Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- At last, we’ve reached the final part of the Carl Barks Donald Duck story, “Sheriff of Bullet Valley”. This is one of the most treasured of the Donald comics, and thanks to Bill Peckmann‘s sending the book, we can get to see it all of a piece.
You can visit part 1 & part 2 on this blog in the past two weeks.

Let’s start with another oil painting by Carl Barks adapted from the cover of this magazine. It’s from “The Fine Art Of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck.”

“The Sheriff of Bullet Valley” (18″x24″)
The handling of this third version of Bullet Valley is close to the original comic book
cover and truly conveys the ominous atmosphere of the showdown scene.

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Now here’s the remainder of the story, The Sheriff of Bullet Valley.
We pick up where Part 2 left off . . . 1

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To fill out this post Bill Peckmann had sent another couple of one-page gags. Here’s his additional note:

Here are the two end page gags done in the original two color format which looks great as well as the back cover gag done in full color, which also looks terrific. When we were kids, all of us “Good Duck Artist” fans, (Remember at that time we didn’t know the name of the cartoonist who drew our favorite DD stories) would have loved to have seen a whole DD comic printed and colored on cover stock (like back cover gags) and not on the ratty, pulp newsprint paper. Unfortunately now, when comic book reprint albums are printed on quality paper, the coloring is so ham fisted, they loose so much of the essence of the original book, especially Barks’ beautiful line work. It’s probably better to see it in it’s original black and white but then something else seems to be missing. (There are some people you just can’t seem to please!)

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Thanks again to Bill Peckmann in sharing his library with us.

- I recently posted the first two parts of this book by Greg Constantine, Vincent Van Gogh Visits New York. Here is the third and final part of the book.

Go to part 1 & part 2

It was a paperback book Bill Peckmann bought in the ’80s. He introduced me to it and he scanned and sent the material to me. Many thanks to Bill for sharing it with us.

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key to all art references used

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Greg Constantine also has two other books on the market: Leonardo Visits Los Angeles and Picasso in Chicago. Here are the front and rear covers of both books.

Leonardo Visits Los Angeles – front cover

rear cover

Picasso Visits Chicago – front cover

rear cover

- Today we continue with part 2 of 3 from Carl Barks‘ brilliant comic story, “Sheriff of Bullet Valley.” Bill Peckmann who sent the whole thing to me for posting, starts with an oil painting by Barks which was based on this story. Bill writes:

Here’s Carl’s painting of the cover (caption to follow). It’s taken from “The Fine Art of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck” by Carl Barks. It was published in 1981 by Another Rainbow Publishing Co.

“The Sheriff of Bullet Valley”

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Bill Peckmann wrote:

Fortunately for us, “Bullet Valley” broke down nicely into 3 acts, but then again with the ol’ master, Carl Barks, at the helm, I’m sure luck had nothing to do with it.

One more note on the coloring. After rummaging through other colored reprinted (and original) versions of BV, I’ve come to the conclusion (IMHO) that this might be one of the best colored Barks story ever. I wish I knew who did the art direction on the the coloring, great job. Usually the colors are all slightly over saturated or are computer gradated, this version has all of the colors done nicely in a simple pale mode and boy, does that let Barks’ line work (one of the best in the business) superbly shine through!

- Bill Peckmann sent me the first installment of Carl Barks‘ comic story, “Sheriff of Bullet Valley.” There will be two other installments to follow. Here’s the note Bill sent with the scans:

“Sheriff of Bullet Valley” was reprinted in Another Rainbow Pubishing Company’s “Carl Barks Library” in 1984. Most of the “CBL” was printed in B&W, fortunately “Sheriff” was printed in color and what a beautiful job they did. The coloring is done in wonderful flat tones, no color gradients and that seems to be just what the doctor ordered for Carl’s style.

Barks’ was at the top of his game when he did this story and because of that, a great deal of enjoyable time can be spent studying each page and each panel. A lot of people have explained Carl’s art much better than I can, but to me, he always had the ability (and still does) to make a world on the printed page as real as the one outside your window. What he packed into those pages by way of writing, continuity, panel and page design, backgrounds and landscapes, his posing and the acting ability of his characters, wow,in this day and age it seems like such a super human effort.

Here then is the first installment of “Sheriff of Bullet Valley” by Carl Barks.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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To be continued

Here’s a Cartoonist Profiles article in which Grim Natwick is interviewed by June Foray. How can you miss when one star pays homage to another. What a gem. It was published in March of 1982. Many thanks to Bill Peckmannfor sharing this with us.

Cover of the issue

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- In a second posting of art reprinted from MAD Magazine, Bill Peckmann forwarded the following covers and the two stories that follow. I’ll let Bill’s words introduce the material. The material comes from the collected Mad For Keeps.

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Here is the cover, comprised from one of the issues,
which has Harvey’s great MAD logo, Bill Elder’s border and probably
Norman Mingo’s first Alfred E. Neuman illustration.

These are the only two stories from the MAD comic books in the book that are reprinted in color. (And good color it is because of the hard cover production.) Again, the talent of Harvey Kurtzman really shines through with his writing and laying out of the pages. They are also great examples of Harvey the editor choosing the right cartoon talent to complete the job.

The first story “Melvin of the Apes”, is drawn by John Severin, he certainly captures the flavor of the early Hal Foster Tarzan strip.

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Here is the second story, it’s with cartoonist Wally Wood. IMHO, it’s one the stories where their collaborative powers are at their zenith. The animated continuity is so good, It’s hard to picture this story without either talent or being done by somebody else.

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Here are the three faces of MAD. The first cover is of MAD comic book # 6, (1953) drawn by Harvey for the inside “King Kong” story spoof. This is the issue that contained “Melvin of the Apes”.

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This is the cover from # 20 (1955), by now Harvey had been spoofing “covers” (magazines, newspapers etc.) for about ten issues. This is the issue that contained “Sound Effects!”

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This is MAD magazine cover # 27 (1956). It is the fourth magazine cover done and the first Jack Davis cover. It’s easy to see the “It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World” (1963) movie poster lurking in there and also a lot of TV GUIDE covers to come.

(Side notes: As high school students, we cut class one day in 1958 to visit the offices of MAD on Lafayette St. and were so fortunate to see the original of this cover hanging on the office wall. The reproduction does not do it justice at all! I was also lucky enough to be at Elektra Films in ’63 when they shot a trailer for “Mad Mad Mad Mad World” using Jack’s original poster art. Jack’s originals have got to be seen to be believed.)

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Here’s the record jacket (front & back) for It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

Finally, this is the Kurtzman war comics crew as seen by John Severin. It was done sometime in the early ’50′s. John’s love for drawing historically accurate comic book stories really comes through here.

There are some great Basil Woolverton comic strips at John Glenn Taylor‘s blog

- Here’s an interview printed in Cartoonist Profiles Magazine in 1988. It’s Bill Watterson, of Calvin & Hobbes fame, of course, giving an appreciation of Walt Kelly of Pogo fame, obviously. It’s a gem of a piece sent to me by Bill Peckmann, and I’m posting it hoping you’ll find it interesting. Thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing his incredible archives.

Cover

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- Suppose we had a comic book version of The 3 Caballeros; wouldn’t that be fun to see? What if the artwork were done completely by Walt Kelly; would that make it a treasure? I think it does. Bill Peckmann made my week when he sent me the scans to the following comic book. As Bill wrote to me: “Beautiful stuff, like Barks’ art, it’s timeless, looks like it was done yesterday.”

Not only is the artwork out of this world, but the quality of the printing is brilliant. And the quality of the book, itself, is wonderfully well preserved. You only have to look below to read it. Take your time; this is great.

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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sharing this gorgeous material with us.

- Last week I posted the first part of this book by Greg Constantine, Vincent Van Gogh Visits New York. It was a paperback book Bill Peckmann bought in the ’80s. He introduced me to it and he scanned and sent the material to me.

Constantine also did Leonardo da Vinci Visits Los Angeles and Picasso Visits Chicago.

Cover

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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for sending this onto me to share.

- Bill Peckmann was reminded of this book by Hopper‘s Nighthawks painting on the last Hopper post we did. So he sent me some pages of Vincent Van Gogh Visits New York by Greg Constantine, a paperback book he bought in the ’80s. Constantine also did Leonardo da Vinci Visits Los Angeles and Picasso Visits Chicago.

The book’s cover

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This is a guide the author gives us to artistic references throughout the book.

Thanks to Bill Peckmann for the scans and sharing the book with us.