Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

With the Republican convention finishing up yesterday, it seems appropriate to post a few of the politically related cartoons which Irv Spector did. These were sent courtesy of Irv’s son, Paul. The comments from here on are Paul’s:

All but one — the McCay, natch’ — were done during my father’s time at MGM Tower 12 (The Jones era), and I would imagine — and I assume they were working on the The Pogo Special Birthday Special, and a “real” election year was also forthcoming. I tossed in the McCay which my dad seems to have had! (the answer is: I don’t know, but I do.) The others obviously pale in comparison.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

A Winsor McCay political cartoon.

This is the only Pogo I’m sending you, as it has a bit of “truth” to it,
and the others are kind of stock, although nice drawings.

(MS note: After I just about begged for more, Paul sent these three
drawings from the Pogo period. It’s likely they were drawn by Irv Spector.)

These last 3 are kind of my favorite sort of thing, where
the cartoonists were kind of doing them to amuse themselves
or each other. This is my father’s, although I guess I don’t
have to point out his style by this point.

I’m pretty sure this is my dad’s, but not 100%. Not sure if
you are up on the old California political 60′s, but the Brown is
Gov. Pat Brown (actually quite good, as politician’s go) who was
Jerry’s father, and of course Reagan was governor soon after.

This was done by Nick Gibson, if you can make out my father’s
presence of mind to write that credit halfway between the character
and the right border. Seems my father wasn’t above pontificating a bit
himself. Looks nothing like him, but any profundity is in the text.

Bill Melendez
- I was truly saddened to learn of Bill Melendez’ death via Cartoon Brew. I’ll have to collect my thoughts on this one, having just heard the news, and write a later piece.
Tom Sito also wrote a nice piece on his site worth reading.

Jules Engel
– There’s a new (to me) site set up for the appreciation of Jules Engel‘s work. There you can find a film by Janeann Dill Elegy for Jules which is just that, an abstract elegy. The site also includes a guestbook for others to leave memories or comments about Jules.

There is also a Facebook page for Jules Engel that’s worth viewing. On Saturday, September 13th, the fifth anniversary of Jules’ death, they are celebrating with a host of stories and writings about Jules on the Facebook page. “Everyone is invited to participate. Add a new discussion thread, or post drawings or animations or photos or video tales to share with those who knew him and with those who did not.”

• Here’s Janeann Dill‘s interview with Engel.
• Cartoon Modern displays some color designs Engel did for Magoo’s 1001 Arabian Nights, the Alvin Show, Gerald McBoing Boing and others. Worth the visit. The photo of Engel, to the right, is from Cartoon Modern.
• Asifa Hollywood’s Animation Archive posts some color keys for the Alvin Show by Engel.
• This is the Artsconversation page for Jules Engel including QT interviews and some of his artwork.
• For more information, here is a biographical page including chronology on Sullivangoss.com.

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- It’s quite hard not commenting on the ridiculous firestorm that’s arisen over this Vice Presidential pick of John McCain. The past few days have been filled with sexist photos, wacky stories and endless ravings of the psychotic fringe end of the Republican parties. Honorable good ol’ gals like Christie Todd Whitman and Olympia Stowe were pushed out of the way for the sexy, anti-abortion, hunter of the Alaskan north and comments about her. The stories have filled the airwaves and the emails to the point of exhaustion.

Watching her read the speech written for her by Matthew Scully (who also wrote Dan Quayle’s acceptance speech) was disconcerting. She hit an in-the-park homerun for the meat-eaters at the convention. The first ten minutes of the speech introduced her family; the next fifteen were given to attacking Obama. Since the bar was set so low for her, the fact that she could read was enough to get her to third base. The speech used humor, and Sarah Palin delivered the barbs well. Of course, no mention was made of what she or her running mate would do for the populace.

An interesting side note to the speech. According to the NYTimes, Matthew Scully, the speech writer, wrote the text on the teleprompter helpfully spelling the word “nuclear” phonetically — as “new-clear.”

I’m waiting to see her on the stump when there are no speech writers around and no John McCain stealing the screen as he wobbles behind her, impatiently waiting for her to finish so he can pander down to her.

By the way, what’s with this Republican Party? Are they all white, fat and over 60? That’s how it looks on tv. Tonight the “BIG” speech is scheduled, but we’ve all seen McCain give speeches in his angry intemperate way. I expect more of the same, but we’ll see. Hopefully, he’ll have some help.

- After last week’s popular post on cartoon skeletal systems, there’s only one thing that can top it, in my book.

Here are frame grabs from The Skeleton Dance. It was a monumental piece of film making at the time, using the soundtrack for more than noise. It advanced the music score by Carl Stalling to the front and made an important and historic attempt at animated art, It was “drawn” by Ub Iwerks (but not by himself.)

The short is part of the dvd, Disney Treasures : Silly Symphonies.
You can watch the film on line here.
.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

- Since the new Little Mermaid sequel – no wait, it’s a prequel – has just been released, I thought this a good time to post some of Kay Neilsen ‘s illustrations done for Disney back in the 30′s when they were initially thinking of doing the film. These frame grabs come from the extras on the Platinum Edition of the dvd.

(Click any image to enlarge)

The following is a continuation of the piece that was posted last Friday. This is the remainder of Irv Spector‘s storyboard for the Paramount short, Galaxia. Paul Spector, Irv’s son, is the author of this piece. Paul’s notes, comments and more docs follow the storyboard.

Notes from Paul Spector:

Following are a few more Paramount/Famous items that of possible interest that my father boarded and sometimes animated as well. Some might make good accompanying pieces, or good for comparison, if you own the Harveytoons DVD, as that lacks any substantial info/extras. In a couple of these I’ve exposed my father’s ledger from this era (remember, he was freelancing) for the voyeur in you…and me.

What was the pay? The item on top named “Boris” is Galaxia, before it had a permanent title. The two Cats beneath it are different cartoons _________(Click to read full page)
using a repeating character during the same period.

L’Amour the Merrier (1957, Noveltoon). My father wasn’t above recycling his own themes. Preceding Galaxia by several years, in this, the matchmaker introduces himself as Louis Jacques Honore Napoleon Renoir. Hector the Garbage Collector wants to marry the kingdom’s princess. Renoir ends up with the princess, Hector with Renoir’s sister.

(click any image to enlarge.)

Le Petite Parade (1959, Modern Madcap). The title of this cartoon is the answer to one of the more frequently encountered questions on cartoon websites: “Does anyone know the name of the cartoon where a weekly parade goes by a house, and the sanitation truck that follows hits a bump and always leaves a pile of trash at the front door?” Yet again, the homeowner is a matchmaker, although that has little to do with the plot.

Sir Irving and Sir Jeames (1956, Noveltoon). Servant and master role reversal after protracted period of mistreatment.

Abner the Baseball (1961, two-reeler). Abner is an anthropomorphized baseball who narrates about getting banged around in a game, climatically about a long home run by Mickey Mantle. This was written and narrated onscreen by Eddie Lawrence, a popular comedian of that era who also usedthe bit in his act. Actually shy of a full two reel by a few minutes, I believe this was Paramount’s animated-short entry for an Oscar. Here is the beginning of the script accompanied and my dad’s ledger.

(Click to read.)

Chew Chew Baby (1958, Noveltoon). Yanked from airing on television due to the cannibalistic theme. Likely for the same reason it is not on the Complete Harveytoons DVD. That’s a shame because it moves along better than most, mainly the result of Sparber’s direction pushing it along – he didn’t get to direct too many — and the spot-on obsequious and condescending voice work of the American toward the pygmy. This rough model of the pygmy is not exactly as he appears in the cartoon, but it’s all I have.

– The recent post about Richie Havens by Annulla (who photographed the picture to the left) on her blog, Blather from Brooklyn, brought back a short memory I have from a number of years ago. I think it was 1984.

I’d received a call out of the blue from Mr. Havens. Now, remember I grew up in the Sixties and was a part of the “Woodstock Generation.” I loved the music of the period and Havens was a big part of that – especially to a New Yorker. This call was a shock. I was asked to come meet with him about an animation project he was assembling. No questions asked, I got the date and time and showed up.

It was in the very theatrical (albeit seedy at the time) area of 8th Avenue and 56th Street. I arrived to a very large open space. A very wide open, not-overly-furnished space. After a brief greeting, I was directed to the only other seat in the room – easily ten or more feet away in the somewhat dark room. Richie Havens, dressed in dashiki, was graced with some light that offered a halo around his head, and I sat out of the spotlight.

Apparently, Tommy Chong had decided to make an animated feature. He wanted to film a Kung fu style film in live action and rotoscope this into an animated film. Richie Havens was acting as his representative and was interviewing me for the position of assisting Mr. Chong in any way possible to get this film made. They saw this as a complete breakthrough feature for animation. Nothing had been done like it before.

My alarms went off, and I decided I shouldn’t be too enthusiastic about the project. I didn’t want to turn them down on the spot, but I didn’t want to be involved. Rotoscoping and Kung fu movies were not my – - – interest.
It was a not very long meeting; there weren’t many specifics Mr. Havens could offer at the time. It was the earliest of stages. I left my samples, shook his hand again and still remember the meeting twenty years later. I think it was another of those films that never got made.

Perhaps the film would have looked like this.

Congratulations to Peggy Stern and John Canemaker. Their film, Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood, will participate in the Telluride Film Festival. The half hour short film, which combines an interview with the legendary animator including newly created animated segments, will be shown on Turner Classic Movie in March 2009. (Perhaps it’ll be nominated for the Oscar as Best Doc short, and I’ll see it projected in January.)

John will also participate in the Ottawa Animation Festival at the end of Sept. He’ll interview Richard Williams on stage and will then bring that show to NY’s Museum of Modern Art.

- The world of animation took a back seat for me this past week. This week was about the Presidency. The Democratic convention started off a bit slow and felt a bit off-kilter to me, but started building once Hillary spoke. When Bill Clinton and Joe Biden spoke, I was over the top. Even so, I was not prepared for the bigness of Thursday’s events. I felt like one of Reverend Moon’s groupies, ready to follow anywhere.

Obama is someone who can speak articulately and intelligently, someone who knows how to pronounce the word “nuclear” and isn’t afraid to roll off daring plans to promote the necessary kindness we owe each other, and he’s built his entire platform around that.

How unlike the current admiinistration is this. They exploit the disadvantaged to their own gains. Everything about their work has been to fatten their own pockets – both the real and the intangible. Why did we have to spend the last years listening to stories of people being tortured by this administration? Why did we have to learn of the invasive attacks on our rights – most noticeably the right of privacy? Why does anyone have to consider whether this is OK or not?

And then the week ends with John “sell-your-soul” McCain selecting an unquestionably unqualified person to be his vice presidential choice. She has governed so few in her past and is now, potentially, the selection to control America’s place in the world. What was he thinking? How irresponsible. He’d only met her once and spoken with her twice prior to selecting her. The Evangelical Christians are happy, but McCain has proven himself to be an insubstantial fool to the rest of thinking America. The Press calls that daring. After, 8 years of embarrassment with GWBush in office, can you imagine that it could possibly get worse!?!

Yes.

“The times are too serious the stakes are too high for the same partisan playbook.” Yet, this is all McCain et al can offer. Obama acts like a politician, too. But he seems to be concerned about the common good. There’s no doubt about McCain’s motives. It’s pathetic.

Thank god, Bill Maher returned to HBO as of last night. I needed to laugh off Friday’s Republican positive-mood killer.

- Here is another gem from Paul Spector re the animation work of his talented father,
Irv Spector. It’s a pleasure to present it.

If there were a spot to post my father’s pre-WWII work, confirmed credits, and interesting studio stories, this would be the place.

Sorry to say, I don’t really have very much in the way of those to offer. My father was one of those unmarried animators, too busy running from the west coast to the east, to hold onto much until after WWII. However, he did seemingly come away with Willard Bowsky’s animation stopwatch.

Born in Oakland, CA in 1914 but growing up in Los Angeles, he was suspended from high school in 1930 for arguing with his art teacher about the correct way to draw a hand holding a gun pointed straight at you. The next day he was at Disney Studios asking for a job, and was actually let in to see Walt himself (helps here to imagine that at 16 my father was about 5’6”, 130lbs). Walt told him to go back and finish school, and then there would always be job after that at Disney. Instead, he went over to the Mintz Studio and was given employment as a fledgling animator (slight chance this might have been with Lantz at Universal, but he was with Mintz quickly).

Irv Spector at the Mintz Studio.

There he stayed for several years before moving over to Leon Schlesinger Studios, depicted on their on their Xmas card from the mid 1930s. schlesinger_xmas.jpg , and eventually moved on to Fleischer, starting there not too long before their move to Miami.

(Scan taken from Leslie Cabarga’s The Fleischer Story.)

From there, it was WWII and the Signal Corps, the subject of a recent post on the Splog.

Since my father had an industry name – and would not likely be the subject of an animation post unless his kid was writing it — most corners of the internet and many books about animation lead the casual observer to believe that from after WWII through the early 1960s he was strictly a Paramount-Famous guy. However, there is a very large body of non-Famous work during this stretch of his career, 95% of that either projected on a screen, aired, or published, could easily fill several posts of their own.

Yet it’s best to get started with something more cohesive. The following is the first of two parts of a complete storyboard, Galaxia, created for Paramount-Famous and released theatrically in 1961. I decided to post it for a few reasons. I don’t really see any complete Famous boards out there, I happen to have it, and I think it is a decent enough example of the difference between how a work is conceived and the way it ends up. It’s available in finished form on the Complete Harveytoons DVD.

Although far from any Famous production that would likely be discussed on an animation blog, I would like to think that this complete storyboard at least has some charm and zippy movement to it — but being so close to it for such a protracted period I’m no longer a good barometer; I can still remember it in total, pinned to the wall of my father’s basement studio. So imagine my surprise when I finally saw the finished product just two years ago! In truth, to me, the DVD Galaxia plays like a bit of a slow bore.

Certainly, it is a long way from the better Famous output many years prior, and most readers here will know the reasons why. Often, when I think about the talent pool that Famous had working for them, many being the same cartoonists whose work for other studios is often revered, I tend to squint a bit and imagine what might have been.

– I’ve been a Ralph Steadman fan/collector for most of my life. I love the guy’s work and would give anything to be able to do anything remotely as well as he does.

His versatility with pen and ink, dyes and watercolors doesn’t quite hide the magnificent draftsmanship behind his illustrations. Many try to copy his style and none have come close – though Gerald Scarfe has made a nice living off of a similar style – though a bit sweeter. Others, more academically inclined, those who swear by the Bauhaus rules, tend to turn their noses up at his work. I like to think of Steadman as the Jim Tyer of illustration.

Regardless, the work is brilliant. His art always has an amazing intelligence carrying it to the highest pinnacle. It breaks the rules and makes new ones. Illustration comes damn close to Art.

Not too many people have focused on his children’s books, and there are many. Not least is the series of “Mouse” books he’s done with Bernard Stone. Here is Emergency Mouse, a good example. I’ve not lifted the script but am merely showcasing the illustrations. Unfortunately, this also takes a bit away from the book design which is unique on its own. The type is well placed to balance off the different sized illustration.

If you want to read the story, you’ll have to get the book from the library – or buy it.

(Click any image to enlarge.) This is the inner cover.

1 2

3

4 5

6 7

8 9

10

13____14

15

16

17

_____Ponyo’s Success

- Monday’s Variety reported that Miyazaki‘s Ponyo on the Cliff has surpassed $93.2 million in its first 31 days. This makes it the second highest/fastest earning film in Japan. Spirited Away surpassed this mark after 25 days.

The film will also show at the Venice Film Festival which begins on August 27th. Myazaki will be in attendance.

A good source for some information about this film is Daniel Thomas MacInnes‘ Conversations about Ghibli. There you’ll be directed to many other sites and receive plenty of material including a couple of trailers and vids.

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- Tim Rauch writes to tell me about an engagement he and brother, Mike, will be conducting when they join DoubleTriple to speak to the AfterEffects NY group: “. . . basically sharing our process, showing films, doing a Q&A. It’s a group very much interested in the nuts and bolts of motion graphics/animation work, and the events are good “mixers” for industry types.”

It will take place on Thursday, August 28th, (tomorrrow) 6:45-9 pm.

AfterEffects NY
@ P.S. 41
116 West 11th St., NYC
(corner of 11th Street and 6th Ave.)

And, my friends, if you rush home, after the event, you’ll be able to catch Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic covention at 10PM.

- I thought I might take some space to remind you that there’s plenty of inspiration available at Matt Jones‘ fine Ronald Searle Tribute Site. Searle, of course, is a god among illustrators, and his work cannot be praised too highly. Jones seeks out this work and displays it wonderfully with cross-references among all of the pieces. it’s an excellent site.

- Ovation TV (ch.83 NYC) has been running their roster of animated features lately. These include: Spirited Away, Triplettes of Belleville, Tokyo Story, Chuck Amuck, The Hand Behind the Mouse, Tex Avery:King of Cartoons, and Dante’s Inferno. Upcoming shows include these:

August 28th
09:00 pm Dante’s Inferno
12:00 am Dante’s Inferno
03:00 am Tex Avery: King of
_________________ Cartoons

August 29th___________________September 6th
08:00 pm Spirited Away__________ 08:00 pm Tokyo Story
11:00 pm Spirited Away__________ 11:00 pm Tokyo Story
02:00 am Dante’s Inferno