’s”. There are eight color plates and the equal number of black and whites.


The book’s cover.

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What follows is an eight page Cady article by Richard Marshall;
it’s from Richard’s magazine, Nemo, No. 4, Dec. 1983.


A blow-up of one corner of the illustration to show the detailing.

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Finally, here is a CARTOONIST PROfiles article about Cady.


Cover

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Bill Peckmann &Comic Art 17 Feb 2012 07:00 am

John Severin 1921-2012

- On Tuesday, comic book artist John Severin died at the age of 90. It’s only appropriate that we get some representation of his artwork out to you, so I’m posting this piece today that Bill Peckmann has sent me.

    With the very sad passing of comic book artist John Severin this week, here are four of his EC Comics war stories that were done with the collaboration of fellow “historian” editor, writer, Harvey Kurtzman. Both gentlemen are at the top of their game in these early 1950′s stories.
    The combination of Harvey’s writing, cinematic rough lay-outs, animated poses and John’s dead on photographic, rendered, researched art gives you historic moments frozen in time rarely seen in comic books. All four opening splash panels are worth the price of admission.

    The time period goes from the battle of the Alamo to the battle of Iwo Jima.

    This first story is from Two-Fisted Tales No. 28.

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The following story is from Frontline Combat No. 9.

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This story is from Two-Fisted Tales No. 29.

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This last story is from Frontline Combat No. 7. All of the exceptional coloring was done by John’s sister, fellow cartoonist, Marie Severin.

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Bill Peckmann &Illustration &Rowland B. Wilson 16 Feb 2012 06:41 am

Rowland B. Wilson TVGuide originals – 1

- Bill Peckmann had sent me a number of rough sketches by Rowland Wilson which I posted last week. These were for TV Guide spot illustrations that Rowland had done back in the 70s and 80s. The only problem was that we didn’t have many of the finished spots to show against the ruffs.

Well, this week I got an email from Suzanne Wilson, the wife of the late Mr. Wilson. She offered to send copies of the original watercolor artwork to show what the finals look like. Wow! So . . . here we have a large number of scanned originals from Rowland, thanks to Suzanne’s addition.

Since there are 26 of them, and I’ve decided to post the ruffs again alongside the originals, the piece got a bit long, and I’ve decided to break it into two. Today I’ll post all the sports pieces, and tomorrow the others. Not all of the ruffs have originals that match, and not all of the finals have ruffs to show off. Believe me, it’s a great post, and I think you’ll like it.

Because these are from the originals, I suggest you take some time and blow them up. You can see a lot of the artist’s hand in these, certainly more than you can in a printed copy.

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I had planned to post more of these great illustrations tomorrow.
Because of the death of John Severin, I’ve decided to hold off part 2 of this TV Guide post until next Thursday and instead post something in memory of Mr. Severin tomorrow.

Many thanks to Suzanne Wilson and Bill Peckmann for their generous contribution.

Bill Peckmann &Books &Illustration 14 Feb 2012 07:01 am

Die Vogelhochzeit – Fritz Baumgarten

- Back in May, 2010 I posted art from a German children’s book, Zwitschi. The book was loaned by Bill Peckmann and featured a group of birds in a beautiful little story. The drawings were gentle, humorus and exquisite. Since then I’ve meant to post another book by the author, Fritz Baumgarten. This also comes from Bill Peckmann’s collection, and I have to thank him for introducing me to the work of Mr. Baumgarten.

Again it features a cast of little birds operating out of a tree. The watercolors are delicate and I think you’ll enjoy seeing the book which dates back to 1900. It’s built on a famous German song written in the 18th Century.


Book’s cover

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Here’s a translation of the lyrics into English,
    The Bird Wedding

    A bird wanted to get married
    In the green forest.
    Vider-alla-la, vider-alla-la,
    Vider-alla-la-la-la.

    The blackbird was the groom,
    The thrush was the bride.

    The geese and the ducks
    Were the musicians.

    The eagle owl, the eagle owl,
    Brings the bride her bridal shoe.

    The cuckoo shrieks, the cuckoo shrieks,
    It brings the bride her bridal dress.

    The sparrow, the sparrow,
    Brings the bride her ring.

    The dove, the dove,
    Brings the bride her headdress.

    The lark, the lark,
    Leads the bride to the church.

    The black grouse, the black grouse,
    Was the sacristan and the vicar.

    The small bird, the small bird,
    Brings the bride the dishes.

    The peacock, with his colorful tail,
    Dances with the bride the first dance.

    Mrs. Shoescraper, Mrs. Shoescraper*,
    Gives everybody a goodbye kiss.

    The bride’s mother was the owl,
    Takes her leave with hootings.

    The eagle owl, the eagle owl,
    Closes the window shutters.

    The rooster horns “Good night!”
    Now, the bedroom will be closed.

    The bird wedding is now over,
    All the birds fly home.

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