Articles on Animation &Comic Art &Commentary 10 Jun 2010 08:19 am
Canemaker & Gross & Kimball and Mars
- John Canemaker has a new article about Milt Gross for his monthly piece at Print Magazine‘s website. Essentially, it’s a loving piece reviewing the new collection of The Complete Milt Gross which was edited by Craig Yoe.
I’ve long loved Milt Gross’ work and have closely studied the MGM shorts he did. They don’t quite capture the zaniness of the comic strip work, but he was obviously an inspiration for so much of the animation that was done in Hollywood back then.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if some people found inspiration in his work today and applied it to their animation artwork. Something other than the endlessly angular characters that we’re force-fed these days!
- Speaking of John Canemaker, he’s just loaned me a Ward Kimball scene from Peter and the Wolf. It’s about 500 drawings long, and will take me forever, but I’m going to start posting it next week. The walk cycle of all walk cycles. Something to look forward to (endless scanning and downloading), a great piece of animation to study.
The image above is a good sample.
Mars: SXSW will be playing tonight at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Cinemafest in NYC at 9:30 PM. There will be one show only. Filmmaker, Geoff Marslett will be there along with several cast and crew!
The film is a completely rotoscoped space adventure done by the guy who gave us Monkey vs. Robot and Bubblecraft.
For a trailer go here.
on 10 Jun 2010 at 10:58 am 1.Joel Brinkerhoff said …
I’ve always been a little confused by Gross. I think his work is funny but kind of poorly drawn. Is it the spontaneity of his drawings? I kind of associate Milt Gross with animator Jim Tyer. Both have a distinct style and cult followings.
As for Gross influencing Hollywood, there maybe something to that. But I’ve always felt Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) pioneered many of the gags we have seen on screen 40 years before anyone else in print. Please check out my posting on Busch here:
http://joelbrinkerhoff.blogspot.com/2006/08/cartoon-inspiration.html
on 10 Jun 2010 at 11:15 am 2.Michael said …
I agree with you on Busch (I have a treasured original litho of his Hans and Fritz). A lot of his brilliant work ended up in animation.
When I said that I felt Gross influenced animation – especially in the late 30′s (non-Disney) I meant, particularly, his drawing style. You can see it all over WB and MGM. I was also told by animator, Lu Guarnier (who was an assitant at WB) that Gross was kept in high esteem. They all raced to his daily strip.
Rod Scribner pushed what Gross did even further and Jim Tyer took Gross about five levels beyond it.
on 10 Jun 2010 at 1:36 pm 3.Daniel Caylor said …
Cannot wait for the Ward Kimball scene!
on 10 Jun 2010 at 8:10 pm 4.Eric Noble said …
It took me a bit, but now I love Milt Gross’s drawing style. You can feel it bursting with energy that just cannot be contained. I want to be able to get that same energy into my drawing. I can’t wait to buy this book. I’m also excited to see that Ward Kimball scene broken down. Thank you for posting these.
on 11 Jun 2010 at 7:17 am 5.Hachtman said …
Milt Gross it the greatest and I’m delighted to see this. I’d never heard those ten rules – I agree with them all. THANKS!!