- I’m reading J.B. Kaufman’s two Snow White books, both at the same time, and I’m taking my time about it. Bill Peckmann aroused my interest with a couple of Snow White oddities. Featured in Kaufman’s The Fairest One of All is a the Whitman children’s book that was released with the initial release of the movie in 1937. (See the cover to the right.)
Bill sent me the cover of his copy of the book, bought at a local street fair. His version was the rerelease of the book by Grosset and Dunlap done in 1938. And it’s a beauty. The book contains some B&W screen images from the movie,, but more than half of it is made up of illutrations by Gustaf Tenggren, the studio artist/designer so responsible for some of the film’s look. He joined the studio in 1936 and had involvement in finishing the movie and giving it the Old World look that it has. Ferdinand Horvath and Albert Hurter were already at the studio when he joined and had equally strong contribution in the design. Tenggren was principal in the publicity materials done for the movie. Here’s the copy of bill’s book, complete with damaged cover:
- Alex Toth did storyboards, too. Here’s one he did for Hanna-Barbera, and it shows the visceral strength of the “SuperFriends” project. More than the original comic book and greater than the final outcome. It’s a class act, and great thanks to Bill Peckmann and Manual Auad who brought it to him. To Bill:
Many thanks to illustration art publisher, historian, fan extraordinaire, Manuel Auad, we are able to post 28 pages of a Hanna-Barbera “Super Friends” storyboard done by Alex Toth.
Even though the pages are Copies of Copies, they are nice clean copies that haven’t been covered with down-the-line production notes yet.
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Here’s another board he did which we posted a while back.
- It’s 1961-1962, and we return to Vinnie Caffarelli‘s collection of Top Cel, the u-nion’s monthly newsletter. As I wrote last week, the interest in this period of the publication is that the editor, animator Ed Smith, brought a lot of great graphics to the publication, and they really stood out. These were collector’s items for a lot of the membership, and I’m glad Vinnie had saved these so that I can share them with you. I have a collection of them that dates back a bit earlier, but all those have been in storage for some time and I can’t easily get to them.
We have in this group something that seems to have been fairly regular, the wraparound cover. The first and last pages of the newsletter unfold to be one long drawing. I’ve attached both pages and turn them on their side so they can be properly seen.
A lot ow work went into putting these newsletters together, so kudos to Ed Smith for having done such a great job.
August 1961 – drawing by Ed Smith
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October 1961 – drawing by Len Glasser
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Novemeber 1961 – drawing by Dolores Cannata
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December 1961 – drawing unsigned (?)
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April 1962 – drawing by Len Glasser
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June 1962, drawing by Karl Fischer
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May 1962, drawing by Bill Feigenbaum
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July 1962, drawing by Len Glasser
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August 1962, drawing by C. R. (?) possibly Cliff Roberts
- A stash of Disney animated features were on television this Sunday. Hercules, Lady and the Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, Cinderella, and The Lion King all followed each other immediately, one on top of the other. Actually some of them even overlapped each other. The credits for Hercules (miniscule and too tiny to read) played on the left half of the screen while the opening credits for Lady and the Tramp played on the right half of the screen. They were going to milk every ounce of Disney Family viewing they could for the money.
I was pretty sick on Sunday, the flu has struck our little home hard, and I’m not yet down for the count but feel pretty close. So I could see how much of this 2D mania I could stomach – flu and all. I didn’t come in to it until the very end of Hercules, which is probably the one film I would have liked seeing again, but virtually missed.
Some quick notes: It was nice to see Lady and the Tramp letterboxed for Cinemascope. The opening is still as tender as ever, and the Siamese cats are beautifully layed out for scope. The layout, backgrounds and animation – particularly the effects animation of the chase for Tramp in the dog pound wagon is exceptional. I think it’s probably one of the best sequences in the film. “Bella Notte,” of course, works well, but except for the sentimental emotion the sequence was never one of my favorites. There isn’t much for the dogs to do while the singing continues. They do pull a lot out of the spaghetti, but for much of it, the dogs just sit there, or in closer shots chew their food.
Alice seemed loud and aggressive though some of the coloring seemed inspired, and it’s amazing to see how much of Mary Blair is still in there in some parts – particularly the end of the caterpillar sequence. I found the Cheshire Cat a blessing in the wilderness. A lot is done with little subject matter, and it’s all in the excellent animation, of course. It’s obvious that Alice is a tough character to animate, but she’s done brilliantly. Essentially, she’s the “straight man” for everyone else in the film. She just sits there while the other characters bounce their schtick off of her. As I noted in a past post I am intrigued by the use of shadows in the transitional parts of the film. It works stunningly well , and this device virtually holds a lot of the film together in some odd quiet little way. I’d be curious to see more of this done with other films. You need a director with a big vision watching out for the film as a whole. I’m not crazy about a lot of the wild animation of the many zany characters that seem more cartoon to me than do they feel like Lewis Carrol creatures. There’s an interesting little scene where Alice sits down to cry in the woods. At first, she’s alone, then like Snow White in a similar situation feels sorry for herself and lets go. Little woodland creatures, deer and squirrels and rabbits and birds surround Snow White. Alice greets the odd little cartoon characters which feel as though they’d escaped from Clampett’s Porky in Wackyland. The woodland characters in Snow White serve the purpose of moving the heroine forward in the story to the dwarfs’ cottage. The zanies in Alice just disappear before she stops crying. Essentially, they’re pointless little creatures that offer nothing to the film. Fortunately the Cheshire Cat returns at this point. He fades in just as all the others have faded off.
Aladdin has always bothered me. It feels more like a Warner Bros film than a Disney feature. The wild animation and even the style of the animation gives me good reason to feel this way. However, I think I came to terms with that in watching it again (maybe my 12th time?) mixed in with these other movies. The film is what it is and does it well. Eric Goldberg’s genie is a classic combination with the Robin Williams voice over, and Eric gets full use of that voice and the business happening on screen. The material presented has dated some, though not as bad as I expected. How lone before kids don’t know who people like Ed Sullivan are? Though I suppose this is similar to the personalities left over from the celebrity cartoons of the 30′s & 40′s. Mother Goose Goes Hollywood needs a program of its own to tell us who half of those caricatures represent. And they are great pieces of art that Joe Grant did for them. The villain in Aladdin tries hard but he’s not menacing just threatening. There was never anything that I worried about with him, and this feeling goes back to my very first viewing of the film. I do like the tiger in the film, Jasminda’s pet. That cat makes up for the ineffectual father. His character is not anything I can really associate with.
Cinderella is a very interesting film. I go into it thinking I hate it and get completely tied up with the extraordinary pacing of the film. Every scene is so exact and tight. They really knew what they were doing. I’m not the biggest fan of the human animation, but at the same time I’m in awe of it. It isn’t really rotoscoping, but it’s so beautifully pulled off the live action they shot, that it feels completely fresh. The cartoon animals play off the humans as the dwarfs did in Snow White. They look as they they come from different films and the style of animation is so different. The set pieces are exquisite. That entire piece with Cinderella locked in her room, the animals fighting to release her all those stairs away and the final reveal of her own glass slipper. It’s so beautifully melodramatic and so perfectly executed. Yes, this is an odd film for me to watch.
I didn’t make it to The Lion King. I’ve seen that about half a dozen times in the last few months so preferred watching my soap opera – Downton Abbey.
Watching these films back to back to back like this sort of lessens them but at the same time one is overwhelmed by the amazing craftsmanship held so high for so long. For years I felt the modern films, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Hercules were lesser efforts compared to what the “masters” did. But now I’m sure they’re every bit as good as some of the later classics. No, I don’t think Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi can be beaten today, but the new films are definitely equal to Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland and anything later than that. (I actually think Sleeping Beauty is in a class of its own and haven’t seen the equal to that from the more recent people. Actually, I take that back. I think Prince of Egypt is right up there. That’s a magnificent film, and it’s one I’d like to discuss more in depth sometime soon.)
Oh, of course, this is all my own opinionated nonsense. Someone else would have a completely different list. I’m, obviously, leaving cg films out of this discussion. To be honest, I can’t even find a story there that I think measures up to most of the Disney classics. I’m also not thinking much about non-Disney works, but there’s an obvious reason for that. However, some of those Dreamworks 2D films are exceptional and deserve a lot of attention. Attention they haven’t received. Spirit has stunning animation, as do a number of others. They really need a bit of time.
I had some bigger thoughts brought on by watching them all, but I’ve gone on too long already. So I’ll let this rambling post fizzle out. Hope you don’t mind, but I’m getting to enjoy writing these diatribes.
- Here is the remainder of the Heath Book. This is a book that was written by Tony Creazzo, one of New York’s finer Assistant Animators and Bob Heath, a cameraman. Together they made an odd couple to author such a book. Yet, there’s no doubt that this material is first rate and there’s a lot to learn from the book they’ve given us. Originally, I thought the book looked too basic to be of interest, but the more I got into it, the more I realized how solidly constructed it is.
There are a few more pages of “Glossary and Terms” used in animation and for this book. It’s a lot of work scanning this oversized book and reconstructing it in photoshop. Since I don’t have the patience, I’m skipping these final few pages.
I learned that you can still buy the book on Amazon, which is quite amazing to me, but I’m glad to see it available if you look hard enough. I’d suggest buying a copy to include in your library, if you don’t already own it, before it’s completely out of print and very expensive.
If you want to see the remainder of the book you can go to these posts go here for: part 1, part 2, part 3, 4, 5.
- Before there was video tape (which means before there were dvds), there was only 16mm film that you could project in your own home. I had (and still have) a nice collection of decaying movies and used to show these often. One of the regulars to show and watch and laugh at was the great Mickey short, The Whoopee Party. Everyone loved this short, no matter how many times we watched it. It’s a great film!
This encouraged me to watch it again on the B&W Mickey dvd I have. So I couldn’t help but jump for joy over the story sketches they include in the extras. Why not post them? So here they are – sketches from the limited storyboard they produced. I’ve also interspersed frame grabs from the film so you can compare images.
________________________(Click any image to enlarge.)
Signe Baumane has started a Kickstarter campaign to try to complete her animated feature. Rocks in my Pockets. I saw this film at a small preview, and I can honestly say this is one of the best of the Independent films I’ve seen in production. The story is just great. It works on the surface and it works in several levels of depth. Visually it’s stunning using three dimensional backgrounds that are sculpted by Signe. She has a number of talented people working with her on the film, but this truly feels like a one person show, it’s so defined and original.
I heartily recommend that you not only look for the film when it’s finished but help it get there now by donating anything you can. This is one that deserves to be completed.
I’ve always considered George Griffin the leader of the Independent movement in animation in New York. For good reason, his work dominated the local scene back in the seventies, and he gave us a clear vision of an original auteur at work with a very specific statement to make in all of his films. Since then, that vision has remained true through all of his films, although, of course, it has grown enormously, expanded to something even richer.
It isn’t often that we get to see a fuller presentation of George’s work, so I’m pleased to announce that there will be a program shown at the Anthlogy Film Archives on Thursday, Jan. 24 at 7:30 pm. The program will represent a mixed bag culled from his body of work. It will include recent films like “The Bather,†cartoons like “Flying Fur,†“Viewmaster,†and “Ko-Ko,†and the 1975 anti-cartoon “Headâ€. All of these films have been transferred to HD and will be shown in pristine condition.
The full program:
HEAD (1975, 10.5 min, 16mm)
VIEWMASTER (1976, 3.5 min, 16mm)
FLYING FUR (1981, 7 min, 16mm)
KO-KO (1988, 3 min, video)
NEW FANGLED (1990, 2 min, video)
A LITTLE ROUTINE (1994, 7 min, video)
IT PAINS ME TO SAY THIS (2006, 10 min, video)
MACDOWELL: A USER’S MANUAL (2007, 14 min, video)
THE BATHER (2008, 3 min, video)
YOU’RE OUTA HERE (2009, 3 min, video)
FLYING FUR FRAGMENTS (2012, 6.5 min, video)
Total running time: ca. 80 min.
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue
212-505-5181
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Muldavian Animation
I recently receoved a note from someone at the Simpals Animation Studio in the Republic of Moldova. the studio produces 3D animation and proudy wanted to show off their character, “Dji,” the figure of death. They’ve done a few shorts featuring this character and, after wrote a bit about the series they’ve done completely in-house. “Dji. Death fails” is their fourth short built around this character, and you can see the development on the screen. I found some warmth around the principal, though I must say it feels similar to some other films out of Europe . They have a fascination with “Death” and making fun of it appeals to them. I have to say, they’ve made the most of it.
Others of their films can be found at their YouTube page. I’d like to see some more of their 2D work. It looks interesting.
Here’s the most recent work finished in November, 2012.
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Redhead du Jour
Direct from Tom Hachtman to you.
Portrait of Jorz Strooly by Traci (age 6)
Color by Jorz Strooly
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A New Fischinger Book
Due in April: Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967): Experiments in Cinematic Abstraction.
Edited by Cindy Keefer and Jaap Guldemond.
Available April via Thames & Hudson.
This new Oskar Fischinger monograph explores the position of his work within the international avant-garde. It examines his animation and painting, his use of music, his experiences in Hollywood, and his influence on today’s filmmakers, artists and animators. The book also contains previously unpublished documents including texts by Fischinger himself.
The essays include:
Jean-Michel Bouhours, Oskar Fischinger and the European Artistic Context
Ilene Susan Fort, Oskar Fischinger, The Modernist Painter
Jeanpaul Goergen’s Timeline: Oskar Fischinger in Germany, 1900-1936
Paul Hertz, Fischinger Misconstrued: Visual Music does not equal Synesthesia
Joseph Hyde, Fischinger’s Scores: New Perspectives on his Approach to Music
Richard Brown, The Spirit Inside Each Object: John Cage and Oskar Fischinger
Cindy Keefer, Interview with Barbara Fischinger. The Lumigraph: Dancing with your Hands.
Cindy Keefer, Optical Expression: Oskar Fischinger, William Moritz and Visual Music.
James Tobias, Essay Without Words: Motion Painting no. 1, Insight, and The Ornament
Joerg Jewanski, The Visions of Oskar Fischinger and Alexander Laszlo in 1935/36
and more
plus texts by Fischinger, a new bibliography and filmography by CVM,
and testimonials by international artists, scholars, historians and authors
including David James, Giannalberto Bendazzi, John Canemaker, Suzanne Buchan,
yann beauvais, Joost Rekveld, Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, Scott Snibbe, and others.
240 pages, paperback. Extensive color illustrations.
Co-published by EYE Filmmuseum and Center for Visual Music.
ISBN 978-9071338007. Available April via Thames & Hudson.
Limited supply available earlier at Center for Visual Music.
Water water everywhere and Paul Murry gets to draw it all. Here are two stories starring Disney’s greatest characters, Donald and Mickey. The two stories have three years apart from each other, but Murry gives us plenty of a stylized water, drawn slightly differently from one story to the next. How appropriate of Bill Peckmann to send us these tales when Congress finally got off their butts and voted the victims of Hurricane Sandy some financial relief. Here’s Bill’s comments:
Here is another Paul Murry story containing H2O hi-jinks. It’s a ‘Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories‘ Donald Duck 10 pager from 1950. (It was the only year that DD regular Carl Barks missed doing a number of his signature character stories. There’s another great Murry Duck story that deals with an overnight flood; sorry, I just can’t remember what comic book it’s in.)
The comic cover from1950. This cover art is by Carl Buettner.
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If we jump three years to 1953, we’ll find another Paul Murry story with a strong focus on water. Here our intrepid artist adapts The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Fantasia. (Perhaps there was a re-release of the film that year.)
Part of the cover.
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- Speaking of Paul Murry, let me end by giving another pitch for the excellent collection of The Adventures of Buck O’Rue and his hoss, Reddish by Dick Huemer & Paul Murry. This is a rip roaring (you’ll be roaring with laughter) classic of a brilliant strip.
No, no one is paying me for this or prompting my wanting to remind you of the perfect Valentine gift. I just like this book and this strip, and I think you might like it, too.
- Back during the black out of Hurricane Sandy (when we had no electricity or heat), John Canemaker invited us up to his apartment to use his computer so that we could check email etc. I spent a nice couple of hours with John that day, and one of the things he pulled out was the DVD of the Mickey Mouse Club. (One of those expensive, tin boxes I didn’t own.) On the extras of the program was a colored version of the animated opening to the show. The original Mickey Mouse Club aired in B&W, which is how I remember it. It was fun sitting through that piece of animation, and I was charmed by a somewhat abstract section, a musical interlude that was rarely shown in the B&W version. It reminds me of Toot Whistle Plunk & Boom in its styling.
I recently bought a copy of that DVD and went directly to that extra. I’ve pulled some frame grabs of the center sequence and will post those here. But then I couldn’t stop there. I went back and did the entire piece. The abstract sequence stands away from the poorly designed Mickey, Donald & Goofy. Those thick outer lines against the thin inner lines reminds me of the bad imitation UPA art that was going on at the time. It was their idea of “modern art,” I guess.
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Pluto’s drums burst in a B&W flash.
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Mickey comes back in with an awkward optical.
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. . . and the song continues.
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I wonder if Ward Kimball had anything to do with this. Ken O’Connor was the Art Director for Kimball including: Mars and Beyond, Man in Space and Man and the Moon
Victor Haboush was the Asst. Art Director, and he had an important role
in the Mr. Magoo TV show as well as the Dick Tracy show back in 60s.
He was also the Art Director on Gay Purr-ee.
- Over the years I’ve found that a number of animation personnel saved their copies of Top Cel, the u-nion newspaper. However, we’re not talking every copy of Top Cel, we’re focused on the Ed Smith years. Ed was the editor for a number of years, and his issues were filled with great graphics done by local members.
I have a complete collection from the late forties up to the final years. That collection has been in storage for the entire run of this Splog, or I would have been posting these sooner. However, there among the Vince Cafarelli collection was a couple of the Ed Smith years’ papers. Starting with July 1960 and running through May 1968, there are a lot of papers. I hope to post the graphics from these and wil pick out particular stories or images within to give an idea of what was happening in the business. I don’t want to post the entire thing, since many of the articles pertain specifically to u-nion business, and it seems pointless in its outdated nature.
We’ll start with the first 10 issues:
1
July 1960
Artwork by Mordi Gerstein
1a 1b (Click any of these frames to enlarge to a more legible size.)
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August 1960
This issue, like many others, has to be turned clockwise to properly read.
For the sake of these covers, I am turning the image 90° c/w
for you to read and will do this for all subsequent covers.
Artwork by Ed Friedman
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Sept 1960
This cover was also turned 90° c/w.
Artwork by Spipol (? I have difficulty reading the name ?)
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This cartoon, by Ed Smith, makes fun of the fact that the fashionably popular
HuckleberrynHound and Yogi Bear were being advertised as “Adult” cartoons.
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Within this larger issue, there were two pages of photos taken at
the Annecy Animation Festival to which a number of members went.
The left page is posted above, the right page is posted below.
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Reports about the Festival by two members, Dick Rauh and Hal Silvermintz.
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October 1960
The front cover of this issue.
Artwork by Karl Fischer
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The back cover
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Nov 1960
Artwork by Mordi Gerstein
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Jan 1961
Artwork by Len Glasser
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This back page had the contacts of all contracted studios in NY.
I love that P.Kim & L.Gifford have
different contact info from Gifford-Kim.
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February 1961
Turned 90° c/w.
Art by Edwin R. Smith J.R. (Ed’s son?)
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Turned 90° c/w.
Art by Hal Silvermintz
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April 1961
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May 1961
I think the artwork is by Arnie Levin
Front cover
Back cover is an extension of the front.
Attached they look like this.
Inside is a 2-page promotion for the Hubley show at the
Beekman Theater. This was the premiere of their feature, Of Stars & Men.
This was the 2nd page of the promo.
There also must have been a middle page of text which is lost from this copy of the issue.
Attached the program looked like this.
This was my first viewing of the Hubley works. I had never seen a Hubley short
prior to this program. I was a Sophomore High School student at the time.
I went back a couple more times, and my world was changed forever.
To see some copies of Top Cel which were issued in 1945 and 1946, Richard O’Connor and his company’s blog Ace and Son has ostd quite a few of these issues. By going here, you’ll find 8 or 10 documents.
- I’m reading J.B. Kaufman’s two Snow White books, both at the same time, and I’m taking my time about it. Bill Peckmann aroused my interest with a couple of Snow White oddities. Featured in Kaufman’s The Fairest One of All is a the Whitman children’s book that was released with the initial release of the movie in 1937. (See the cover to the right.)
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