Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

With the opening of the Gertrude show in Washington D.C. at the National Portrait Gallery, I thought it worth celebrating our relationship with Tom Hachtman, the cartoonist who has developed the strip Gertrude and Alice and who has some pieces in this D.C. exhibit. Hence, I’m re-posting the tale of our animated journey.

- Back in the late ’70s, there was a local newspaper that competed with the Village Voice for the alternative audience. The Soho News was smaller and thinner, but had its own treasures. Some good writing and listings, and many excellent alternative comic strips. (Bill Plympton had a weekly strip in this paper before he started animating.)

I fell in love with one comic strip called Gertrude’s Follies to the point where I waited each week for the new issue and the new strip to hit to market. It was about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and all the crazies that came into their lives – particularly Picasso, Hemingway and other iconic art types. It didn’t matter that Matisse and Capote didn’t meet; they were both available for the strip – as was everyone else.

Finally, after enjoying it for so long, I decided to locate the cartoonist behind it, and see whether he was interested in developing a storyboard and script for a feature. Maybe we could get some low-budget financing.

Tom Hachtman was the cartoonist, and he was a brilliant artist. His wife, Joey Epstein, was another fine artist. The two entered my life at this point, and some interesting things developed.

Gertrude’s Follies was an ongoing project. Tom worked with Maxine Fisher, who has been my writing partner through all the years of my studio. The two of them developed a couple of themes from the mass of strips that had been done and started to weave a storyboard. Tom left 4 or 5 panels of each 6 panel page empty, and I constructed and reconstructed story around them. Sometimes I would draw more material, sometimes I would take some away. It was real fun.

The Soho News folded, and no one really picked up the strip. It ran for a short time in The Advocate. Tom was able to publish a collected book (see the cover above.) You can still locate a rare copy on line.

Some newer, color copies of the strip can be found on line here.
Tom also does some political cartoons for the site here.

The movie never went into production. I couldn’t raise the funds – my inexperience. We did make one short segment – a two minute piece that was the most hilarious strip. Sheldon Cohen, an animator I met at the Ottawa 76 festival, came to NY when I offered him a job on Raggedy Ann. Sheldon, ultimately, did a number of films for the National Film Board which you can watch on-line if you click on his name.

Sheldon animated this particularly funny strip. It took a while for him to animate it, and by the time he was finished, the feature had died and I had lost some interest. Years later I inked and painted it and had it shot. The short piece was never finished, though I still think about doing that.

Tom also recently gave me a funny strip about Pablo Picasso sculpture for which I’ve finished a storyboard and animatic. Hopefully, I’ll get the energy to animate it.

Aside from Gertrude, both Tom & Joey worked on a number of my films and still infrequently do. The two have painted many murals on the Jersey Coast, where they currently live. Tom has been a political cartoonist for the NY Daily News, has done lots of airbrush work for Bob Blechman when the Ink Tank was in operation. He also has done quite a few cartoons for The New Yorker magazine.

Here are a few of the strips to give you the flavor. Perhaps next week I’ll give a sample of our storyboard, comparing it with some of the actual strips. Enjoy.

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(Click on any image to enlarge so that you can read the strips.)

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We did ultimately complete the short film, called “Pabs’ First Burger.”
Tom Hachtman did the backgrounds and Matthew Clinton did the animation.

Here’s a small QT view of that short:

- This past week was a busy week for animation in New York.

It started on Monday with the AMPAS celebration of John Hubley‘s early work. It turned into quite an event with beautiful prints of many of the early UPA films which began with the military film, Flat Hatting and led to the brilliant masterwork, Rooty Toot Toot. Some commercials and a few of the early, brilliant films of the Faith & John collaboration, Adventures of an * and Tender Game. It was a sterling evening well attended by many of the key personae in New York’s animation scene.

On the following night, ASIFA East held a retrospective of the work of the late and great Independent animator, Karen Aqua. I was unable to attend this screening but was certainly down about it. Fortunately, there were two key reports describing the show: Linda Beck, the new President of ASIFA East, described the event on the organization’s blog, and Richard O’Connor of Ace and Son gave a good accounting on his blog.

- Last night, Bill Plympton hosted a show at the Friar’s Club which featured the NY premiere of the new documentary by Alexia Anastasio, “Adventures in Plymptoons”, about him and his work.

Tonight at 7pm, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center Bill will doing a book signing of his “. . . big Rizzoli book, “Independently Animated: Bill Plympton”‘ He’ll be showing artwork from it and signing books and he’ll also be showing some of his new short films, plus a clip from Alexia Anastasio’s doc “Adventures in Plymptoons!”. All for free.

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.BROOKLYN FILM FESTIVAL‘S kidsfilmfest will be screening films from their archives

WHEN: this Saturday, October 15th, from 10am-4pm.
WHERE: The Big Screen Plaza: 29th St between 6th and 7th Avenues in New York
WHO?: Kids of all ages!
WHAT: A selection of kid-friendly films, with in-plaza activities like face painting, balloon artists, popcorn, & more!

Join them for live action and animated films, food, face painters and more! Films are rated “G” for all ages.

The event is free of charge and open to the public.
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It should also be noted that the films of J.J. Sedelmaier will premiere at Big Screen Plaza on Tuesday, Oct 18th, 7pm. It’s free, outdoors and the atmosphere will be party time.

Some of the works to be screened include:
__ Saturday Night Live’s “Conspiracy Theory Rock”
__ Saturday Night Live’s “Titey”
__ The Daily Show’s “Midterm Elections”
__ Ambiguously Gay Duo: “Safety Tips”
__ Ambiguously Gay Duo: “Ace and Gary’s Fan Club”
__ Ambiguously Gay Duo: “Blow Hot, Blow”
and many others

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- Didier Ghez has been editing a library’s worth of books featuring interviews with animation professionals. For the most part these are the raw materials historians have worked with in writing their histories. Just now in release is volume 11 of his series, Walt’s People. There are interviews included in this edition with:

John Culhane: I. Klein_________________C. Finch & L. Rosenkrantz: Eric Larson
John Culhane: John Hubley____________Robin Allan: Jules Engel
Darrell Van Citters: Ed Love____________Darrell Van Citters: Mike Lah
JB Kaufman: Frank Thomas____________John Culhane: John Hench
John Canemaker: Ward Kimball________Dave Smith: Ward Kimball
David Tietyen: George Bruns___________John Canemaker: Dale Oliver
John Canemaker: Iwao Takamoto______John Canemaker: Richard Williams
John Culhane: Daniel MacManus________John Canemaker: Glen Keane
Didier Ghez: Joe Hale__________________Jérémie Noyer: Mark Henn
Didier Ghez: Ed Catmull

_________and many others.

The introduction to this edition is by John Canemaker.

You’ll find the book Walt’s People – Vol. 11 at Amazon or Xlibris

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- Sherm Cohen, on his blog, Cartoon Snap has posted a “How To Draw Cartoons” book by Bill Nolan. It originally came from the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archives, but since all their links are broken, the re-post is welcome.

Bill Nolan, of course, was one of the premiere animators in the early days of animation. He claimed to have invented the cycle in animation. He worked for many studios doing Felix the Cat as well as Krazy Kat. He was one of the forces behind the Oswald the Rabbit series, working for Walter Lantz.

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In celebration of Pixar’s 25th Anniversary, The New York Times is now taking questions for John Lasseter. In the next week or so Lasseter will answer questions left for him on the Times’ Artbeat blog. So if you want to ask Mr. Lasseter why there aren’t more 2D animated films coming out of Disney or what effect the death of Steve Jobs will have on Pixar’s work or why Cars 2 was such a dud, check in to the Times and leave your question.

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- The National Gallery of Portraiture is featuring a show of art about Gertrude Stein. Called Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories, the show features the work of over 100 artists. Tom Hachtman, whose comic strip, Gertrude and Alice. has been an obsession of mine, is one of those artists who contributed to this show. So if you’re in D.C. look for an original piece of art by Tom. (Tomorrow, I’ll post a video of a short short I did of one of Tom’s strips.)

Go here to see one of Tom’s contributions to the exhibit.

The show just opened on Friday and runs through Jan. 22, 2012.

- This is the second part of the collaborative work of Harvey Kurtzman and
Jack Davis. It’s a series that Bill Peckmann graciously put together and contributed.

You can find part 1 here.

All comments under the images are Bill Peckmann’s.

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In a little under three years since the first issue the comic book MAD
made its’ debut, we now have MAD # 24, July 1955, which was the
very first issue of MAD Magazine.

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First page – Editor’s message.

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Harvey and Jack’s lead feature in the “Sports Dept.” of the
magazine is an animated tour de force.
The poses are side splitters, enjoy!

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Here is the cover of TRUMP magazine #1, Jan. 1957.
This was the first venture that Harvey had with High Hefner.
Unfortunately, TRUMP lasted only two issues. When this
Harvey and Jack spoof of a popular TV show came out, I’ll
always remember my older brother and his friends reading
this particular story with tears streaming down their faces,
it was that good!

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Many thanks to Bill for his generosity in sharing this with us.

- I’ve recently been rereading the classics. No, I don’t mean Madame Bovary or Great Expectations; I mean animation’s classic books. Since this blog came into being a mere 6 years ago, I haven’t had the chance to review many of these books, which predate this blog, and I thought it time to share my guilty pleasure (reading) with you. So, I’m about to start reviewing some older books. In a sense, I’ve already done this by commenting on some of the books I never got up to reading – such as Culhane’s Talking Animals and Other People. I’m also going to review some books I’ve been rereading.

First up is Felix, The Twisted Tale of the World’s Most Famous Cat by John Canemaker. This was Canemaker’s second book, following his Winsor McCay, His Life & Art. This is the second time through this book for me (lately I’ve been into reading about the earliest days of animation’s history), and it’s every bit as entertaining and informative as my first read.

You get both a history of Pat Sullivan, the entrepreneur who made a success of Felix and Otto Messmer, the animator who actually developed and brought Felix to life. The two stories run concurrently, and it’s obvious that Sullivan’s life was more dramatic. His story is a potboiler.

At the very start of his studio, Sullivan was incarcerated for nine months after being convicted of raping a 14 year old girl. Then he watches Messmer develop Felix into a superstar, capable of competing with any live-action celebrity. Riches flowed into the studio most of which ended up in Sullivan’s pockets.

Still from “Sure Locked Homes”

At the end of his life, when Felix films were on a decline, Sullivan’s wife had committed suicide (although her falling out a window to her death may have been accidental), and Sullivan’s health began to quickly deteriorate. “Whether caused by grief over Marjorie’s death, years of alcoholic abuse, or the tertiary stage of syphilis that finally affects the brain, or a combination of all three, it was obvious that Pat Sullivan was losing his mind.”
This is a page turner of a story.
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Threaded through it all is the steady and less interesting read of the shy animator who worked tirelessly to create, develop and produce the first character to exhibit a screen personality. Otto Messmer was the synthesis of most animators: work hard during the day in a mostly internal job, then go home to the mundane, middle class existence in the suburbs. It doesn’t make for a great read, but it made for great films.

Canemaker tells both well, and it does have its effect. The book moves quickly and enjoyably.

It’s also something of a scrapbook in that there are plenty of images of Felix to show you what a complicated character Messmer had created. These cartoons were certainly more for adults than children. There was plenty of alcohol in the films and strips that flowed from the studio. War was a subject that was treated seriously. World War I had acutely affected many of the animators as well as the audience, and these films were particularly successful in the series.

For ten years the films reached a zenith of riches, and it was difficult for other animated films to break through the inner circle that Felix had developed. Margaret Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz, distributed the Felix films, and when Sullivan sought greater fees he threatened to quit. Winkler then developed the young Walt Disney to serve as a backup plan should she lose the Felix films. She eventually did. Her husband ultimately forced Disney out as well, and that’s when the historic happened.

Disney created Mickey Mouse in his first sound film, Steamboat Willie. All of Sullivan’s tardy attempts to issue post-recorded versions of Felix with sound were useless, and Felix became a has been. Sullivan died within four years, and Otto Messmer quietly spent the rest of his life hiding behind the Felix the Cat comic strips. It’s a sad story that John Canemaker reveals, and he gives the full version in this attractive book.

I remember way back when, I think it was 1975, that I accompanied John Canemaker on a trip to Otto Messmer’s house and got to meet the man. The afternoon was quite pleasant, and I sat as an observer witnessing a casual and enjoyable Q&A with Mr. Messmer. I don’t remember much about the interview, but I do remember it as sunny and quite agreeable. I also remember my first reading of this book and seeing how John had turned that interview into something meatier than I remembered witnessing. He certainly interviewed Messmer many more times for the book (and the valuable documentary Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat, that he made in 1977.) It was my first time to see the fruit turned into facts, and it was an eye-opening experience.

Today I see the very informative book, and I also see the stylistic prose John adapted in the writing. It’s obvious he was completely invested in the subject and period and people of this book, and you can’t ask for much more from such an historic account. If this book isn’t part of your collection, it should be. At least, borrow it from the public library and read it.

Here‘s a nice interview from1991 with John and ira Gallen.

The documentary, Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat can be found on the DVD John Canemaker, Marching to a Different Toon.

– The AMPAS program celebrating the early work of John Hubley went off wonderfully on Monday evening. The show started at 7pm, but prior to it there was a cocktail party for about 50 people. I have no idea who was invited to this, but it seemed to be Academy members who might have know the Hubleys as well as friends of the Hubley family. All four of the Hubley children were there including: Emily, her husband, Will Rosenthal, and their son, Max; Georgia and husband, Ira Kaplan (both part of the group Yo Lo Tengo); Ray Hubley, and Mark Hubley.

Also there, were Tissa David, Ed Smith, Candy Kugel, George Griffin, Vinnie Cafarelli, Lee Corey, Ruth Mane, John Canemaker (of course) with Joe Kennedy and others I probably have forgotten. Patrick Harrison and John Fahr ran and hosted the event for the Academy.

At the program I saw: Ray Kosarin, Linda Beck, Stephen MacQuignon, Richard O’Connor, Bill Plympton, and a hundred others that I recognized. The house was full.

As we entered the theater, prior to the start of the show, the soundtrack to Finian’s Rainbow was playing. Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Ella Logan and Barry Fitzgerald.

The actual program began as all Academy events do, exactly on time. Patrick Harrison spoke for two minutes promising that next month the event would be a retrospective of the work of Saul Bass done in conjunction with MOMA. He then introduced John Canemaker, and we were off and running.

John started with a PowerPoint presentation that showed the child, John Hubley, his surly uncle who became the model for Mr. Magoo; we saw some childhood drawings as well as a number of strong influences including classmate, Alvin Lustig, who designed the UPA logo. These were followed by some of the artwork Hubley did for Disney, which included a lot of Layouts and preliminary Background sketches. We saw art done during the War as well as preliminary art for many of the UPA films. John Canemaker featured a lot of Hubley in-house cartoon drawings peppered throughout the presentation.

This talk ultimately led to screening the movies.

Unfortunately, it started with the only 16mm print, a soft-focus soft color print of Brotherhood of Man. Somewhere a good print of this film exists, and I don’t know when it’ll be found – hopefully in my lifetime. It’s such an enormously powerful film, designed in a style which was borrowed from Saul Steinberg‘s work at the time.

Flat Hatting followed with a beautiful 35mm print. This is a brilliantly directed film showing how much good can be done with limited animation. It never felt limited, nor does it feel like an educational film for pilots. It’s very entertaining and drew a lot of laughs. Hubley had spent years directing mediocre films under Frank Tashlin at Columbia and a number of films for the military. This film shows how much he had learned as a director in such a short time.

The Magic Fluke is probably the best of the Fox and Crow series. This film has a great sense of design featuring that famous background by Jules Engel of the concert hall. I’m not sure Hubley was best cast as the director of a lightning quick comedy cartoon, but, for the most part, it works well. The print, again, was sterling.

Following this was a beautiful print of Ragtime Bear, the first Magoo cartoon. I hadn’t remembered how fluid the animation was; there was some beautiful distortion on Magoo later in the film. My guess is that it was a Pat Mathews scene. The film offers all of Magoo’s traits, but the character design is far away from what Pete Burness ended up directing.

The cr̬me de la creme of the evening: Rooty Toot Toot followed. What a beautiful, big 35mm print. What a stunner of a scene Рthat great Grim Natwick animation of Nelly Bly Рall blue Рcorkscrewing her hands and arms in the witness chair. Beautiful and funny. This is certainly one of the great films ever created.

An image photographed off the screen .

There were a stash of commercials – both West and East coast – from the original Storyboard Prods. I own prints of all screened except for my favorite: a spot for Mennen aftershave. A rectangle of wrinkles around a pair of eyes. Mennen helps the lines smooth out, and the commercial uses abstraction for a very funny commercial. It was the first time I’d seen this commercial. They certainly were creative back then. Hubley repeated the use of abstraction in a number of other, later spots. I’m thinking particularly of one done in the early 70s for AT&T; Tissa David animated.

Beautiful reconstructed prints from MOMA included Adventures of an * and Tender Game. One was more beautiful than the other. Both are great films.

Voyage to Next was represented with a beautiful print, though I have to say, I never really liked this film. I had a lot to do with the making of it, and it really was a challenge and a great learning experience. About a third of the way through the production money ran out, and we had a film to get out with a small but great staff. There was a lot of stylistic improvisation done to try tokeep on a vbery tight budget, while being artful. It was a tough time for the Hubleys, and they stayed true to the film at hand.

Finally, the evening ended with a beautiful animatic called Facade. These were storyboards filmed (with slates) for a William Walton and Edith Sitwell score. John Canemaker actually located and got the rights to a version with Edith Sitwell, herself, actually doing the narration. Miraculously, it all seemed well in sync. This piece was done in 1964 as a sample for PBS., though the film was never completed. A real find for Canemaker straight from the Hubley collection. A film not seen by the public (and it hasn’t made its way into animation history books, either.)

All in all the show was so invigorating that the Academy had a hard time getting rid of us. People stayed and chatted in the lobby. It was a great event.

John and Joe, Heidi and I went out for dinner so we could chat about the program. I had a blast all night; it was one of the finest animation events I’d attended in many years.

Here are pictures I took during the evening.

The Program
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The cocktail party

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LtoR: John Canemaker, Georgia Hubley, Emily Hubley, Will Rosenthal

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LtoR: unknown, Patrick Harrison, Georgia Hubley, John Canemaker,
unknown in rear, Emily Hubley, Will Rosenthal

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LtoR: me, John Canemaker, Patrick Harrison

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LtoR: Emily Hubley, George Griffin, Vinnie Cafarelli,
Candy Kugel, John Canemaker

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LtoR: Mark Hubley, Candy Kugel, Vinnie Cafarelli

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LtoR: Ed Smith, Vinnie Cafarelli

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LtoR: Vinnie Cafarelli, Tissa David, Lee Corey, Ed Smith

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LtoR: Vinnie Cafarelli, Ruth Mane, Tissa David
Lee Corey (partially hidden), Ed Smith

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at table LtoR: Ed Smith, Heidi Stallings, Vinnie Cafarelli,
Ruth Manne, Tissa David
in rear, standing with winde glass: George Griffin w/Jeff Scher and wife, Bonnie.

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The three Hubley Oscars for (LtoR): Moonbird,
The Hole, The Tijuana Brass Double Feature.

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Audience front row (RtoL):
John Canemaker, Joe Kennedy, my empty seat,
Heidi Stallings, Tissa David, Ruth Mane
2nd Row, over empty seat: Stephen MacQuignon
3rd row (RtoL): Ed Smith, Richard O’Connor

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LtoR:Tissa David, Heidi Stallings, Joe Kennedy, John Canemaker

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Patrick Harrison giving thanks and introducing John Canemaker.

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John Canemaker giving PowerPoint presentation
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The following images were photograped during the PowerPoint
presentation or during the films. Consequently, they often soft focus.
With apologies.
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A very young John Hubley

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An early John Hubley painting

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A gag cartoon from Hubley. Self portrait in straight-jacket.

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Rooty Toot Toot

Images from Facade follow:

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The animatic was done in 1964.

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Stylistically it feels like:
Moonbird, The Hole and The Hat crushed into one.

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Beautiful B&W oil paintings

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Very much like Moonbird

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The Hat for this animated duck-like character

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Toward the end of the film there was one extremely long vertical pan.
It was an oil painting done by John, beautiful in its simplicity, perfectly
planned to fill a good 45 secs to a minute of screen time and yet it
was so compositionally correct and glosiously layed out.

All I can say is that I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to have
worked with John & Faith Hubley; it was all that it could have been and more.
One of the high spots of my life.

- The Hubley show last night was brilliant. A first rate job by John Canemaker. Most of the prints were spotless and beuatiful (something you rarely see with Hubley films – the DVD copies are soft focus and poorly transferred.) I’ll write about it later in the week. I have a lot of photos to add to that post.

I’ve been posting some pieces about the Hubley work. Given the start I had concentrating on it, I can’t come down so quickly. There’ll be a couple more posts on his work this week. This piece is something you won’t see projected any time soon. It’s an industrial done for AT&T originally posted back in July, 2009.

– In 1965, John Hubley directed animation inserts for an educational film for Jerry Fairbanks Productions and AT&T. It’s the story of the history of the telephone and how it works. The story, such that it is, tells about two kids visiting their uncle, an animator (actually, an actor playing an animator). He gives them an animated lecture on the story of the phone.

The film reminds me very much of another film done by the Hubley studio. UPKEEP was the history of the IBM repairman. We travel through history to see how the repairman has worked over the years. It’s a successful device that works in John’s hands.

The film is available to view on the Prelinger Film Archives. I’ve made some frame grabs to post to give an idea of the style. The characters seem to shift a bit stylistically from the humans at the beginning to those later at the circus. From Hubley to Jay Ward. This was a period where John Hubley was beginning to experiment with more expeditious styles for the jobs that came in. The more artful Maypo style was a bit complicated to pull off. The cels, here, are cel-painted traditionally. (I actually have a hard time believing the date on this film – 1965. It feels more like late 50′s.)

The backgrounds are all by John Hubley, and they remind me of those he would do for UPKEEP and PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE. Lots of white space and soft images. The animation looks like it was done by several people. I recognize Emery Hawkins‘ style, and I also can see Bill Littlejohn in there.

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The animator’s studio.

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Kids are always fascinated when an animator draws.

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The character goes from this . . .

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. . . to this.

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The caveman has to deliver a message.

This is the full length of his run, the pan wherein the character
runs from being a caveman to an Egyptian to a Roman.

Here’s the same BG broken into four parts:

A

B

C

D

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Once on horseback, man travels through
the middle ages to the pony express.

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Man turns to smoke signals to communicate.

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Then flashing lights.

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Morse invents the telegraph.

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Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.

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Now the animator explains how the telephone works
to two very interested children. .

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We get the fable about the lion who calls . . .

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. . . a raven.

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Though he shouts too loudly into the phone.

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Then there’s the squirrel who can dial the phone . . .

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. . . and the bear who answers the phone too late.

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No one there.

Then there’s the elephant who dials the wrong number.

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Finally there’s the pig who won’t get off the phone
so the fox can make an important call.

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Next the animator takes the kids to the police station.

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This way the cop can tell the kids how to make emergency calls.

The End. Too bad John & Faith didn’t write it.

This will be the program for the Hubley show at the Academy in New York, tonight at 7pm.
I believe there many be some tickets still left for it, but check before you come.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents
A SALUTE TO JOHN HUBLEY (1914-1977)
October 10, 2011

Program curated by John Canemaker and Emily Hubley
Hosted by John Canemaker

1. PERSONAL REPORT – excerpt from 10 April 1963 Channel 13 TV kinescope with John Hubley and Harlow Shapley –
film courtesy Hubley Family Collection

2. Power Point introduction by John Canemaker

3. BROTHERHOOD OF MAN (1945) (UPA/United Auto Workers) – film courtesy AMPAS
Direction: Robert Cannon
Screen Story: Ring Lardner, Jr.; Maurice Rapf; John Hubley; Phil Eastman
Animation: Robert Cannon, Ken Harris, Ben Washam
Production Design: John Hubley, Paul Julian
Background: Boris Gorelick
Music: Paul Smith
Executive Producer: Stephen Bosustow
Source: “Races of Mankind” (1943) by Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish

4. FLAT HATTING (1946) (UPA/US Navy) – film courtesy NARA/AMPAS
Director: John Hubley
Layout: John Hubley, William Hurtz
Story: Millard Kaufman
Voice: William Conrad]

5. THE MAGIC FLUKE (1949) (UPA/Columbia) – film courtesy Sony/AMPAS
Direction: John Hubley
Supervision: Ade Woolery
Production: Ed Gershman
Story: Sol Barzman
Music: Del Castillo
Design: Herb Klynn, Jules Engel, Bill Hurtz
Technical: Max Morgan, Mary Cain
Animation: Bob Cannon, Rudy Larriva, Willy Pyle, Pat Mathews [sic]
Executive Producer: Steve Bosustow

6. THE RAGTIME BEAR (1949) UPA/Columbia Jolly Frolics) – film courtesy Sony/AMPAS
Direction: John Hubley
Story: Millard Kaufman
Production: Ed Gershman
Design: William Hurtz
Color: Herb Klynn, Jules Engel
Animation: Art Babbitt, Pat Matthews, Rudy Larriva, Willy Pyle
Technical: Max Morgan, Mary Cain, Jack Eckes
Music: Del Castillo
Executive Producer: Steve Bosustow

7. ROOTY TOOT TOOT (1952) (UPA) – film courtesy Sony/AMPAS
(released for Oscar consideration in 1951)
Director: John Hubley
Lyrics: Allen Alch
Music: Phil Moore
Choreography: Olga Lunick
Writers: John Hubley, Bill Scott
Animation: Art Babbitt, Pat Matthews, Tom McDonald, Grim Natwick
Color and Design: Paul Julian
Technical Supervision: Sherm Glas
Production Manager: Herb Klynn
Executive Producer: Stephen Bosustow

INTERMISSION

8. TV COMMERCIAL REEL (14 spots, c. 1950s & 60s) Hubley’s Storyboard Studio – film courtesy Hubley Family Collection
Design/layout: John Hubley
Animation by various artists, including Art Babbitt, Emery Hawkins.

9. ADVENTURES OF AN ASTERIX (1957) (Hubley Studio) –
film courtesy MoMA
Design and Direction by John Hubley
Story by John Hubley and Faith Elliot
In collaboration with James Johnson Sweeney
Animation: Emery Hawkins
Assisted by Ed Smith
Film Editor Faith Elliot
Music by Benny Carter

10. THE TENDER GAME (1958) – Hubley Studio –
film courtesy MOMA
Design and Direction by John Hubley
Editing by Faith Elliot
Musical interpretation by The Oscar Peterson Trio
Vocal by Ella Fitzgerald
Animation: Ed Smith, Robert Cannon, Jack Schnerk, Emery Hawkins

11. VOYAGE TO NEXT (1974) – Hubley Studio –
film courtesy AMPAS
Directed by John Hubley
Produced by Faith Hubley
Scenario by Faith and John Hubley
Music composed and conducted by Dizzy Gillespie
Voices: Maureen Stapleton and Dizzy Gillespie
Design and backgrounds by John and Faith Hubley
Animation: Phil Duncan, Bill Liuttlejohn, Earl James.
Assisted by Michael Sporn.

12. FACADE (c. 1960s) – Hubley Studio -
35mm animatic storyboards for unfinished short of William Walton/Edith Sitwell 1927 abstract music score –
film courtesy of Hubley Family Collection
No credits available.

13. John Canemaker moderates Q&A with Emily Hubley and Michael Sporn.

- Here are three pieces of Public Sculpture that New Yorkers see on a daily basis and probably don’t see as they move right on by.

One that stands out is this balancing elephant just off U-nion Square park.

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Spanish artist Miquel Barcelò has contributed a
gravity-defying elephant to U-nion Square. The 15,000 pound,
26-foot tall bronze sculpture, “Gran Elefandret”, has traveled from
Madrid and Barcelona and now sits amidst the transportation and
cultural bridge between Uptown and Downtown Manhattan.

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Brought to NYC by the Marlborough Gallery in conjunction with the
U-nion Square Partnership, the elephant balances on its trunk with
its four legs outspread above its sagging skin. “The Gran Elefandret”,
completed in 2008, is a continuation of the zoological themes found
in much of Barcelò’s former work. In addition, the detail of the
textured skin recalls the artists’ highly tactile, layered paintings,
many of which take the form of sculptures on canvas.
He draws inspiration from nature, from artists such as Jackson Pollock a
nd Willem de Kooning, and from his time in West Africa.

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Born in Mallorca in 1957, Barcelò has been an active artist since the 1970s.
He was a part of Taller Llunátic which voiced its socio-political opposition to
the Spanish government during the 1970s and also pushed the boundaries
of the established art world. Barcelò now collaborates with the Fundación
Vicente Ferrer and the Eyes of the World Foundation and participates in projects
for Sahrawi refugee camps. He has received international awards and
commissions during his expansive career as an artist.

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The “Gran Elefandret” will be on view until May 2012.

The second and more permanent part of New York is the enormous “Unisphere” globe that arrived with the NY World’s Fair back in 1964.

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This is pretty much what it looked like on opening day.
It sits in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, NY.
It was one of the few buildings not destroyed
when the Fair ended in 1965.

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This is pretty much what it looks like today.

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Steve Fisher sought a more intimate look in these remaining photos.

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Steve Fisher also photographed these tiny sculptures in the 14th Street train station at 8th Avenue. They’re bronze and just a bit out of the way, so they can be easily missed.

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Greenwich Village is probably half owned by NYU. There are endless numbers of housing units for teachers and students spread out all over the area. One little enclosed area off University Place had this quiet little walkway on which I found the following statue.

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It reads: This statue was presented to the City of New York
by the Mayor of Madrid, Spain in 1986.
Presented in Bryant Park before being entrusted
to New York University in 1989.

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Finally, we have this clock on Houston Street in the village that has a man waving. Very peculiar. This photo also came via Steve Fisher.

The story behind this building is simple.
It was named “Red Square” by Michael Rosen who built it.
Tibor Kalman was hired to complete it. The Statue of Vladimir Lenin
atop “Red Square” luxury apartments in NY City’s East Village is by
Sculptor Yuri Gerasimov and was Installed on the building in 1994.

- I enjoy reviewing and assessing the past week on these Saturday blog posts. It gives me a chance to reflect on what had happened in the recent past and spilling my thoughts out here.

In the last week, I purposefully put John Hubley front and foremost on my blog’s mind. With the upcoming AMPAS show on Monday, I found a good excuse to pull together a lot of the past pieces I’d done on Hubley’s work and drawing. He was one of the foremost fine artists of animation’s past, and it seems to me his name, like many others of the period, are falling into the historic dumpster of time. His accomplishments were many that helped shape who and what we and animation are today. Yet, it feels as though we’ve stepped back into the mid-thirties with the computerized-accomplishments of cgi.
Animation HAS taken an enormous step backward, yet it keeps the future-seeking part of the business in the line of vision.

By that I mean that cgi has forced a concentration of life-like looking little puppet characters that appear superficially “real.” It’s nothing more than a cartoon version of 19th century illustration. Gone are
John Hubley all the strides that 2D animation had made

are left to the 2nd rate TV animation or the small-time boutique filmmakers. Any progress that graphic stylization and animation graphic motion has developed over the years has been put out to pasture in the business model of 2011 and sent to the low-budget creators. This, to me, is probably a sure sign that animation will wither, at least for a while, except in the hands of the creative entrepreneurs and feisty animators.

John Kricfalusi has this week shown off a nice graphic piece of animation he did for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. He’s successfully experimented with movement and has fallen back on his usual sense of graphic design. The piece is a real contribution to the language of animation (perhaps equal to a new punctuation mark), but we have to take note that this is relegated to a bumper for a lot of terrible TV animation designed for 16 year old boys. It’s wasted there. In a way, more successful was his guest animation for the __________John Kricfalusi
opening titles of The Simpsons. Actually,
this animation in its content and stylization (both graphic and animated) were more daring. It brought back memories of the coarse and graphic animation done by Klasky-Csupo for the first incarnations of The Simpsons. One wonders whether the show would have been as successful if they had continued doing what they’d done in those first pieces and episodes of Matt Groening’s work.

But back to John Hubley. He has to have been the finest artist and the best draw-er I’ve met in animation. His loose scribbles revealed worlds beneath them and his oil paintings burst with imagination and lively colors. Nothing was unintentional although it all worked in an improvisational way. Like the ad-libbed voices, Hubley liked seeing his artists improvise their way out of scenes. He called on the creativity of the lowliest employee to create those wonderful films. For those who didn’t want every 16th frame drawn out and planned for them, Hubley’s method was liberating and challenging and wonderful. Animators like Tissa David and Bill Littlejohn and Barrie Nelson thrived on the way they were handed whole films and pushed to create. Films like Windy Day or Cockaboody or Of Stars and Men glowed off this improvisation, and whole new bits of language sprouted from these works.

Animators: Bill Littlejohn, Tissa David, and Barrie Nelson

Those who worked for Hubley felt as though they were creating something important, films that had something to say and looked beautiful. Needless to say, they (we) loved the experience. Isn’t that all we could hope for in this business?

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- Talking about extreme design, John Schnall has to be one of the most entertaining guys out there. He continually comes up with funny and artful pieces which he puts on his website. His most recent piece is an interactive keyboard called The Interactive Crappy Piano. I suggest you try playing it and see where it gets you.

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Phillip Burke’s QUICKDRAW

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- J.J. Sedelmaier has an entertaining piece on the Imprint site about the first elements used to showcase the sale of Hanna-Barbera and the rise of Cartoon Network. You’ll be entertained by the beautiful cards on display. (Especially if you have a fondness for the early HB years.)

- Bill Peckmann sent me a couple of comics that demonstrated a great collaboration between Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis. With that small bit of information, let me turn it over to Bill:

I thought it would be fun to give your readers some milestones in the collaborating efforts of Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis. It will be done in the form of showing #1 issues of certain comic book and magazine titles. I’ve always felt that the relationship of Harvey, and Jack was not that dissimilar from that of John Ford and John Wayne. All men were very successful in their own right but when they teamed up there was that extra spark in their art. Ford and Kurtzman would lay these wonderful creative foundations and then Davis and Wayne came in to add the finishing touches. For both teams, the final product always seemed so effortless and seamless.

Part 1 – FRONTLINE COMBAT (comic book) and MAD (comic book)

Part 2 – MAD (magazine) and TRUMP (magazine)

Part 3 – Humbug (magazine) and HELP ( magazine)

Here are those pages, with Bill’s comments:

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Harvey’s bio that ran in EC Comics
during the publication of the war comcs.

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Jack’s bio.

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A little over a year after FRONTLINE COMBAT came out in 1951, MAD started in 1952.

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This is the first page of the first comic book that started
an institution that is still with us almost 60 years later.

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It’s easy to forget, but up until this time, there had never been
quite a story like this in comic books.