Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Bill Peckmann sent me a piece by Harvey Kurtzman from his Playboy work.

Here’s a note from Bill: “The art from today is from the June 1960 issue of Esquire magazine. It’s a neat commentary on classical music, Hollywood and Vienna done in 1960.”

“All of his Esquire pieces were probably the best finished color art he ever did, he liked them enough to have them framed and hung in his living room. It was always a big treat for his fans to actually see the originals. Harvey was a very, very kind person, his front door was always open to us slobbering fans.”

Here are the pictures.

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Here’s the continued saga of Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure. These are the film’s drafts for the continuation of sequence 6. Seq. 6.2 and 6.3. The Loony Knight and the equally loony King.

The animators involved include: John Kimball, Gerry Chiniquy, Grim Natwick, Tissa David, Gerry Potterton, Dick Williams, Tom Roth, Chrystal (Russell) Kablunde, and Warren Batchelder.

Here are those drafts:

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These look like Jim Logan clean-ups of Corny’s drawings.

Sequence 6.2

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Sequence 6.3

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- Weather affects how your world looks. Recently we’ve had a ton of snow falling on NYC. (There have been some 56 inches since Christmas Day.) The whole place looks white for a time, then turns gray to black with floods at every street corner. It sure gets hard to navigate street crossings.

This past week we had something that you don’t get often – an ice storm. It hailed, mixed with rain, to create sort of an icy slush. Slippery in some places, wet in others. The trees and environment was encased in about a ¼ inch of ice.

I tried taking a picture at 6am that morning, but didn’t get anything worthwhile. Then Steve FIsher started sending some shots that are gems. So here they are, NY in a different light.

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These first two pics were the ones I shot at 6am
but wasn’t crazy about.

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The rest of these are by Steve Fisher.
They’re all color shots.

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- It’s a couple of days later. The weather has gotten a bit warmer by Saturday, and another smaller snow dusting is expected. I decided to walk to the studio at 6:30am and figure out how to use my camera-phone thing. I’ve had it for two months and haven’t really figured out the machine. So here are some pictures. Note that a light hail was falling throughout the two mile trek.

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First off I walk through Madison Square Park.
I haven’t been here since Christmas, the first big snowfall.
I mistakenly had left the B&W feature setting on the camera.

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This tree looks to be dead. They’ve cut off a lot of it.
(See the logs on the ground.) Masses of squirrels are
climbing into the hole at the top of it.

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This is that light “Art-piece” I featured last year.
The lights (you have to look for them) aren’t on,
and the piece is silent.

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Then I walk down Fifth Ave. to Washington Square Park in the Village.
Some homeless person left their bin parked near a bike stand just
outside of the 23rd St. subway entrance. I guess they’re keeping warm.

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I almost forgot why I’d shot this photo.
If you look closely you’ll see that the entire building is
“For Rent”. I guess they gave up on the idea of selling it.

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Are these Christmas tree lights, still hung?
They look nice (in person) under this construction tunnel.

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The First Presbeterian Church on 13th Street and Fifth Ave.
I’ve realized I’d been shooting in B&W.
This is the first pic in color.

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Here’s the Arch at Washington Square Park , shot from 8th Street and Fifth Ave.

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Here’s a closer shot.

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This is Judson Memorial Church near NYU shot from within the park.

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A sort-of famous restaurant a couple of blocks from the studio.
All they serve is PB&J hundreds of ways. I haven’t been in there.
I keep PB and Jelly in the studio and my home; I love it.

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I turn West on Bleecker to Downing which leads me to Bedford.
“Hey ma, I can see our house from here!”
Finally, I reach the studio. The hail’s getting heavier.

- More of the artwork of Lyonel Feininger, thanks to Bill Peckmann‘s greast resources. This is from a third catalogue of his artwork at a gallery showing. These are all drawings done using different materials.

Unfortunately the pictures are printed quite small on the page, so they remain small in the post. I’m sorry about that. However, something is better than nothing. If only we had the actual drawings here, you’d see some closeups.

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The catalog cover.
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(L) The catalog title page | (R) a biographic portrait
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Two self-portraits: one in 1906, the second in 1908
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Several drawings of chimneys in Paris.
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This is from another catalogue, but it fits well here.
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- The Albert Hurter book, He Drew As He Pleased, continues. This book is a beautiful edition, which reminds me – in a tactile way – of The Robert Field book The Art of Walt DIsney – of drawings Hurter did while at the Disney Studio in the 30s and early 40s.

Hurter was a key designer from Europe who was allowed to draw what he wanted as inspiration for the designs of the films in production at the time. He was an enormous influence on Snow White and Pinocchio.

These pages are all scanned and sent to me by Bill Peckmann and I have to thank him. The book is not easy to scan. So here we complete the posted book.

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“Opera”

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‘When “The Reluctant Dragon” was in preparation,
these medieval studies appeared… each from memory.
Albert never resorted to “scrap”…’

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“Stalwarts”

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“Refreshments… Fifteenth Century”
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“Knighthood’s dignity never seemed to impress Albert”

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“St. George warms up”

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“Between Halves”

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“Complete Overhaul”

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“A pet character of Albert’s who never quite never reached the screen”

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“Some of his last sketches.”

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“Between serious thoughts Albert succeeded in elevating
the practice of doodling until it approached a fine art”

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– John Schnall has to be one of the most creative guys working on the internet. He’s made a number of extraordinary short films, but when the internet took hold, he came into his own.

His latest creation is the Zombie Tabernacle Choir. As the name might suggest you get a choir of Zombies. Move your cursor across them and they float in 3D with the foreground going out of focus as you alight on one in the rear row. Click on individual zombies and they sing for you. Then scan the scale from left to right and they shift the pitch from front to back. You move furiously trying to keep them all in song, and the faster you go the bigger the sound. It’s crazy and a lot of fun.

John Schnall has always brought a smile to me, and I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of it, too.

While you’re there, check out the rest of his site. There’s plenty to keep you occupied.

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- Others might have their version of fun by chcking out the new site Frank Forte has started. This is a blog devoted to the art of Hanna-Barbera’s feature, Rock Odyssey. Rock Odyssey is an animated feature movie produced by Hanna-Barbera that was theatrically released in 1987. The film was directed by Robert Taylor but Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera took the credit; Taylor remains uncredited. (You’ll remember Robert Taylor as the director of The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat – the non-Bakshi sequel.) Storyboards are by Pete Alvarado. Animators included: Hal Ambro, Rudi Cataldi, Chuck Downs, Spencer Peel, and Irv Spence.

To be honest I barely remember the film; I certainly didn’t see it. However, Frank says he has thousands of drawings from the film, so there could be interesting artwork posted (at least if they look like the drawing above.)

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- Emily Hubley has a lot of film showings about to happen. She sent an email, and I thought I’d just give you that post – in her own words:

I’ve recently completed a music video titled, Hail. The piece was commissioned by Vic Campos/Creative Outlet Productions, for inclusion in a full length documentary about the musician, Hamell on Trial. The song is about 3 hate-crime victims meeting in heaven.

Hail will show at 2 upcoming Black Maria Film Festival screenings:

Friday, February 4 7:00 PM NEW JERSEY CITY UNIVERSITY
OPENING NIGHT / AWARD CEREMONY
Margaret Williams Theatre, Hepburn Hall Culver Ave. at John F. Kennedy Blvd.
Jersey City, NJ 201-200-2043

Sunday, Feb 6 2pm
Essex Green Cinemas in West Orange (unfortunately, due to a family commitment, I can’t be there).

Here‘s the link to the festival website. There are many local screenings and Hail won’t show everywhere, but I strongly recommend this festival. Great and diverse work that’s hard to see elsewhere.

ALSO ON 2/6 (SUPER BOWL SUNDAY):
The Toe Tactic will screen at the Museum of Modern Art Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater) @ The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building — 4 West 54th St at 5 pm.

This screening is part of the On Line: Drawing and Film Series which accompanies the exhibit, On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century. We plan to view the art in the galleries and then attend the screening. Norman McLaren’s Blinkety Blank (1985) is the short. I know many of you have seen the film, but if you have friends who have not and won’t be watching football, send them our way!

Finally, I’ve made some interstitial pieces for the fun play In Mother Words, which starts previews at the (LA) Geffen Playhouse on Feb 15. Created by Susan Rose + Joan Stein, Directed by Lisa Peterson. Too many impressive playwrights to list. Cast: Mary Birdsong, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Jane Kaczmarek + James Lecesne.

Go here for info.

I’ll be there 2/15 and 2/16 if you want to say hi.
cheerio, emily

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– I just had the opportunity of seeing Mike & Tim Rauch‘s latest film in their StoryCorps series to be aired on the POV series. Like all the rest of the pieces, it’s a gem. Excellent animation by Tim Rauch, Bgs by Bill Wray, and production by Mike Rauch. They’re hoping to get picked up for another round; let’s hope they do. This is some of the best work coming out of New York. They mix humanity with cartoon so brilliantly, you forget that they don’t normally intertwine in today’s world.

You can watch several of these films on line here.
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- Many thanks to John Canemaker for offering this great scene by Milt Kahl from Peter Pan. The scene is made up of roughs by Kahl without the inbetweens or the Clean-up drawings. Enjoy.

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Here’s a QT of the scene with drawings exposed to what I think are
their appropriate frames.

- It was so much fun displaying the Peter Arno cartoons last week, and there was such a positive response, that we’ve decided to add more to the lot. Bill Peckmann has sent me another batch and here they are.

Arno published most of his work in The New Yorker, and he developed a simplicity of sophisticated cartooning. His strong brush inking, his B&W washes, the direct and forceful compositions all contributed to a clarity that we don’t often see today. We can all learn a lot from these cartoons, and the gags themselves are not the point of our posting these; it’s Arno’s artistry.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for, once again, forwarding these scans. Enjoy.

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- Continuing the drafts to Raggedy Ann & Andy, I’m posting two sequences today:
5 contains Emery Hawkin’s taffy pit and
6 contains the meeting with the Looney Knight. (This is where the picture really goes off its wheels and takes a deep spin downhill.)

Seq. 5 employs these animators: Emery Hawkins. (A number of scenes were left blank for animator. At the end of the production they pushed this through pulling the sequence from Emery. Assistants became animators, and the animation looked shoddy.) Art Vitello, John Bruno, and Grim Natwick.

Seq. 6 is animated by: Willis Pyle, Art Babbitt, and John Kimball (Ward’s son). Again, several other animators came on at the end: Jim Logan stepped up from assisting to animating the Looney Knight, since Dick felt he was handling it so well.

Sequence 5
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Here are some images from John Canemaker‘s excellent book, The Animated Raggedy Ann & Andy.

Sequence 6

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- I’ve tried desperately to keep snow out of the photos for the past couple of weeks. I have had my fill of it. However, we were hit with another foot of snow this past week, and it’s hard to avoid.

Steve Fisher has been sending in some brilliant photos, so I can’t help but post them.

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3:47pm

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Inside Grand Central Terminal at high noon
while the snow comes to an end, outside.

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A day later.