Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

A couple of weeks ago, I posted some of the illustrations from a eautiful books sent me by Bill Peckmann. Gustaf Tenggren’s Story Book is a big book with lots of chapters that take short pieces from some of the world’s most famous stories. Robin Hood, Heidi, Gulliver’s Travels and many others are all represented. Of course, to me the illustrations are everything.

Animation students don’t need to know who Gustaf Tenggren is. He was a Swiss illustrator brought into Snow White and Pinocchio by Walt Disney. He went on to create the Poky Little Puppy and many of the most famous Little Golden Books.

Here, then, are some more of these illustrations from The Gustaf Tenggren Storybook.

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- Cartoonist, Eric Gurney, was a story man for the Disney studio for many years. He left in 1948 to move on to freelancing and made a success for himself. Bill Peckmann sent me the following article from Cartoonist Profiles written for the 1992 issue #95.

(Of course you’ll have to enlarge images to read the article.)

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Bill also sent me some images from this book by Gurney released in 1968 about birds.

- Here, from Walt Disney Comics, March 1945 edition is an ad for The Three Caballeros, about to be released.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

This ad is placed on the magazine’s rear cover. Interesting that I called it a magazine rather than a comic book. That’s what it is. There’s written material, stories, within the publication as well as the illustrated comics.

The following was in the very next issue, for April 1945. It has nothing to do with the Caballeros ad, but I thought the horse was somewhat inspired from the models of that feature film.

cover

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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for the loan of these comic book magazines. The originals are his which were bound by the year.

From 1934-1937, Ferdinand Horvath worked at the Disney Studios in numerous jobs doing everything from painting backgrounds and doing layouts to constructing three dimensional models to designing characters and gags for over fifty Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse shorts.

He was one of the famed illustrators, such as Albert Hurter or Gustaf Tenggren that Disney found in Europe and brought to America to inspire his staff artists.

Prior to working at Disney, Horvath worked at Paul Terry’s studio on the “Aesop’s Fables” series. Once he left Disney, he designed models and layouts for “Scrappy,” “Krazy Kat” on shorts for Columbia/Screen Gems. In 1940, he sculpted puppets for George Pal’s Puppetoons.

He was a versatile artist whose work was an inspiration for many Disney artists. The following booklet was published by Graphis Gallery and put together by Bruce Hamilton. The opening material explains itself.

Bill Peckmann sent me scans of these pages, and I thank him for keeping Horvath alive.

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One more post to come from this book. Next week will be Part 2 of Albert Hurter – He Drew As He Pleased, and Horvath will follow that.

Mixing them up.

- Dolores Cannata was one of a group of art students that was pulled in to The Boing Boing show to help design the seventy five new shorts, all differently designed, for the series that CBS had just signed on to. She designed The Trial of Zelda Belle and Just Believe in Make Believe for the show.
When The Boing Boing Show was cancelled she moved to work for Abe Liss’ commercial company, Elektra, where she worked with other designers like Cliff Roberts, Pablo Ferro, Hal Silvermintz, Fred Mogubgub and her brother, George Cannata Jr.
Photo from Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern
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What follows are a number of sketches for characters that Dolores did for Elektra. These were all saved by Bill Peckmann who has allowed me to post this small tribute to the fine work of Dolores Cannata.

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The first two color sketches are personal and not production related.

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A negative stat . . .

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. . . which looks like this when cleaned up and reversed.

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A few shopkeepers for a commercial in the 60s.

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Followed by some kids.

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Some Arabian Nights themed coffee spot.

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A couple of gas attendants.

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Some sea captains.

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. . . and a lion.

– We all know that Albert Hurter was the brilliant artist behind a lot of Snow White’s gingerbread architecture. Hurter was a Swiss illustrator that Disney brought into the studio and let him go. He could draw whatever he wanted to help inspire the studio to pull Snow White together.

After leaving the studio, Hurter had a book published called, “He Drew As He Pleased.” It’s a beauty of a book and a rare item. Bill Peckmann sent me scans from the book, and I’ll post them here. It’ll take a few installments. The pages are in delicate condition, but photoshop is allowing me to clean them up a bit – but not too much.

Some of the pages are devoted to characters in the Silly Symphonies. I had hoped to pull some frame grabs from the films, but I didn’t have time. It’s a project for the future.

This book will interplay with the post I started last week on Frederick Horvath‘s designs for the studio – at the same time. That booklet will continue soon.

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“For Albert There Were No Inanimate Objects”

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“Even Melons Came To Life”

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“More Melons”

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“Eyeball Folk”

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“Atmosphere: Mickey In Arabia”

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“Men of Parts”

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“Hansel and Gretel”

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“Players of a Musical Fantasy”

Ferdinand Horvath was a Hungarian book illustrator, who was born in 1891 and died of a stroke in 1973. From 1934-1937, he worked at the Disney Studios in multifarious positions doing everything from painting backgrounds and doing layouts to constructing three dimensional models to designing characters and gags for over fifty Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse shorts.

Prior to working at Disney, he labored at Paul Terry’s studio on the “Aesop’s Fables” series. Once he left Disney, he designed models and layouts for “Scrappy,” “Krazy Kat” on shorts for Columbia/Screen Gems. In 1940, he sculpted puppets for George Pal’s Puppetoons.

He was a versatile artist whose work was an inspiration for many Disney artists. The following booklet was published by Graphis Gallery and put together by Bruce Hamilton. The opening material explains itself.

Bill Peckmann sent me scans of these pages, and I thank him for keeping Horvath alive.

Front cover of the catalogue.

The back cover.

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This gives information on what appears on the two covers.

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Recently, I posted a number of B&W caricatures by David Levine. They came from the book I featured, The Arts of David Levine. As promised, these are the color plates from the book which feature Levine’s paintings.

Thanks to Bill Peckmann for sending the images.

As I mentioned in the first post, I think these paintings raise Levine’s work to first class art.

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This particular painting reminds me
of the work of Joseph Hirsch.

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- Here’s the last installment of Muggins Mouse. This is a book that was illustrated by Keith Ward.

The copy I’m posting was a Xeroxed copy Rowland Wilson pulled for Bill Peckmann. They selected some to copy in color, and others they made B&W copies. Consequently, we have this mix-version of the book. Unfortunately, it’s a rare enough book that we don’t have access to the original. Regardless, there’s plenty to enjoy in Mr. Ward’s great illustrations.

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We’re missing a page here. No #53.

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- Jack Sidebotham passed away on Sunday. Bill Peckmann received the following message from George Newall, the co-creator of Schoolhouse Rock:

Sad news. Jack died last night. Evidently he and Dick Lord were having lunch when Jack complained that he thought he was having a heart attack. As it turned out, it was an aneurism. The good news is that he was in no pain and conversing with the doctor when suddenly he just wasn’t “there” anymore.

Yesterday, Jack’s niece, Kimberly Sidebotham Lennert, left this comment on my blog: “My uncle was a terrific cartoonist and had a great wit about him. I kept a box of all the little notes and drawings he sent to me. He could say a lot with a few lines and a few words. ”

In his memory, I’ve chosen to repeat his book on Cartooning done in the 70s. Jack worked at a number of advertising agencies and had a lot to do with the Piels Brothers campaign and Scholastic Rock. He also was the agency producer for the famous Jello Chinese Baby ad done by Ray Patin Prods.

For this “Art of” book, he brings back the Piels Brothers without their great voices, comedians Bob and Ray, to escort the reader through a few lessons in cartooning and a sample of a number of different jobs in the field.

I think the book was originally published by Grumbacher, along with several others on art and painting techniques, to compete with the cheap and successful books published Walter T. Foster. They were all sold in art stores for very little money, and if you hit on a Preston Blair book, you’d found gold.

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The book’s back cover