Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I’m reading J.B. Kaufman’s two Snow White books, both at the same time, and I’m taking my time about it. Bill Peckmann aroused my interest with a couple of Snow White oddities. Featured in Kaufman’s The Fairest One of All is a the Whitman children’s book that was released with the initial release of the movie in 1937. (See the cover to the right.)

Bill sent me the cover of his copy of the book, bought at a local street fair. His version was the rerelease of the book by Grosset and Dunlap done in 1938. And it’s a beauty. The book contains some B&W screen images from the movie,, but more than half of it is made up of illutrations by Gustaf Tenggren, the studio artist/designer so responsible for some of the film’s look. He joined the studio in 1936 and had involvement in finishing the movie and giving it the Old World look that it has. Ferdinand Horvath and Albert Hurter were already at the studio when he joined and had equally strong contribution in the design. Tenggren was principal in the publicity materials done for the movie. Here’s the copy of bill’s book, complete with damaged cover:

This is the dameaged cover of Bill’s book.

2
(Click any image to enlarge.)

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

- Alex Toth did storyboards, too. Here’s one he did for Hanna-Barbera, and it shows the visceral strength of the “SuperFriends” project. More than the original comic book and greater than the final outcome. It’s a class act, and great thanks to Bill Peckmann and Manual Auad who brought it to him. To Bill:

Many thanks to illustration art publisher, historian, fan extraordinaire, Manuel Auad, we are able to post 28 pages of a Hanna-Barbera “Super Friends” storyboard done by Alex Toth.

Even though the pages are Copies of Copies, they are nice clean copies that haven’t been covered with down-the-line production notes yet.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Here’s another board he did which we posted a while back.

Water water everywhere and Paul Murry gets to draw it all. Here are two stories starring Disney’s greatest characters, Donald and Mickey. The two stories have three years apart from each other, but Murry gives us plenty of a stylized water, drawn slightly differently from one story to the next. How appropriate of Bill Peckmann to send us these tales when Congress finally got off their butts and voted the victims of Hurricane Sandy some financial relief. Here’s Bill’s comments:

Here is another Paul Murry story containing H2O hi-jinks. It’s a ‘Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories‘ Donald Duck 10 pager from 1950. (It was the only year that DD regular Carl Barks missed doing a number of his signature character stories. There’s another great Murry Duck story that deals with an overnight flood; sorry, I just can’t remember what comic book it’s in.)

The comic cover from1950. This cover art is by Carl Buettner.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10
___________________________________________

If we jump three years to 1953, we’ll find another Paul Murry story with a strong focus on water. Here our intrepid artist adapts The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Fantasia. (Perhaps there was a re-release of the film that year.)
Part of the cover.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

___________________________________________

- Speaking of Paul Murry, let me end by giving another pitch for the excellent collection of The Adventures of Buck O’Rue and his hoss, Reddish by Dick Huemer & Paul Murry. This is a rip roaring (you’ll be roaring with laughter) classic of a brilliant strip.
No, no one is paying me for this or prompting my wanting to remind you of the perfect Valentine gift. I just like this book and this strip, and I think you might like it, too.

- Bill Peckmann has given us a wide assortment of beautiful books by Fritz Baumgarten. The illustrator has written many books built around a world of creatures and their environs that he’s created. His style is so affectingly attractive with the very rounded turns that we almost miss the beautiful inking and the fine watercolor techniques. The books are all very different, but there is a bit of a sameness to the work in that we don’t stray from the woods where the creatures – the small animals and dwarfs – make their homes.

This book takes a different turn and gives Baumgarten a chance for some fun. Sportfest im Walde is obvious in its subject. The dwares and animals compete with a number of sports. From tennis to racing to boxing, activities abound.

I hope you enjoy it; I do. It’s a world I wouldn’t have otherwise seen, and I wish there’d been an animated version somewhere along the way. When Goebbels set up an animation studio to promote all things German, he should have animated hese books. They would have been wonderful as a series. They still are.

Many thanks, yet again, to Bill for the scans and the book, itself.

The book’s cover

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

- Bill Peckmann chooses one of my favorite artists to end the comic strip posts for 2012. Dick Moore’s is a champion to me, and his work on the Mickey Mouse strips is wonderful.
I, personally, like the way he draws Goofy. But this is Bill’s entry, so here he takes over the post:

I’ve always been a fan of Dick Moores’ Disney comic art work, especially the two Mickey Mouse comic books that I have, (we’ve posted one already) if he did more than these two, I’m not aware of them. And if he only did these two, wow, that is really our loss. He had a great understanding of the Mick and the Goof characters.

His combination of excellent story telling and outstanding art makes you wonder what he could have done with Mickey and Goofy, if he would have had the same lengthy run with them that he had with his super successful Gasoline Alley comic strip.

The magazine cover

Here from 1952 is Dick Moores’ “Mickey Mouse and
the Wonderful Whizzex” Dell comic book.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24
The end of the story, but…

…I thought it would be fun to line up these two panels from
Moores’ 1936 comic strip “Jim Hardy” next to the following panel
from “Wonderful Whizzex” done sixteen years later.

I’ve received a number of emails of collections of Christmas cards done by various artists. These are usually entertaining. However, I’ve found a number of my cards among quite a few of these groups, and I find that a bit awkward. I never quite sent them expecting they’d be published in any way, but I’m certainly going to roll with the punches. I’m not sure everything I post is designed to be published, either.

I did publish pages of a book which had posted one of my cards, and I did have some qualms about reposting those pages. Since one of them was mine, I figured that relieved any guilt I was feeling. So much art just wouldn’t be seen if it weren’t put on blogs like mine, so I justify it.

The image above came from an animated card I didn’t finish. It was a little dance Santa does as he eats an ice cream pop. It ends with a burst of snow spelling out the “Merry Christmas” message. I spent about . . . I don’t know. I spent a lot of time animating and coloring , and I still had about 15 seconds of art to finish it. But I missed the deadline. I would have had to kill myself and still probably miss getting it out ON Christmas Day. Absurd.

The real problem was that I hated the work that I’d done. It wasn’t something I was really proud of. There were too many distractions and I loved doing it on a day to day basis, but I’d forgotten to watch the big picture. Put it all together, and it didn’t need to go public. So, I apologize. No Christmas Card this year.

To all those that haven’t received anything from me, which means anyone reading this Splog, please accept my apologies and please, Have yourself a Merry and Big Christmas.

- From Bill Peckman:

Here are some Holiday and Christmas cheer cards from over the years, done by some of our favorite pen and brush men.

First through the mail slot is Jack Davis.

1
(Click any image to enlarge.)

2

3

The following are Harvey Kurtzman‘s cards:

4
5
6

7

8

9

10

11

12

And now from the gifted hand of Arnold Roth.

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

A terrific threesome from Wally Tripp!

23

24

25

Thanks to Suzanne Wilson for these Christmas chuckles from Rowland Wilson.

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

- Continuing with a great wallop of Christmas from the vast collection of Bill Peckmann, he sends along another Carl Barks gem. A Christmas for Shacktown glows off the page, and I’m pleased as punch to post it here. Bill’s introduction:

What happens when you take Carl Barks at the height of his powers and combine him with that potent, powerful time of the year, Christmas? Why you get, ‘A Christmas for Shacktown’, that’s what!

The magazine cover

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

The End

The original Dell Donald Duck ‘…Shacktown’ comic book
hit the newsstands for Christmas of 1951. The story we
just posted was from a Gladstone Comics reprinted and
re-colored some years later. This editorial essay by noted
Carl Barks historian, Geoffrey Blum, was also in the Gladstone issue.

Thanks again, Bill.

.

- A new book has been released, Albert Dorne, Master Illustrator. This is a book to fill a necessary hole. The brilliant work of Mr. Dorne must be recognized, and this edition gives him that spotlight he well deserves. With the mere viewing of any of these pieces I am immediately made to think of the Famous Artists School of home education. Mr. Dorne created that school and system and certainly affected a generation of artists.

The book’s cover

Bill Peckmann, of course, brought it to my attention, and wrote the following to introduce this post:

This is more of a heartfelt plug than an in depth review, but the book is hot off of the presses, it’s great, and just in case anybody wants to get them selves a well deserved stocking stuffer for the Season, this is it!

You know the new Albert Dorne, Master Illustrator book is going to be good because of a number of reasons. Number one, if you are a Jack Davis fan, did you ever wonder who Jack is a fan of? It’s something he always played very close to the vest, but now we know, It’s Al Dorne!
The second reason, is that the book comes to us by the same team that brought us that excellent book, Robert Fawcett, the Illustrator’s Illustrator, Messieurs Manuel Auad and David Apatoff!
The third reason the book is terrific, is because, it is about Al Dorne, illustrator extraordinaire, who was also the founder of the Famous Artist School! The ups and downs of his incredible life, a very huge selection of his work, it’s all here!

It’s said, that if you want to grab anybody’s attention,
you’ve got to start off with a potent bang. What better way
than with the master big bangster, prankster himself,
the one and only Jack B. Davis!

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15
This 1955 Jack Davis comic book cover is not from the Al Dorne book, but
I included it here to illustrate the fact that Al and Jack were marching to the
same drummer. Also, both men were absolutely fearless in taking on crowd scenes!

16

17

18

20

21

22
Bill writes: Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I had to throw in
another Jack Davis comparison to illustrate how both
Mr Dorne and Mr. Davis could handle and control drawing
crowd chaos like nobody’s business!

23

24

25

26

27

- We gave a little tease of this last week. Straight from the hot scanner of Bill Peckmann comes “Humbug” for Christmas joy. Here’s Bill:

Next in our Holiday helpings is a 1958 HUMBUG magazine’s ‘Christmas Issue’ by Harvey Kurtzman and his coconspirators. Fortunately for us, they are knee deep in shoveling out their unique form of tom foolery for everyone to enjoy in 2012!

1
The cover was done by Jack Davis.

2
This page was done by Bill Elder.

3
These two pages are obviously by the inimitable Bob Blechman.

4

5
A piece by Al Jaffee, who went on to become
one of Mad magazine’s favorites.

6

7

8
This three page spread does not have
a Christmas theme but it does have
Harvey’s ever lovin’ lay outs with
Jack Davis at his brush and pen best!

9
10

A tour de force two color centerfold spread by Al Jaffe.

A double page spread by Arnold Roth.

13
‘A Christmas Carol’, art by Arnold Roth.

14

15

16

17

18

While in a holiday mode, we will segue from a 1958 Humbug ‘Christmas Carol’ party
to a birthday party. It’s Harvey Kurtzman’s 58th birthday which was celebrated at
Harvey’s house in Mt. Vernon, NY, with family and friends in 1982. (Sorry about
the quality of the snapshots, they were taken with an old Kodak Instamatic camera.)

1
Appearing in the photo L. to R. are Al Jaffee, Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Elder (kneeling),
Harry Chester (Harvey’s long time production manager and longer time friend),
Arnold Roth and a partially hidden and mischievous Jack Davis.

2
The HUMBUG crew with their wives.

3
Mr. and Mrs. Will Eisner and Harvey.

4
Dena and Jack Davis.

5
Harvey and his wife Adelle with daughters, Elizabeth, Nellie and Meredith.

.

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

.

- There are times when I wish I had a political blog so that I could vent some of the political venom that builds up in my little world.

Fortunately, my first love is animation, and I maintain steadfastly an animation and cartooning blog. And believe me, one blog’s enough.

Given that, I’m proud to present this post.

- We’ve already met Fritz Baumgarten‘s characters Teddy and we’ve seen his version of Santa. In this sweet little book, Teddy gets to meet Santa. It’s another wonderful Christmas book done in the very round style of Mr. Baumgarten. That coupled with his delicate and limited color palette.
Teddy’s Weihnachten.

This book comes from Bill Peckmann. Many thanks to him. His one short comment is:

Here is our second German Christmas card (book) from Fritz Baumgarten. (Man, can he do birds, or what!)

I hope you enjoy it.

Book’s cover

2

3

4

5

6
You’ve got to love this picture !

7

8

9

1

11

12

13

14

15

16

17
Beautiful poses on those birds.

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

The End

.
And a last note comment with an additional page from Bill Peckmann:
“In keeping with the Spirits (hic!) of Christmas past, a peek of a future post…”