Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

I’m starting to get overwhelmed with all this information about Popeye flying at me from the internet. The release of the dvd (which I still haven’t seen but will soon) has prompted every animation site to offer the new and unusual in the Popeye canon.

Of course, I’m just a guilty having posted some of Jack Zander’s drawings from a breakfast drink commercial.
Part 1 and Part 2

By the way, thanks to Ken Priebe for locating a copy of a sister commercial (which Jerry Beck posted at Cartoon Brew). The drawings I offered were Jack Zander’s, but I’m pretty sure the Popeye in this other commercial was not animated by him.

I’d thought it was for Tang, but am surprised to learn the spot was for “Start,” a now-defunct competitor. (I guess having the astronauts drink Tang enabled that drink to monopolize the marketplace.) ____________________________________ (Click image to enlarge.)

- I would like to call attention to one young animation site that has a particularly useful bit of Popeye info: Understanding Animation has posted two parts of a three part history of Popeye. It’s quite a dense bit of information he’s written, very detailed. Like many a blog, it could have used an editor to correct some of the grammar. It’s hard to get the gyst of some of the sentences. There’s also a bit too much praise for John K. in a piece about Popeye, but there’s a lot of reading here.
Part 1 is about the comic strip character and Segar’s creation.
Part 2 is about the Fleischer cartoons and the subsequent developments that made Popeye a star.

This is well worth the read. I look forward to Part 3.

– The site that keeps me in awe every time I visit is Hans Bacher‘s beautiful Animated Treasures 1.

Hans recovers stunning backgrounds from animated films and recreates them using photoshop. (Today he offers a demo.) The Background from The Nutcracker Suite, pictured to the left, is a product of Hans’ fine recreation.

However, it isn’t the how it’s the beauty of the artwork featured. Hans seems to favor the watercolor backgrounds of the thirties and forties (Bless him!) rather than the opaque work of the fifties. His taste is impeccable, and his eye is flawless.

I can’t wait to get my hands on his book, Dream Worlds.

Rob Richards has just developed his own similar site, Animation Backgrounds. It’s excellent to see more of the Disney background work, but so far my taste runs toward Hans’ eye for artwork. I guess my preference is for the watercolor backgrounds of Hoppity than the fine work done in Mary Poppins or The Jungle Book. I love having both sites available to me; there’s a lot to be learned from both of them and the artwork they feature.

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