Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Bill Peckman sent me some stills from a book of photos by O. Winston Link, Steam, Steel and Stars. They are magnificent pictures that were taken of steam railroads in America from 1955 to 1960. The photos are stunning achievements, and I had to post the images. You can see why Feininger had his attachment to such imagery. Ah, the romance! Judge for yourself.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann.

The book’s cover.

From the front book flap.

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Here are shots showing the lighting setups done to take the photos.

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Here’s a 2004 newspaper article about
some of these photos that had been stolen.

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- Arthur Burdett Frost (January 17, 1851 – June 22, 1928), is considered one of the great illustrators in the “Golden Age of Amerian Illustration.” He was an early American painter, illustrator, graphic artist, and comics writer. His illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s “Tangled Tale,” “Phantasmagoria and Other Poems,” and “Sylvie and Bruno,” are considered classics, and every bit as wonderful as Tenniel’s for “Alice”. This is also true for his illustrations for Joel Chandler Harris’ “Uncle Remus Tales”.

Bill Peckman has sent me a third batch of his sequential cartoons for the “The Bull Calf, and Other Tales”. Thanks to these scans we can see another funny side to the artist’s work. Many thanks to Bill for taking the trouble to send this artwork.

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Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Up stairs and down stairs in his night-gown,
Tapping at the window, crying at the lock,
Are the children in their bed, for it’s past ten o’clock?
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- I don’t suspect that Lyonel Feininger took anything more than the title from this famous, old Scottish poem. Nor do I suspect that the Shirley Temple/John Ford feature, Wee Willie Winkie, owes anything to Feininger.

However, it stands that this is the second comic strip the cartoonist/artist inaugurated in 1906. That was also the last year he worked on a strip, choosing to remain an artist/painter for the remainder of his life. I’ve already posted a piece on Feininger’s first strip, The Kin-Der-Kids, in the past month. I’ve also posted three pieces on Feininger’s artwork (1, 2, 3).
These have all been loaned to me courtesy of Bill Peckmann‘s gracious kindness and his amazing archive of artwork. Many thanks to him.

Here are strips of Wee Willie Winkie’s World straight from this book edited and introduced by Bill Blackbeard.

The original book cover.

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We’ve already seen Feininger’s love of trains in some of his watercolors.

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I think a trolley also doubles as a train.

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Suddenly a format change.

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Another format change.

- Thanks to Bill Peckmann, we can look at a few more of the great cartoons by Peter Arno. These were all done for The New Yorker magazine. All three posts done on Arno represent about ½ the book on the cartoonist.

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- Bill Peckmann sent me the pieces so that we can see how Harvey Kurtzman built to the final “Little Annie Fannie” cartoons in Playboy.

Here is the pencil rough of one such cartoons. You’ll note that he signed this for Bill Peckmann in 1972. Bill included this short note: “Red pencil is Hefner’s ‘blue pencil’”.

The cover Harvey Kurtzman made for the piece.

Pages 1 & 2

Pages 3 & 4

We follow that with Kurtzman’s color roughs of the piece. I didn’t reassemble it so that you could see it in a slightly larger size.

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Finally, we have the finished result as printed in Playboy.

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Many thanks, again, to Bill Peckmann for sharing these priceless materials.

- Rowland Wilson gave this Dover art book to Bill Peckmann way back in 1977. Many thanks to Bill for sharing it.

AB Frost was a turn-of-the-century cartoonist who had a agreat wit and a sharp pen.
Here are two series of cartoons from that book that were originally published in Life Magazine 1921-1922.

Because the scans are a bit small, I’ve rewritten the captions under the images.

The Front Book Cover

The Back Book Cover

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“Look at that hill, Maria. When we was children hoiw we did roll down hills like that!
Wouldn’t it be fun now!”
“Lor’, Toby. We’re too fat and old for the likes of that!”
“Fat nothin’ come on let’s do it?”
“Well you go ahead, I’ll foller.”

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“Hi, Maria. Aint this glorious? – like we was children again.”
“I don’t know, Toby. I think I’ll stop!”

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“Hold on Maria; Stop me !!!”
“Hold onto what? You ole fool, stop yourself!”

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“Them – was – briars -Maria !!”
“Think – I’m – ‘s – big – fool – as – you?

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“Hol’ – on, – Maria, – hol’ on!”
“I – won’t – ol’ – fool!”

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“Are you there, Maria?”
“What’s eft of me’s here.”
“Hol’ on tight, Maria. We may start agin any minit”.
“I wish you would, and never stop!”

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“Well, you’re a nice lookin’ objeck, Maria.”
“If I look half as bad as you, I want to die right here.”

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Voices of the night: “You ole fool. I wish I’d never seen you!”
“Fool who? You proposed it, Maria!” etc, etc

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- Bill Peckmann sent me a piece by Harvey Kurtzman from his Playboy work.

Here’s a note from Bill: “The art from today is from the June 1960 issue of Esquire magazine. It’s a neat commentary on classical music, Hollywood and Vienna done in 1960.”

“All of his Esquire pieces were probably the best finished color art he ever did, he liked them enough to have them framed and hung in his living room. It was always a big treat for his fans to actually see the originals. Harvey was a very, very kind person, his front door was always open to us slobbering fans.”

Here are the pictures.

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- More of the artwork of Lyonel Feininger, thanks to Bill Peckmann‘s greast resources. This is from a third catalogue of his artwork at a gallery showing. These are all drawings done using different materials.

Unfortunately the pictures are printed quite small on the page, so they remain small in the post. I’m sorry about that. However, something is better than nothing. If only we had the actual drawings here, you’d see some closeups.

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The catalog cover.
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(L) The catalog title page | (R) a biographic portrait
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Two self-portraits: one in 1906, the second in 1908
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Several drawings of chimneys in Paris.
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This is from another catalogue, but it fits well here.
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- The Albert Hurter book, He Drew As He Pleased, continues. This book is a beautiful edition, which reminds me – in a tactile way – of The Robert Field book The Art of Walt DIsney – of drawings Hurter did while at the Disney Studio in the 30s and early 40s.

Hurter was a key designer from Europe who was allowed to draw what he wanted as inspiration for the designs of the films in production at the time. He was an enormous influence on Snow White and Pinocchio.

These pages are all scanned and sent to me by Bill Peckmann and I have to thank him. The book is not easy to scan. So here we complete the posted book.

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“Opera”

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‘When “The Reluctant Dragon” was in preparation,
these medieval studies appeared… each from memory.
Albert never resorted to “scrap”…’

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“Stalwarts”

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“Refreshments… Fifteenth Century”
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“Knighthood’s dignity never seemed to impress Albert”

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“St. George warms up”

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“Between Halves”

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“Complete Overhaul”

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“A pet character of Albert’s who never quite never reached the screen”

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“Some of his last sketches.”

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“Between serious thoughts Albert succeeded in elevating
the practice of doodling until it approached a fine art”

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- It was so much fun displaying the Peter Arno cartoons last week, and there was such a positive response, that we’ve decided to add more to the lot. Bill Peckmann has sent me another batch and here they are.

Arno published most of his work in The New Yorker, and he developed a simplicity of sophisticated cartooning. His strong brush inking, his B&W washes, the direct and forceful compositions all contributed to a clarity that we don’t often see today. We can all learn a lot from these cartoons, and the gags themselves are not the point of our posting these; it’s Arno’s artistry.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for, once again, forwarding these scans. Enjoy.

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