Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Bill Peckmann sent me a parcel of lions and Aesop’s Fables from David Levine. These dawings are so brilliant that it’s impossible not to share them today. Enjoy.

Many thanks to Bill.

The cover ant the (enlarged) frontispiece from the book.

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They don’t get any more gorgeous than this turtle and rabbit.

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- I’ve been posting some great comic strip and comic book strips here in the last two weeks. By far, my favorite strip is Polly and Her Pals by Cliff Sterrett. I haven’ yet posted the original I own. It’s a Sunday page from March 1943.

The art is large sized and comes in two halves. I’ll post it actual size and add a couple of cut ins so that the art can be seen a little better.

I’ve had to do some photoshop touchup since the original got a bit of water damage during a flood in my studio.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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White paper covers more trees on the left of this panel.
You can see the shapes coming through.

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This panel is composed of a lot of pasted on bits of paper.
All the glue is trying to fall off, and the papers are delicate,
especially on the roof of the building, left.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

- I received a magnificent gift, recently, from John Canemaker. It’s a book that was published in Japan that intensely focusses on the work of Mary Blair, the brilliant artist who
designed and stylized many Disney’s golden films.

The book is chock-a-block with images, and even though most of the writing is in Japanese, the book is a glorious item to read through – just for the pictures. Fortunately, there is identification in English under all of the images. John Canemaker also has a wonderfully written Foreward in the book.

I’m going to make a couple of posts selecting some images that I found exciting and relevant to Ms. Blair’s career. Included, of course, will be some paintings and designs by her husband, Lee Blair, and her brother-in-law, Preston Blair.

I’m sure a lot of the paintings were chosen to act as a comparison to some of the animated segments done by the trio. Take, for example, “Woman with Red Flowers in Hair” by Preston Blair.

This post will attend to the pre-Disney paintings of all three artists.

Wedding Photo – March 3, 1934
Mary and Lee Blair

Lee Blair – The twins

Mary Blair – Couple in Snow Sled

Mary Blair – Ice Skaters

Lee Blair – Mary by the Sea

Mary Blair – The Revelation

Mary Blair – The Expectation

Mary Blair – The Invitation

Mary Blair – San Francisco Nights

Mary Blair – Landscape of Trees

Mary Blair – Landscape

Lee Blair – Old Mansion

Lee Blair – Redwood Slashings

Preston Blair – Night Street Scene with Cable Car

Preston Blair – Female Nude Preening

Preston Blair – Couple Kissing

Preston Blair – Woman with Red Flowers in Hair

May I also remind you that John Canemaker has a wonderful book available in the US. The Art and Flair of Mary Blair is still for sale on Amazon.

On the post about Give-aways, I had a little story I was going to add, and at the last moment, I decided not to include it,=. So, why not now?

Back in 1957, when the original Mickey Mouse Club was in full swing, in conjunction with Ipana toothpaste, there was a TV offer of a mail-in of a book which included puppets of Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio. As a puppet fan, I raced through the tube of Ipana to get to the new packaging to send away for it. $.50 for postage and handling.

It took about a month to receive the book of cardboard pages. There, inside, were punch-out pieces of Jiminy and Pinocchio. By following the instructions, you could put together puppets of the two characters. It was rather complex, but I did it, and boy was I pleased with the end result. By manipulating tabs in the back you could operate the mouth (similar to a ventriloquists puppet) of Jiminy – he always was the talker.

Pinocchio was the marionette and was operated by string. I still remember this give-away gift as if it were yesterday, and I’ve searched the internet for pictures of the book, but haven’t found it. I’m sure I eventually will.

Mind you, I’d made my own marionettes and hand-puppets by the time I came upon this book. I was 10-12 at the time and, through a book I’d borrowed from the library, I found that I could cut and sew muslin, stuffed with more muslin, to make some fine puppets. They all looked a bit like Mr. Potato Head when they were finished, but I was proud of them just the same.

Likewise, there was a book once put out by Dover publishing. Called Motion Picture Toys. The cardboard pages included punch-out objects that, when assembled, produced early animation machines: Praxinoscope, anascope and especially an excellent Zoetrope with animated strips. I remember using this book as a guide and followed it closely to make my own zoetropes that I gave to my siblings one Christmas. Of course, I did my own animated strips that they could interchange.

I’ve searched for that booklet, too, but have had no luck. I’ve even written to the company hoping they’d have some back copies they’d sell me, but they’re not to be found. Of course, that book wasn’t free, but it was pretty cheap and reminded me of the Jiminy/Pinocchio giveaway.

- Michael Barrier left a comment on my Giveaways post, yesterday, and referenced a comic giveaway which was drawn by Walt Kelly featuring a circus milieu. Here’s that part of his comment reprinted:

Kelly definitely did draw what I think is the most wonderful WDC&S subscription premium, a 10 x 14 (I think, without taking my framed copy down from the wall to measure it) sheet called “The Disney Gang at the Circus,” which shows about 30 Disney characters under the big top, doing all sorts of funny Kelly stuff.

Mike couldn’t illustrate that cover, but here is the ad for that giveaway, courtesy of Bill Peckmann.

To the right is the magazine cover of the issue that the ad appeared in.

Speaking of Mike, he has a brilliant post for all those interested in the history of Mickey Mouse. The old saw of Walt dreaming up Mickey Mouse on his train ride back from New York isn’t even considered when you read about the origins of the Mouse on Mike’s site. Stories about Ub hiding in closets aren’t even pulled out of the hat.

As a fan of silent animated films, I’ve seen my share of Mickey Mouse wannabes that raced after Farmer Alfalfa in all those Terry-Moser Aesop Fables. Likewise just about any other cartoon maker in the pre-Mickey world; you’d see more than your share of mice that could easily be stunt doubles for Mickey. I always assumed it was natural that Mickey just came out of these mice that all animators seemed to be drawing. But no.

Mike goes into the true origins of the mouse, and the evidence seems certain.

Of course, anyone seriously interested in animation history or writing looks into Mike’s site regularly enough that I’m not reporting anything new. But for those of you who haven’t come across this essay by Mike, go there.

- John Canemaker has a new, fine piece about acting in animation on his Print Magazine blog page. Take a look.

Here are more Dick Moores comic strips. These are, again, from the collection of Bll Peckcmann. Bill sent notes along with them; the comments with the strips are by him. Many great pieces.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Inside front cover gag. Lower left panel is all
Dick Moores, neat silhouette, wrap around tail on word balloon.

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Title page. Everything we loved about Gasoline Alley is already here.
Great spotting of blacks, wonderful feel for the weather and
he always moves the story along with well designed panels.

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Page 3 of story. Here we can see his love for entering hidden rooms,
basements, barns etc. Another nice touch, the diagrammatic silhouette.

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Page 4. Nice intro of the little robot character.

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First 3 pages of 2nd story in the book.
Dick Moores’ ease of story telling comes through, a portent of
things to come 20 years later with Gasoline Alley.

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I wonder if he wrote his own stories like Barks?

Two Cinderella Sunday strips.

Here’s a MM original that I think (could easily be wrong) was done by DM.
The time/year fits with the time he was doing Disney stuff, there’s also a nice silhouette in it
and that loose chicken scratching, cross hatching that I love. Whoever did it, it’s beautiful,
what neat brush and pen lines, not one dab of correction whiteout used on it.

- Probably my favorite comic strip artist, when I was a kid, was Dick Moores. He was the guy who’d taken over Gasoline Alley from Frank King in 1959. I didn’t know much about the man, but I cut out and saved almost every strip he did. I thought the guy drew comics like an artist – not a cartoonist.

Bill Peckmann recently wrote to me about his collection of Moores’ work – which included four original strips of Gasoline Alley as well as scans of some of his Disney comic work. I was a bit surprised to find out that he’d done so many Disney strips – including ones I enjoyed when I was younger, such as “Scamp”.

Bill Peckmann, in writing me, had a lot to say about Moores’ artwork: “Moores’ panel compositions are some of the best ever done in comic strips, they’re so good that when you make a page of dailies, that also turns into a beautiful design. I don’t think anyone can spot blacks better than the way DM did them. He probably got that from assisting Chester Gould.”

Here’s a first post of some of Dick Moores’ Gasoline Alley strips. We’ll follow soon with some of the Disney strips.

- Bill Peckmann sent me his copy of Gustaf Tenggren’s Story Book. This is an oversized book which adapts bits of well known children’s stories – a chapter of Heidi, another from Gulliver’s Travels, a story from the Uncle Remus Tales, etc.

Tenggren, of course, illustrated them – sometimes with large color illustrations sometimes with spot drawings.

Lest you’ve forgotten, Tenggren was the illustrator brought by Disney to the studio to design Snow White’s forests and Pinocchio’s landscapes. After Disney, he went to work illustrating and writing Little Golden Books – all the famous ones including The Poky Little Puppy.

Here is the first post of some of the Tenggren illustrations to the book:

The book’s cover

Inner covers.

The full Title Page.

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Chapter heading for Rip Van Winkle.

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Doctor Doolittle Title.

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Only two illustrations for Doctor Doolittle, but
they’re beautifully abstract.

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The layout is so nice for The Tar Baby,
that I’m posting the full double page spread.

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Heidi Title page

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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann. I’ll post more of these upcoming.

- With this post, I’m concluding the material loaned to me by Bill Peckmann of Rowland Wilson‘s sterling artwork for Hercules. I started this post last week, and you can go back there to see other character designs.

These watercolors are less character designs than they are inspirational pieces. They are inspirational. How stunning this art. I would have loved seeing something like this on the screen rather than Gerald Scarfe‘s. But that’s just me.

As with some of the last posts, I’m showing the larger piece (and they are large) and then going in for some tighter blowups.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Typed beneath this image:
HERC AND PHIL ADDRESS ZEUS ON MT. OLYMPUS
The realm of the gods is in the sky. The landscape is made of sky imagery –
the classic buildings, the trees, the hills are the colors of rainbows, thunderheads,
lightning, rain, hail and stars. Trees have tops made of clouds and trunks of rain
or lightning. Buildings evolve out of mist as do the gods themselves.
The gods can be large or human scale as needed.

In mythology, Zeus changed himself into a swan, a bull, a cloud,
and even a shower of gold.

Everything is as changeable and colorful as a sunset.

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Hercules and the Hydra.

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Typed below this image:

THE HOME OF THE GODS.

A skyscape. Trees, mountains and waterfalls appear and dissolve away.
We can see shapes in the clouds – temples and statues.
Lightning flashes and stars gleam in unexpected places.
The whole skyscape is slowly drifting.

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This ain’t heaven.

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This one looks almost as though it were painted
on black velvet – appropriately enough.

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- Here are some WW 2 posters by Lawson Wood (1878-1957) which were sent me by Bill Peckmann. Wood was a stunning illustrator, and I’m glad to show these.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The following two pages were taken from a 1990 book: “Illustrator’s Sorcebook”.

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The ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive (AHAA) has a nice post featuring monkeys as painted by Lawson.

Thanks, yet again, to Bill Peckmann for sharing.

- Here, thanks to Bill Peckman, are the Wallace Tripp illustrations for a calendar released in 1981. (Sorry, I’ve eliminated the dates and kept to the watercolors.)

(Click to enlarge any image.)

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