Bill Peckmann &Comic Art &Illustration 10 May 2013 03:28 am
Cole (Plastic Man) & Eisenberg (Li’l Bad Wolf)
- For about six months back in 1980 I did some free lance work for Ruby Spears on their show Plastic Man. I barely remember a thing about it except that I made a lot of money quickly. I was animating AND assisting about 150 feet of animation each week on the primary show Plastic Man as well as a couple of their adjoining series: Rickety Rocket and Fangface. The show was a real waste of my time and after a while on it, I quit. I didn’t want to get hung up on the worst of the H-B kind of work. I made a lot but was allowing my knowledge to go to waste. Just after I quit they pulled the work from New York since they weren’t able to keep a handle on the animation.
All that time and I had no idea of the source material. Now comes this comic from Bill Peckmann‘s enormous collection. It’s fun reading and gives me a hint of a catch up. So let me turn it over to Bill:
- Jack Cole and Harvey Eisenberg. Two of the best cartoonists from the early years of comic book history. The last time they probably shared a venue together was way back in the beginning of the 1950′s, and that would have been in a comic book rack in a candy store.
Because they were both masters of drawing “takes” and “freeze frame” action poses, I thought it would be fun to post two of their stories together. Also remember, neither was a slouch when it came to doing beautiful page layouts and those pages always came with their excellent spotting and placing of blacks, simply terrific stuff!
Here is Jack Cole‘s super hero creation “Plastic Man”. This story was published in 1950. It will be followed by a Disney “Li’l Bad Wolf” story by Harvey Eisenberg.
Magazine cover
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Harvey Eisenberg‘s “The Li’l Bad Wolf” story appeared in the Sept. 1951 issue of “Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories”. Cover by Carl Barks.
Magazine cover
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on 10 May 2013 at 6:03 am 1.Nat said …
It’s interesting how certain short-lived cartoon characters would persist for longer periods of time in comic form, like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and The Fox and The Crow.
on 10 May 2013 at 12:38 pm 2.Roberto Severino said …
I’ve heard of Jack Cole and Plastic Man through Stephen DeStefano, who I consider the BEST Popeye artist living today and a helluva great cartoonist too. The Andy Suriano Plastic Man pilot had a lot of great animation if you’ve seen it. I have no clue on Batman: Brave and The Bold nor have I seen that show specifically, but Plastic Man apparently made some appearances in it.
The Harvey Eisenberg story and the Carl Barks cover are cool bonuses too. His style fits very well with Disney characters.
on 10 May 2013 at 12:44 pm 3.Roberto Severino said …
Sorry to hear that your experience at Ruby Spears didn’t go that well. I’ve heard other stories about working at those sausage factory Saturday morning cartoon studios and despite how dismal the product they were churning out was, they still managed to have fun and learn from a lot of great veterans too. Did you get to meet anyone interesting during that time period?
on 10 May 2013 at 1:46 pm 4.Michael said …
I worked free lance in New York (3000 miles from the studio) out of my home.
on 11 May 2013 at 6:13 am 5.Joakim Gunnarsson said …
That Barks cover strikes me as not very well balanced and with two big chunks of empty space on the right side of the page. I’ve seen this cover hudreds of times before, but never bothered to look more closely.
Now that I do I can see that there are signs of retouching near the sign. (Donalds foot and the flower above the sign.) I guess Barks original cover had a better layout but someone at the office decided to re-arrange stuff and to add a sign. Thus making the design off balance.
/J.
on 11 May 2013 at 6:56 am 6.Michael said …
Sharp observation, Joakim. But what else would we expect of you?
on 11 May 2013 at 7:01 am 7.Joakim Gunnarsson said …
Couldn’t resist doing a version without the sign: http://sekvenskonst.blogspot.se/2013/05/wdc-132-revisited.html