- On Thursday, September 23rd, John Dilworth will be speaking at the 92nd Street Y. It’ll include live music and special guests.
(Click image if you want to enlarge it.)
This is a pretty prestigious event for John, animation and the Y. It’d be great if there were a good showing of people to support it. That would mean the Y would offer more animation programs – something they haven’t often done.
Irrational Reactions: The Animated Worlds of John Dilworth
92nd St. Y – Tribeca
200 Hudson Street
- Cartoonist, Eric Gurney, was a story man for the Disney studio for many years. He left in 1948 to move on to freelancing and made a success for himself. Bill Peckmann sent me the following article from Cartoonist Profiles written for the 1992 issue #95.
(Of course you’ll have to enlarge images to read the article.)
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Bill also sent me some images from this book by Gurney released in 1968 about birds.
Reading Cartoon Brew, I just learned of Bill Littlejohn‘s death. I can’t tell you how sad this makes me. I’m heading out the door for a short vacation/honeymoon. When I return on Saturday I will post some of his animation drawings.
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- On Thursday night, we were hit with a vicious storm. I was on a bus heading to a screening of “The Town”. It was drizzling until I pushed open the door to exit. At that very moment, a deadening driving rain smashed down on Manhattan. I sat in the shelter of doorway for a few minutes before running to a scaffolding overhang across Madison Avenue. I was able to walk two blocks without getting wet, thanks to the construction above.
Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens were under a tornado warning, and, indeed, tornado like winds of 100 mph as well as hail and rain. More than 1800 trees were uprooted; countless cars were crushed; homes were smashed; cable and power went out, and numerous people were killed. It was a blow.
Steven Fisher, who lives in Queens, photographed some of the damage in his own back yard. Here are his photos sent to me.
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Juniper Valley Park, Middle Village. 16 Sep 2010.
- Yesterday, Saturday the 18th, Heidi and I were married after living together for the past 23 years. The ceremony took place in a chapel at Marble Collegiate Church in NY. This is the same place that the infamous wedding between Liza Minelli and David Gest took place. (As a matter of fact the groomsmen were made to wait in the same room that Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson were made to wait before going on. I probably sat in Liz’s chair.)
The ceremony and a celebratory dinner were beautiful. In attendance were numerous members of our families as well as a few very close friends. A small group of about 30 people in total. It was great. We’re planning a party upcoming to celebrate with those we couldn’t invite yesterday.
For the first time I’m wearing jewelry.
My good friend, Larry White, came down from upstate to photograph it for me. We’ll see his photos later this week. These shots came from a Flip Video shot in the back of the church.
The bride enters
Greeting the beautiful bride at the altar.
Vows.
(L-R: Heather Stallings (Heidi’s sister), Jane Stouffer (Bridesmaid extraordinary), Heidi, Minister Stephen Pierce, me, Jerry Rosco (my brother and Best Man), Larry White (back of head), Bridget Thorne (my compatriot and super Groomsperson)
- Here, from Walt Disney Comics, March 1945 edition is an ad for The Three Caballeros, about to be released.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
This ad is placed on the magazine’s rear cover. Interesting that I called it a magazine rather than a comic book. That’s what it is. There’s written material, stories, within the publication as well as the illustrated comics.
The following was in the very next issue, for April 1945. It has nothing to do with the Caballeros ad, but I thought the horse was somewhat inspired from the models of that feature film.
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Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for the loan of these comic book magazines. The originals are his which were bound by the year.
From 1934-1937, Ferdinand Horvath worked at the Disney Studios in numerous jobs doing everything from painting backgrounds and doing layouts to constructing three dimensional models to designing characters and gags for over fifty Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse shorts.
He was one of the famed illustrators, such as Albert Hurter or Gustaf Tenggren that Disney found in Europe and brought to America to inspire his staff artists.
Prior to working at Disney, Horvath worked at Paul Terry’s studio on the “Aesop’s Fables” series. Once he left Disney, he designed models and layouts for “Scrappy,” “Krazy Kat” on shorts for Columbia/Screen Gems. In 1940, he sculpted puppets for George Pal’s Puppetoons.
He was a versatile artist whose work was an inspiration for many Disney artists. The following booklet was published by Graphis Gallery and put together by Bruce Hamilton. The opening material explains itself.
Bill Peckmann sent me scans of these pages, and I thank him for keeping Horvath alive.
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One more post to come from this book. Next week will be Part 2 of Albert Hurter – He Drew As He Pleased, and Horvath will follow that.
- Here’s a good example of the worst Felix the Cat ever drawn. Joe Oriolo takes credit for illustrating this book which was released at the time that Oriolo had the tv series of Felix cartoons. Felix The Cat and His Magic Bag of Tricks. As a matter of fact, I can’t believe that Oriolo did this, himself. He had to have farmed it out to someone else on the cheap. I know for a fact that he could draw better than this.
Not only are the drawings different from picture to picture, but the flipbook in the corners of the pages doesn’t work at all. However, I thought I’d still share it with you.
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Now check out the animation in this flip book!
Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.
The Hubley conceit was to make the 8 stages of life as a carousel with 8 horses representing those different stages. The narrator was a mime and was animated, at first, by Art Babbitt, with Dave Palmer as his personal assistant. After animating a couple of early scenes, Babbitt left annoyed. Barrie Nelson completed the character in the show.
For the full story behind the rift between Hubley and Babbitt go to this past post.
The scene is 152 drawings long. This is the final section as the mime comes to rest. It’s a very slow moving character with short quick spurts of movement.
We begin with the last drawing from last week, #123.
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The following QT movie represents the drawings above
exposed as Babbitt wanted them, on twos.
Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.
If you would like to hear a recording – dare I say “podcast” – MP3 recording of George Griffin interviewing Paul and Sandra Fierlinger, there is a link to the Film Forum website. It’s a good recording with plenty of audience comments and questions peppering the dialogue.
Take a listen if you have any interest in the work of this key animating couple or in Independent animation. They talk about how the film was funded and made within their small home in Pennsylvania.
Yesterday, David Nethery kindly left several clips on my blog which show how TVPaint was used to make My Dog Tulip.
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Chabrol Dies
- In the last year, we lost the great Eric Rohmer.
Then this Sunday the NY Times reported the death of the brilliant Claude Chabrol. Rohmer was probably one of the greatest influences on my work, but Chabrol brought a grace that I loved watching. He was an inestimably great producer as well as a distinguished director. I recommend you rent a DVD of his work to celebrate his life.
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Kevin McCarthy Dies
- And then on Monday I learned of the death of Kevin McCarthy. You may remember this actor from his role in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He led the film, and got to perform in the remake as the guy screaming in the street warning of the next invasion.
McCarthy was a client of my lawyer. The lawyer not only represented him in legal matters but also acted as his agent. I always wanted to use his voice for some film, but the occasion never came up. My loss. McCarthy had a great sound and was a solid actor – and icon of the fifties and sixties.
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Greg Kelly
Greg Kelly is a young animator who is working hard to learn the craft. He continues to turn out animation and sends his samples to me for criticism. Here’s a most recent piece of his on Vimeo. Short and cute with a good attempt at character animation. Here and There
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The Illusionist
Sylvain Chomet‘s new film, The Illusionist, is scheduled to open in a limited release on Christmas Day, Dec. 25th, this year. It’ll qualify to compete for the Oscar. I’m looking forward to seeing this film, and I’m heading to Ottawa this year, not because I have a film in the race, but because I’m anxious to see Chomet’s movie.
- Dolores Cannata was one of a group of art students that was pulled in to The Boing Boing show to help design the seventy five new shorts, all differently designed, for the series that CBS had just signed on to. She designed The Trial of Zelda Belle and Just Believe in Make Believe for the show.
When The Boing Boing Show was cancelled she moved to work for Abe Liss’ commercial company, Elektra, where she worked with other designers like Cliff Roberts, Pablo Ferro, Hal Silvermintz, Fred Mogubgub and her brother, George Cannata Jr.
Photo from Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern
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What follows are a number of sketches for characters that Dolores did for Elektra. These were all saved by Bill Peckmann who has allowed me to post this small tribute to the fine work of Dolores Cannata.
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The first two color sketches are personal and not production related.
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A negative stat . . .
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. . . which looks like this when cleaned up and reversed.
