Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- The following are a collection of rough sketches that Rowland B. Wilson did in creating illustrations for TVGuide. These come from the extraordinary collection of Bill Peckmann. I’ve been searching for final, colored images to match these but haven’t successfully found any as yet. You’ll have to look at them for what they are: rough prep drawings for finals. In the past I’d posted a number of these with some of the final cartoons, so you can go there, if you like, to see how he built up from the initial sketches.

In all, I find it enormously informative to see the process from the beginning from such an artist as Rowland B. Wilson.

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Here is a self-caricature from 1987. (It’s from R.C. Harvey’s wonderful book
“A Gallery of Rogues: Cartoonists’ Self – Caricatures”

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This card shows a number of the TVGuide illustrations
that were done by Rowland B. Wilson. Notice #14
is the last one on thias card. Unfortunately, this
is the largest size I have of the color version.

To close it out, I have this image from Suzanne Wilson, from an original of a RBW TV Guide illustration:

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for the hard work in putting this post together, and thanks to Suzanne Wilson for the final image.

Bill Peckmann continues to open up his collection of Rowland Wilson artwork. These are illustrations he did for a couple of magazines, predominantly, TV Guide. Bill’s comments follow with the images.

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This is a self caricature, circa 1970.

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When Rowland came back to NYC after his stint at Richard Williams in
1975, he did this mailer when he was at Phil Kimmelman & Associates.

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Here are the first of the TV Guide spreads

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Sadly, I should have craved/saved a lot more of Rowland’s TV Guide illustrations
than I did but alas, when you’re young and stupid you just assumed there would
always be a TV Guide and there would always be a RBW illustration in it.

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A slight break in the RBW action to give then TV Guide art director, Jerry Allen,
kudos for using the great illustration and great cartoon talent that he did.
(Applause, applause!)
Here are a few of them.

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First Charles Saxon. (After seeing this illo, you have to
wonder what a Sesame Street book would have looked like if Saxon had
illustrated it. The characters wouldn’t have been 100% on model, but that
book would have been one of the most beautiful on the bookstore shelves!)

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This is Bob Weber

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This is a Jack Davis spot.

The following are 8 of Rowland’s illustrations for the second New England Life campaign.

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This is for those of us old enough to remember -
Unfortunately with their second ad campaign New England Life switched from
selling life insurance to pushing financial planning and the gags lost a lot their edge.
Combine that with stifling “hands on” art direction they also lost a lot of Rowland’s
design sense. RBW didn’t have an easy time of it but he persevered.

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Even though Rowland did this New England Life illustration long before
he worked at Disney, I always felt it had a Disney charm about it, and
it was around this time that he was setting his sights to get a gig at
the mouse factory. It just didn’t happen right away.

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For Popular Mechanics Magazine.

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Logo design for animation studio.

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Tomorrow, a number of rough sketches for TV Guide spot illustrations.

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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann.

Gerald & Cullen Rapp were artists reps for a number of important cartoonists. Bill Peckmann sent me this excellent article from CARTOONIST PROfiles which details their work and some of their clients. Jack Davis is probably their biggest artist, and we follow the article with plenty of Jack’s work.

CARTOONIST PROfiles cover article about Gerald & Cullen Rapp

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The following are printed cards highlighting the work of
Jack Davis.

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Many thanks again to Bill Peckmann.

- Jerry Van Amerongen is a cartoonist whose work seems to be unfamiliar to many people. However, those who do know his work search out his cartoons. Bill Peckmann sent me this CARTOONIST PROfiles article about him and followed it with select cartoons from the pages of his book, Ballard Street. Bill wrote:

Because of not having access to a newspaper that ran Jerry’s “Ballard Street” comic strip, this great talent flew under my radar for way too long of a time. Fortunately a good friend of mine sent me this book/collection a while back and I’ve been a fan ever since.

Here’s a sampling of the way that Amerongen can freeze hilarious moments in time as only he can.

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Book Cover

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Back Cover of the book

- 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

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Bios

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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.

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There are two more stories to follow:

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

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The back cover of the paperback

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing this great material.

Bill Charmatz is a cartoonist/illustrator whose work has graced many high volume magazines: Playboy, the NYTimes, Harpers and the Saturday Evening Post. Bill Peckmann sent a number of pieces from Charmatz as wwell as an article in Cartoonist Profiles about him, and I’m glad to post them. Here’s Bill:

Here is Bill gracing the pages of CARTOONIST PROfiles No. 100, Dec. 1993.
My only complaint about the wonderful article, is that it is way too short,
with not enough illo’s!

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When Walt Reed’s exceptional book, “The Illustrator In America” came out in 2000,
I was delighted to see that Bill Charmatz made the honor rolls of the book,
couldn’t happen to a more deserving talent!

Here’s Bill’s listing.

The next 3 illustrations are from a
2001 Society of Illustrators auction catalog.

The following illustrations came from Bill Charmatz‘ web site.

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French Church
In his early years Bill did some personal paintings in France.

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He’s illustrated for Sports Illustrated.

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No Perching – The NY Times Book Review

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Cat Chews on Fish – NY Times Book Review

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Construction Worker Eats Lunch – NY Times Book Review

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One of a number of children’s books he’s written and illustrated.

There’s a lot of art on view at Bill Charmatz‘ website. I encourage you to visit it.

- 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.

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

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Here are a few more pieces I found on line:

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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!

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Here’s the cover of MAD #20.

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

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

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

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HUMBUG #10 cover

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The cover of HUMBUG #11, the last issue.

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A double page spread

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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.

- Bill Peckmann sent me a number of scans on Hilary Knight, the noted illustrator who had gained fame in illustrating the Eloise books authored by Kay Thompson. On receiving them I suddenly remembered that I had animated a commercial done in the style of Mr. Knight’s poster for the Broadway show, Meet Me In St. Louis.

I had completely forgotten about that job which we did back in 1989. We’d been employed by a South African art director of the Broadway show to do an Overture and an Entr’acte for the musical play. The Overture would play to a Currier & Ives type animation we produced, then the scrim would lift revealing the town. For the Entr’acte, we would end with a group of people ice skating on a pond. It would be lit from behind, and our drawing would turn to live action as the actors skated on a simulated pond on stage.

With the job came a 30 sec. spot animating the poster that Hilary Knight had illustrated. I can remember just about nothing about the spot. The entire job, spot, musical and the entire experience was a horrible one. The client was nasty and moody and continually changed his mind about what he wanted. He thought of himself as an auteur and kept pulling ideas out of his hat while we tried to fight the low budget and tight deadline.

The one positive memory was going to see the rough film projected on the Broadway stage. While waiting for them to find the projectionist, I noticed one older man sitting across from me in the theater. I walked over to him and asked if he was Hugh Martin. He was, and I told him how glad I was to meet him. We spoke for another couple of minutes until the theater went dark and projection started. Martin was the composer of the show; he’d written all those great, original songs for Judy Garland and the others in the movie. I was pleased to have recognized him and met him.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Hilary Knight, but I did have some of his original artwork in hand. He drew some models for us. They’re somewhere in our storage, and a quick search wasn’t able to turn up anything. Time is moving on, and I wish I had put more emphasis on preserving some of my art materials back when.

The parting note on that job was that they spelled my name incorrectly in the Playbill. How appropriate. They promised to correct it in future copies, but I didn’t even bother to see if they’d done the correction.

Here’s the material Bill Peckmann had sent me, starting with a comment from Bill:

In 1999 a collection of four of Hilary Knight’s “Eloise” books was published. Aside from it having all those great books between two covers was the fact that it also had Hilary’s eight page autobiography in it! And here it is.

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The book cover

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- 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!

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