Atlantic County Cartoons

NEW WEBSITE

2008-09-18T11:08:00.002-04:00

Atlantic County Cartoons now has its own website:

http://www.atlanticcartoons.com

See ya there!

All About Atlantic County

2008-09-09T22:25:00.001-04:00

Atlantic County is a county of contrasts. On the eastern side, we have Atlantic City, population 40,368 (not counting tourists, suburbanite commuters, and jitneys).

On the western side, we have Hammonton, population 12,604 (not counting migrant workers, blueberry bushes, and religious statuaries).

Between these extremes, shades and flavors of both can be found. For instance, the blink-and-you-miss-it splendor that is Corbin City, our southernmost municipality, has a population of 520. Egg Harbor Township, the bane of Census-takers since the 1990s, has a population of ~~30,000~~ ~~32,000~~ ~~36,000~~ ~~39,000~~ (ah, screw it ... who knows anymore?).

Anyway, through the magic of the internets, I am pleased to present you with a birds-eye tour of this majestic land. Let’s start with the arbitrarily-drawn geographical boundaries ...

PART ONE: The Shore

First on the list, we have the Atlantic City area ... which, for the sake of this article, will also include neighboring towns of Brigantine, Ventnor, Margate, and Longport.

There’s more to Atlantic City than casinos, beaches, and the homeless. The city also boasts some of the fanciest marble-type curbs I’ve ever seen on any public thoroughfare. And while you might think that Atlantic City’s historic reputation as a bastion of governmental corruption and greed would be an embarrassment to the regional populace, nothing could be further from the truth! We love to tune in and see what kind of crazy shenanigans the city council will get involved with next ... from sex-tape scandals, to disappearing mayors ... the storyline always keeps us guessing.

Will philanthropy and integrity ever find their way into Atlantic City Council? Tune in next week ...

The nearby cities of Ventnor, Margate, Longport and Brigantine, while not as newsworthy, are still rather interesting in their own rights. Margate features one of America’s great natural wonders: Lucy the Elephant. According to her keepers, Lucy is the only elephant in the world that you can walk through ... and come out alive. Yes indeed!

PART TWO: The Route 9 Corridor

This includes the bay-bordering cities of Absecon, Pleasantville, Northfield, Linwood, and Somers Point.

The socio-economic patterns of the Route 9 corridor boggle the mind. In Linwood, wealthy enclaves and professional buildings spread in all directions. In Pleasantville, residential decay, apathy, and businesses taking advantage of a halved sales-tax rate are the order o’ the day. Northfield, while not entirely opulent, generally leans toward the Linwood demographic, while Absecon and Somers Point fall somewhere in the middle. Regardless of income levels or ethnic makeup, these places all have one thing in common: HAUTE CUISINE. Visiting any of these cities will yield a wide selection of culinary options, from fast food, sub shops, and delis, to fancy restaurants with oak paneling.

PART THREE: The Suburbs

This includes half of Galloway Township, all of Egg Harbor Township, and the Eastern quarter of Hamilton Township. Why so arbitrary? Because it’s my article.

For those who don’t know the saga, I will regale you: In the late 1970s, the State Pinelands Commission was created to regulate development in the ecologically sensitive area of New Jersey called the Pinelands (or Pine Barrens, depending on how folksy you’d like to come across as). Much of Atlantic County is engulfed by the Pinelands, and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the Pinelands Commission. Apparently somebody in the Commission came up with the bright idea of channeling heavy development into designated areas in order to save the more remote and sensitive areas from being developed. In theory, this was good. In real life, it didn’t exactly work out so well.

Portions of Galloway, Hamilton, and Egg Harbor Townships were given the lucky designations, and since then, their respective populations have increased by thousands. Unfortunately, some things such as infrastructure and school funding were not adequately considered in the plan, and there have been some (actually, quite a lot) of problems related to these issues. How did these towns handle their burdens?

Galloway, for the most part, prepared by segregating their obligations into different parts of the township (i.e., schools in one section, low-income housing in another, senior housing in another, etc.). Hamilton built a mall in the middle of nowhere, and thus turned the immediate area into a booming commercial district. Egg Harbor Township copes with the burden by incessantly blaming the Pinelands Commission. Apparently it is an effective strategy, as the mayor of E.H.T. has been re-elected without fail for over 20 years. Who knew that blame could be the basis of an entire political career?

Egg Harbor Township Mayor “Sonny” McCullough ... who also built a golf course on top of a landfill and named it after himself.

PART FOUR: The County Seat / The South

This includes most of Hamilton Township, Weymouth Township, Estell Manor, and Corbin City.

The general ambiance in this section of the county is Small Town Americana™. Mays Landing, in Hamilton Township, is the official seat of county government, or so they claim; actually, most of the government decisions are made in Atlantic City (where the county operates a 13-story office building) or in Northfield (where the weekly Freeholder meetings take place). But hey, at least Mays Landing still has the jail and the Criminal Court Complex.

The Old County Courthouse in Downtown Mays Landing

Weymouth Township stinks with history. On Route 50, going south, there are the remains of a once-thriving World War I industrial town called Belcoville. It sprang up practically overnight in the autumn of 1917, but before the paint on the town hall was dry, tragedy struck: we won the war. Today, Belcoville is a shadow of its former glory, although there are still a number of residents occupying old or entirely rebuilt houses in town.

Estell Manor is technically a city; one of the largest, geographically, in the entire state. Yet the population is less than 2,000. How does it do it? Why, with land! Lots of land. Much of Estell Manor’s acreage is held by State or Federal wildlife agencies, thereby protecting it from any major development projects.

Unfortunately, there is one development project that threatens Estell Manor’s pastoral ways, and ironically, it is coming from Atlantic County Government. They plan to expand the Veterans’ Cemetery in the county-owned Estell Manor Park, which in itself is not an issue ... but their plans to expand the cemetery will include the displacement of a heavily-used nature trail as well as the destruction of one of the last remaining stands of mature pine trees in the entire park. There are many other areas within the park that are better suited for a cemetery expansion, but they have been suggested to no avail. Thank you Dennis Levinson, for your gutless acquiescence to the Veteran Vote.

Dennis Levinson, the County Executive ... Also a Career Politician ... and Successful Idiot

PART FIVE: North Country

This includes Mullica Township, part of Galloway Township, Egg Harbor City and Port Republic. No inbreeding jokes, please.

This part of the county is decent and rural; it’s the God-fearing-est, Republican-est, Love-It-Or-Leave-It-est, Embodiment of Mother and Nation-est, Apple Pie-est, Don’t-Touch-My-Guns-est, Pickup-Drivin’-est, Venison-Chawin’-est, Red-Headed-est, Blue-Eyed-est, Five-Cars-in-the-Yard-Plus-Six-That-Don’t-Run-est, Church-Goin'-est, Pine-Scented-est, Anti-Arugula-Eating-est, FRESH-PLOWED PIECE OF REAL ESTATE IN THESE HYAR PARTS. Yeehaw!

I grew up in Mullica, so you will naturally have to excuse me as I get rather choked up in mentioning it. Ah, memories ... mowing the moss ... digging holes in the yard ... forgetting to fill them back up again (oops!) ... but I digress.

Mullica itself is divided into sections. Each section has a local flavor. For example: Elwood is the most populous and ethnically diverse section (13% black, 36% Hispanic, and possibly someone who is half-Indian). Devonshire is where the local farm czars, The Butterhofs, control the economy. Sweetwater, enjoying its climb into the higher tax brackets, boasts an increasing number of ginormous and opulent homes (also known as McMansions). Weekstown is owned by the neighborhood church, so NO SINNING! And Nesco is ... well, we won’t get into what Nesco is.

PART SIX: The West

The last leg of our Atlantic County tour covers Hammonton, Folsom, Buena Vista Township, and Buena Borough. Important tip: people look at you funny if you pronounce it as anything except “Byoo-na”.

Buena Vista Township is predominantly a farming community with some amenities for the non-agriculturally-inclined. One interesting thing about the township is that it has more ZIP codes per square mile than any other town in Atlantic County, with a total of seven ZIP codes serving a combined area of 41 square miles.

Hammonton is such a self-sufficient town, that you could almost consider it a nation unto itself. In fact, unlike any other town in Atlantic County, Hammonton operates its own municipal sewage treatment plant.

Let me pause for a moment to let the full impact of what I’ve told you sink in.

On second thought, we'd better not get hung up on the sewer plant, otherwise there will be no room for the many other highlights of Hammonton ... such as their proud status as the Blueberry Capitol of the World! And their state-of-the-art High School! And, of course, the Ronald Reagan Rock - dedicated to the memory of his visit to town and ensuing speech in September 1984. It was a day that will live on forever in the minds of those who witnessed it! ... I assume.

I hope you found this article informative and amusing, and I hope that I was able to impart a little of the texture, flavor, color, and political nonsense of Old Atlantic County to you. This is Dennis Hyer signing off ...

(Written for the Atlantic County Cartoons website)

Comics I forgot to post in the last month ...

2008-08-28T23:15:00.004-04:00

Some serious time slippage has occurred since I last posted anything here, so I ceremoniously present a couple more comic strips (what else?) ...

Goombye

2008-07-25T15:26:00.002-04:00

Siren of the Sweet Peas

2008-07-23T23:48:00.002-04:00

Lockout

2008-07-10T23:13:00.001-04:00

Hail Mary, full of ... weight!

Welcome to Kirouki's

2008-07-07T17:17:00.001-04:00

This is the 12th daily strip I've drawn since May. At this rate I will have enough cartoons to fill a book ... by the 3rd year of Obama's presidency? Hmmm.

More Owen Fitzgerald

2008-07-04T22:25:00.004-04:00

John K. has been doing a bunch of excellent posts analyzing Owen Fitzgerald's cartooning skills, and in doing so has made me want to further study Owen's work.

Instead of just drawing his poses out-of-context (like I used to do), this time I drew the whole panel to see how he composed his pictures and placed his characters. I didn't try to make them look solid and well done, since I was just trying to see how he went about composing the action in the panels.

(Oh yeah, and I don't know what's up with the dialogue I put into the word balloons on the first page ... it was late at night and I thought it was funny!)

Babysitting Strip

2008-07-01T15:06:00.004-04:00

I don't know what else to call this one.

Astrological Inhuman Relations

2008-06-20T22:22:00.003-04:00

Mixing astrology with Milk of Magnesia produces a rather fizzy comic ...

Desert Madness!

2008-06-06T11:43:00.007-04:00

Milt Gray recently analyzed Bob Clampett's black and white cartoons over on John K.'s blog, and one of the standout cartoons he mentioned was "Porky in Egypt" ... which was illustrated with a couple of awesome frame grabs of Porky's camel losing his marbles under the desert sun. What an eye opener! If there are any Clampett haters out there scoffing at these frames, maybe you stayed out in the heat too long ...

I recommend that you go to John K.'s blog and read the entire post (and see all of the frame grabs, instead of just these from "Porky in Egypt").

And if these frames have piqued your interest, you can watch the entire cartoon right here ...

Inhuman Relations - Prime Time TV

2008-06-04T14:29:00.001-04:00

This is what happens to people who try to watch TV with me ...

Unscrupulousity

2008-06-02T18:43:00.001-04:00

Here is humanity in a nutshell ...

Oh the Inhumanity

2008-05-31T20:36:00.004-04:00

I'm running out of wise-ass titles for these cartoon posts. I think I'll just play it straight from now on.

More Cartoons From Me Again For the Second Time

2008-05-19T16:21:00.004-04:00

I forgot to put these up for whoever is interested ...

Inhuman Relations # I don't know

2008-05-02T23:09:00.003-04:00

How many of these things have I drawn? I can't remember, so here is the latest ...

Betty and Louis

2008-04-28T10:37:00.010-04:00

Lately I've gotten to be a big fan of Louis Prima, particularly his later recordings with Keely Smith ("Just a Gigolo" and "That Old Black Magic" are two of my favorites). The man has an unmistakable voice!

So when I watched the following Betty Boop cartoon from 1931, and heard someone singing who sounded a lot (and I mean A LOT) like Louis Prima, I had to Google the situation to find out if my hunch was right or if I was just crazy. Well I guess I'm just crazy, because I couldn't find anything about Louis Prima and Betty Boop together (aside from a fan-made video comparing their different versions of "Just a Gigolo"). So you'll have to decide for yourself if this is really him singing about the Delaware Lackawanna and going insane at the end of this terrific cartoon. What do you think? ...

"Mask-a-Raid" (1931)

Visit Polly and Her Pals

2008-04-27T16:29:00.002-04:00

The fine folks at Barnacle Press have posted a large number of Cliff Sterrett's "Polly and Her Pals" daily strips. You should hurry over and take a look!

You should also bookmark the Barnacle Press website, because they have hundreds (if not thousands) of other classic newspaper comic strips available to read for free.

Inhuman Relations #7

2008-04-18T20:32:00.001-04:00

Two Catholic school girls walk into a bar, and ...

Inhuman Relations #6

2008-03-21T11:42:00.005-04:00

Fun with Income Taxes and Feminine Instincts of Protection ...

"Night Nurse" and Forbidden Hollywood

2008-03-06T20:36:00.005-05:00

Yes, after many sleepless nights and painful yearning, "Night Nurse" has finally been released on DVD (with four other movies that are almost as good) ...

... and you guessed it! I'm going to make yet another post about it!

In this new Forbidden Hollywood DVD set, you can see some great profane films from the early 1930s, with provocative titles like "The Divorcee", "A Free Soul", "Three on a Match", "Female", and of course, the best one of all, "Night Nurse", which has been restored to astounding clarity of picture. And anything that gives me a crisp and clearer picture of a young Barbara Stanwyck is Grade A in my book.

Aside from simply being a good movie, "Night Nurse" is also an interesting example of efficiency and leanness in filmmaking. It's only 75 minutes long, but the director and actors give us more than our money's worth in those 75 minutes. There is not one boring frame in the entire film. Another thing about this movie is that there is a startling amount of female flesh on display (for 1931 standards, at least). I suspect that is a major contributor to the film's lack of boringness ...

But what is the movie about (besides nurses being out of uniform), you might ask? OK, even if you already know, I'll tell you just so I can use some picturesque verbiage.

A nice young woman named Lora Hart, whose cup of compassion and humanity runneth over, wants to be a nurse at a big city hospital. After a few obstacles and misadventures (see pictures above) she finally makes the grade, and is assigned a job as a night nurse for two sick little girls in a big mansion. The girls' mother is a hopeless drunk, and the chauffeur is an evil schemer who wants to kill the kids in order to get ahold of the money their late father left them.

Along the way, Lora removes a bullet from the arm of a kind-hearted gangster / bootlegger, who throughout the movie tries to get her to go out with him by swearing he has given up his illegal ways and "gone legit".

She doesn't buy it.

Anyway, as the kids she is caring for sink deeper and deeper into ill health, Lora decides to seek out the boozehound mother, who is partying somewhere in the mansion, to explain to her that her children are dying. Here (for the third time on this blog) is a killer clip from this scene, complete with violence, disgust and uncaged nurse fury. This is the kind of clip that you can't see too many times.

The final verdict: What are you waiting for? Buy this thing!

Inhuman Relations #5

2008-02-21T20:37:00.001-05:00

A night out at Maureen's favorite restaurant turns messy ...

Mystery of the Wax Museum!

2008-02-02T23:47:00.000-05:00

This is a test I am conducting to see how well embedded movies from the Internet Archive work here on Blogger. So be a good guinea pig and watch this feature-length early Technicolor mystery that will give you many pleasurable sensations (like Glenda Farrell!).

Copied from IMDB:

In London, sculptor Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) struggles in vain to prevent his partner Worth (Edwin Maxwell) from burning his wax museum...and his 'children.' Years later, Igor starts a new museum in New York, but his maimed hands confine him to directing lesser artists. People begin disappearing (including a corpse from the morgue); Igor takes a sinister interest in Charlotte Duncan (Fay Wray), fiancée of his assistant Ralph (Allen Vincent), but arouses the suspicions of Charlotte's roommate, wisecracking reporter Florence (Glenda Farrell).

"Mystery of the Wax Museum"

Comic Book Land

2008-01-25T12:12:00.000-05:00

Here's a great Terrytoon with Gandy Goose and Sourpuss the Cat, called "Comic Book Land". I actually have a silent copy of this cartoon in Super 8mm format, but it's in black and white and about 3 minutes have been cut to make it fit on a 50 foot reel.

Also watch for some great Carlo Vinci dance animation!

Porky in Wackyland

2008-01-21T21:17:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I never posted this cartoon before. Here is Porky in Wackyland, directed by Bob Clampett in 1938 ...

Porky's Railroad

2008-01-20T23:47:00.000-05:00

Another black and white Looney Tunes 'toon, directed by Frank Tashlin in 1937 ...

"Porky's Railroad"

Nothing exciting to add about this cartoon, it's just seven minutes of fun.

What Price Porky?

2008-01-19T20:13:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling nostalgic for the OLD Atlantic County Cartoons blog, where every day I would put up a classic cartoon for the enjoyment of animation aficionados. Maybe I should try it again? Here is a war-themed Looney Tunes short from 1938, directed by Bob Clampett (as only he could direct it) ...

Leave it to a great director like Clampett to take a generic premise like the one in this short (ducks steal hens' food on Porky's farm, trench warfare ensues), and shoot it to the outermost limits.

Hiya, Baby Face

2008-01-12T00:45:00.000-05:00

Since it's my birthday, I thought I'd entertain myself and post up a few words about one of my top favorite Barbara Stanwyck movies, the 1933 film "Baby Face". This is the movie that finally made me notice her after all those years of just hearing her name and confusing her with other actresses (for a long time, I thought she was the girl in "Arsenic and Old Lace"). It's interesting that I'd pick this movie to start liking her, because in spite of its racy reputation, "Baby Face" is actually kind of generic, and is basically a ripoff of an even more generic Jean Harlow vehicle that was made a year earlier, called "Red Headed Woman".

The way I heard the story, Warner Bros. was accusing MGM (who made "Red Headed Woman") of getting away with more risque content in their movies, just because they had more money than the other studios. So Warner's made a conscious effort to outdo "Red Headed Woman" to see if the censors were playing favorites. The head honcho at Warner's at the time, Darryl Zanuck, wrote a story that was similar to "Red Headed Woman" (both lead characters were named Lily, both used sex to climb the social ladder, etc.), but made it twice as bawdy.

A somewhat skeptical Barbara Stanwyck was reportedly lured into the project with the promise of the "glamour treatment", as her fans were "getting tired of seeing her in gingham and flannel". But rumor has it that Barbara was also involved in some degree in the story meetings.

Through the miracle of a fat-free screenplay and direction, "Baby Face" takes us from a sleazy speakeasy in Erie, Pennsylvania, to the high life of several New York penthouses, to France, and back to New York, in just an hour and sixteen minutes. The trailer will fill you in on the general premise of the story:

You can see that the movie is not novel or very original, and the dialogue ranges from snappy to just adequate. If it was any other actress, the movie would have slipped into oblivion decades ago. But Barbara Stanwyck's presence gives it a booster shot of warmth and humanity, and she alone rescues "Baby Face" from mediocrity, turning it into a powerful film that is rightly remembered today.

This is a clip from the beginning of the film, when she loses her cool, and tells off her father (who tried to pimp her out to a corrupt politician) ...

And this is a clip from the end of the film. She runs back to the only man she ever loved, only to find that he has decided to end it all. This scene knocked me out the first time I saw it, because Barbara doesn't just kneel over her husband's body and do a "theatrical" kind of weeping ... she does a sincere, genuine kick-your-guts-out, "Holy Christ!", kind of weeping that nobody else in the entire history of motion pictures could ever top, even today. I still get choked up whenever I see it (sue me!).

That's all.

"Golden Boy" Revue

2007-12-27T20:23:00.000-05:00

This DVD was released two months ago by Sony. The cover is actually not as awful as the ones they have been putting on their other classic movies for the last couple of years. But that isn't saying much. It's still pretty bad. The picture of Bill Holden looks like it was taken around the same time as "Golden Boy" was filmed, but poor Barbara -- somebody fished out a picture of her that looks like it was taken several years after this movie. The bad Photoshop colors didn't help, either.

Here's one of the original movie posters, which would have made a great (and cheap) cover, or at least a better one than what they used ...

If they didn't like that poster, there were many others to choose from ...

(A French edition of an American poster, but you get the idea)

Putting aside the lame cover design, the most important part of the DVD -- the content! -- was one thing that didn't disappoint. My only complaint is that the movie looked dark, as though one of the transfer engineers played with the contrast or something. I have the movie on videotape (from 1984), and there are more lighter shades of gray on the video. On the DVD, the whites were whiter, the light grays became dark grays, and the dark grays turned black. I noticed that this is a rampant problem in "restored" old movies that are being released today. I learned to fix the problem by turning up the brightness on my TV!

Sony must have finally taken a page out of Warner Bros' book, because in addition to giving us the movie, they included a startling number of extra features with it:

* "Kangaroo Kid", a cartoon that riffs on the theme of "Golden Boy".
* "Pleased to Mitt You", a comedy short with a boxing theme, featuring Shemp Howard before he (re)joined the Three Stooges
* "Screen Snapshots", a 1930 newsreel-type film that shows stars of the day mugging and clowning for the camera. Includes a young Barbara Stanwyck learning how to play golf from Ricardo Cortez.
* "Sudden Silence", a half-hour anthology episode from 1956 that marked Barbara's dramatic TV debut.

In other words, there was enough interesting material here to keep me amused for a long time. And I enjoy being amused. If you do, too, I recommend this DVD. So buy it, already!

Inhuman Relations #4

2007-12-16T01:27:00.000-05:00

Here is a really epic comic strip that I just finished a couple of hours ago. Click to enlarge (as if you didn't know)!

Antique Perversions: Starring Betty Boop

2007-12-12T22:46:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of old cartoons, which of course is no secret to all of you out there. But today while I was freeze-framing part of a cartoon from 1930 called "Dizzy Dishes" (which was the first Betty Boop cartoon), I found a surprise.

Here is the cartoon on YouTube, which is unfortunately out of sync, but otherwise OK. If you skip to around 3:12 in the video, you will see a prototype Betty as a cabaret singer. But that's not all you'll see ...

I read somewhere that the Fleischer animators used a lot of their observations about life in 1920s and 30s New York in their cartoons. That's why they are so dark, smutty and entertaining. New York must have been quite a place back then.

Another Gross Study

2007-12-08T15:34:00.001-05:00

This week I had a lot of down time at work, so I copied some great pictures out of Milt Gross books ("Dear Dollink" and "I Shoulda Ate the Eclair"). I don't work in an office, so I had to use whatever writing implement or paper that was available, which turned out to be a ball point pen and a dusty legal pad. Not so good for this kind of thing. But here are some of the less bad examples of my efforts ...

The verdict: I'm too "conservative" to be trying to draw Milt Gross! I should stick with Owen Fitzgerald.

Gaston and Josephine, The Little Golden Pigs

2007-11-17T15:02:00.001-05:00

I didn't have enough time to scan the whole book, but this should give you a general idea. "Gaston and Josephine" is a Little Golden Book that was published in 1948, and illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky (more of his great work can be found at the ASIFA Animation Archive). When my sister and I were growing up, my dad told us what he remembered about the story of Gaston and Josephine, The French Pigs, and we thought he was a little screwy. Who would write a story about Two French Pigs? It came up in conversation recently and I looked on eBay to try to prove him wrong, but darn it, he was actually right! There was a copy of the book for sale, so I bought it (I bid a little too much on it, but never mind).

If there is any interest, I'll see about scanning more pages from the book. Until then, here is a small sample ...

Coming Soon ... An Art-Related Post!

2007-11-15T22:49:00.000-05:00

I keep forgetting the name of this blog is Atlantic County Cartoons, and because it's been a month since my last art-related post, I figure I better get the lead out! All you fans of lushly illustrated vintage Little Golden Books, stay tuned for something cool tomorrow ...

Thumbs (And Other Appendages) Down

2007-11-15T17:50:00.000-05:00

I watched a Barbara Stanwyck movie called "Gambling Lady" the other day, and boy was I disappointed! For some reason I thought it was going to be along these lines: Barbara would play a female pit boss who runs an illegal but honest gambling joint, and who don't take no guff from anybody, especially the crooked mobsters who try to put the screws on her clean operation. The story sounds good enough to eat! Unfortunately, the movie was shockingly generic -- which is unusual for Stanwyck's early movies. Even this publicity photo is more entertaining than the film itself ...

Here's what the movie was really about: Stanwyck plays Jennifer "Lady" Lee, the daughter of a universally respected card player who commits suicide after he is pressured to play crooked. Lady Lee then takes a job with the local gambling syndicate, where she upholds her father's reputation for fair play. One night, a cocky playboy (played by Joel McCrea) wanders into the gaming hall and unwittingly lets two undercover police officers in with him. They raid the joint and haul everybody, including Lady, off to jail. Needless to say, Lady isn't happy to see the playboy when he shows up to post her bail, and the playboy isn't happy when he finds out that an old buddy of Lady's (Pat O'Brien) has already put it up.

There is more, but it really isn't worth your time. Suffice it to say that as the movie unfolds, Lady and the playboy get married, suffer misunderstandings, jealousies, a murder, a divorce, and then a reconciliation, all packed blandly into a 68 minute running time. The only high point was when Stanwyck divorced the meatheaded character played by McCrea ... I actually rooted for her when she split with him, but then she wept and ran back to the son of a bitch and that was that. Why the hell did she stick with this dumb schmuck? Women!!!!!

"Gambling Lady" was made at Warner Bros., in 1934, and when you consider just how dull the movie is, it's surprising to learn that in the previous year, Stanwyck was starring in "Baby Face" and "Ladies They Talk About", two of the most entertaining and rollicking melodramas she ever made at the studio. Unfortunately, 1934 was the year that the Hays Code put the clamp on Hollywood, and the Warner studio was probably the biggest sufferer (ironically, they were one of the main reasons the Hays Code was put into effect). But that's a topic for another day.

Naturally, Barbara herself was terrific as always in this movie. She was a real trooper, and put her best foot forward, even though this clunker of a film wasn't at all worthy of her talents.

"Night Nurse" and More Forbidden Hollywood!

2007-11-10T10:31:00.000-05:00

I know I've written about this before, but now the rumors have been verified that the Barbara Stanwyck flick "Night Nurse" is finally coming to DVD in March! It will be included with merry company in Volume 2 of the Warner Bros. "Forbidden Hollywood" collection.

If you don't know what the movie is about, I'll give you a quick raft of it (and a brand new YouTube clip of one of the best scenes) -- In this film Barbara plays Lora Hart, a young nurse with a genuine desire to help people and make a difference in the world.

One day she is assigned to take care of two children at a wealthy widow's mansion, and when she arrives, strange things start to happen. The children are malnourished! The mother is passed out, drunk! A lecherous party animal is on the prowl! And an evil chauffeur gives Lora a punch in the face when she tries to do her job. Life in this mansion is nothing but an orgy of gin, sin, and hot jazz!

Later, as the two children sink lower and lower into ill health, a worried Lora seeks out the kids' derelict mother. She tries to appeal to the last speck of maternal instinct left in the mother's booze-basted soul. Lora breaks the news to her in a forceful way that the children are almost dying, and she must come to the nursery and see them. The mother is too far gone to understand: "Go back behind the bar and get me another drink, willya?"

That's the wrong thing to say to this nurse! See how the action-packed scene plays out ...

Biographies: Pageants of Falsehoods!

2007-10-30T18:08:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about biographies recently, mostly because of the big noise associated with this one ...

According to this article from Cartoon Brew (well not so much the article, but from the comments it has generated), Schulz's family is not happy with the book ... which probably wouldn't be a big deal, except that Schulz's son has gone to the trouble of detailing and debunking a number of assertions made by the author about the famous cartoonist.

The family granted David Michaelis access to Schulz's private papers and files from the beginning, and they acknowledged that the author intended to write about the less wholesome aspects of the cartoonist's life and career, including an affair with a younger woman. But apparently what is causing the family so much agita now is that the "facts" Michaelis gained about Schulz's private life have not exactly made it into the book intact. I don't know this for a fact, but come on, who are you going to believe: a man who never met Schulz except through his papers and files, or Schulz's own children who spent their entire lives with the man? And unlike most children of famous people, they all agree with each other that Schulz was a great dad.

Don't get me wrong! Some of my favorite books are biographies, but the best ones are always written -- or ably assisted -- by someone who knew the subject well. A great example would be "Gracie: A Love Story", a biography of Gracie Allen written by George Burns. The book is funny and revealing but also warm and personal because George knew this woman intimately for more than 40 years.

Imagine if a (well-meaning but over-analytical) biographer who had never met Gracie Allen tried to psychoanalyze her through papers and files and second-hand stories from senile acquaintances. It wouldn't have been entertaining or illuminating. Sure you might learn a few interesting rumors, but the book would have very little heart or warmth because a personal connection is missing between the writer and the subject ...

LIKE IN THIS BOOK!:

I have only read excerpts out of this one, but believe me, it was enough. No heart. No warmth. It's more like a psychiatric report than a biography. Look at the Goddamn title, for crying out loud! Get a load of the insightful blurb from the cover, too: "Learn about the sexual dynamics of Stanwyck's marriage to Robert Taylor". Uh ... No thanks.

I'm sure I know Barbara just as well as the biographer above, and have probably met her in person as many times as he did. But even a dope like me knows that she led a fascinating and colorful life filled with trouble, pain, love, hate, fun, enemies, friends, and adventures that would make for a warm, funny, dramatic outstanding biography. Now who's gonna write it right? She had a lot of close friends, that's for sure. At least one of them should still be alive, and handy with a typewriter.

Anyway, this brings me back to where I started. I say that a man of Charles Schulz's magnanimousness deserves a biography that is both sensitive and ACCURATE! And the only people who are capable of doing it that way are the people who knew him best: his family! Not an over-analytical biographer. My advice to the children of the house of Schulz is to get cracking on that ultimate biography of your father! It's worth the wait if it will be done right.

Inking Owen

2007-10-15T13:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Shane Glines' Cartoon Retro website, my hard drive is full of classic comic book pages, especially ones drawn by Owen Fitzgerald. I used to try to draw them off of my computer screen to study them, but it was a little awkward. So recently I had an idea to round up all of Owen's art that had been sitting idle in my computer and make a book out of it. The result:

One big tome full of Moronica, Winnie the Wac, The Slap Happys, Starlet O'Hara, Liz and other swell art from The King of Cute Cartoon Girls. The book is 223 pages, and is spiral bound so that it stays open easier while I'm trying to draw out of it. I only printed one copy for myself because all of the content came from Shane's terrific website, which you should go to right now and become a member.

Another benefit of having these cartoons in "hard copy" is that if you want to learn the ins and outs of inking, you don't have to draw the figures first with a pencil and then go over them with a brush. If you are impatient like me, you can put a sheet of tracing paper over the art itself and then go from there. If you make a mistake, no need to sketch them again and start over ... just get another sheet of tracing paper. That's what happened with the "ink sample" below. I made a whole other page of practices out of the book, but this is the only one worth posting. I inked the girl first, but afterwards I got overconfident. I shouldn't have drawn the background -- oy!

Caricature Talent ...

2007-10-13T20:36:00.000-04:00

... is something that I don't have. Here are some unremarkable interpretations of two figures of authority here in Atlantic County, NJ. The first one is a state senator and a local mayor and a former owner of a mismanaged auto mall. He also has a golf course in the area named after him ... it was built on top of a landfill.

The one who looks like Santy Claws is actually just some guy who is a member of a local farming dynasty, and is active in the county Republican Party. He has pink flesh and flaming red hair. His family owns a farm market that charges twice the suggested retail price on snow shovels.

When it comes to drawing caricatures, I'm a terrific cook.

Girls That I Like ... to Draw

2007-10-05T03:43:00.000-04:00

Drawing is fun. Especially when girls with pretty pans like these are involved. Whether I did them justice is a different story. And another thing: erasers are for chumps.

Warning: there will be more!

Fun With Clara

2007-10-02T10:53:00.000-04:00

I can't think of anything to write, so here's Clara Bow wishing you a heaping harvest.

Columbia's Ladies of Leisure

2007-10-01T11:44:00.000-04:00

In 1930, an important movie called Ladies of Leisure was made. This movie was responsible for gaining much-needed prestige for Columbia Pictures, enabling it to grow from a rinkydink operation to a major Hollywood studio (four years later they would give us The Three Stooges and It Happened One Night). This film was also one of director Frank Capra's earliest sound movies, and probably his first "big hit", a fact which alone should guarantee it a place of prominence in movie history. Finally, this was the film that turned shy 22-year-old Barbara Stanwyck into a huge star - practically overnight. With so much rich history attached to it, you might ask yourself, why isn't Ladies of Leisure available on DVD?

Above photo from http://www.eeweems.com/capra

Actually, it is -- sort of. A "silent" version of the movie is available on video through Turner Classic Movies, though it is severely edited, and the snappy Jo Swerling dialogue is replaced with mere title cards. It doesn't do the film any justice. Here is a sample of the fun dialogue you will miss if you get stuck with the silent print:

JERRY: I'm over 18 years old, you know.
STANDISH: Most men never get to be 18. And most women are over 18 when they're born.

============

STANDISH: Do you pose professionally?
KAY: I'm always posing.
STANDISH: And how do you spend your nights?
KAY: RE-posing.

Barbara Stanwyck plays Kay Arnold, a party girl whose tough talk masks a tender heart. One night, after fleeing a party that got too wild, even for her taste, she meets Jerry Strong, a young artist from a wealthy family. He offers to drive her home and as she dozes off on his shoulder, he sees something of the goodness of all humanity in her face. He hires her to be his model for a portrait he is painting called "Hope", but unfortunately, the goodness he saw in her as she slept is painted over with lipstick, phony eyelashes, and a brassy attitude when she is awake.

Eventually, Kay develops feelings for Jerry, and one night after a long posing session she spends the night on his couch. While she is sleeping, she hears his footsteps coming at her, and she fears that the man she has come to admire will turn out to be a typical lecher. But instead of putting the moves on her, Jerry puts an extra blanket on her instead, and goes back to his room. Tears well up in her eyes as she is overjoyed that he is not perverted scum.

The next morning, Kay rises bright and early, humming a happy tune while preparing breakfast for Jerry, as a show of gratitude. Unfortunately, it doesn't go over as well as she had hoped. I won't describe the scene any more than that, but I have uploaded it to YouTube from a fair quality sound copy of the film. This may be your only chance to see any part of the movie as it was originally intended. This could also be your only chance to see young Barbara Stanwyck unleash her emotions in a way that make her later performances seem somewhat tame.

I don't want to detail Ladies of Leisure any further in the off chance that it will get a much-deserved official DVD release. And what's the fun of watching a movie for the first time, when you already know what happens? So you'll have to wait to see the rest of this tremendous piece of cinematic history.

Fleischer Theater

2007-09-30T17:44:00.000-04:00

This is an early sound cartoon from 1929, called "Finding His Voice". It was directed by Max Fleischer (and a man named F. Lyle Goldman), and it tries to sell us on the idea of using sound in movies. There are lots of scientific explanations of the mechanics of sound (both magnetic and optical) and many typical Fleischer-type gags that make it digestible for the layman. Be sure to watch it all the way through, the ending is a killer!

En-Gross-ing Study

2007-09-29T03:22:00.000-04:00

I think I will stop trying to be funny with the titles. It's hard!

Here is a Milt Gross moose, as filtered through my paintbrush.

This moose comes from the cover of Gross's "Hiawatta Witt No Odder Poems", which was published in 1926, and of which I am the owner of a not so bad copy from said year. Here is the cover that I copied above:

I had some trouble with the moose's body, so I didn't draw the moose's body ... I drew the negative shapes around the moose's body instead, and when I was finished, presto ... there was the moose's body! I would kill to crack the secrets of composition and negative space, two things which Milt Gross was obviously well acquainted with when he drew this moose mural. It is deceptively simple, but my oh my how it pleases the eye.

When Comics Were Fun

2007-09-26T11:44:00.000-04:00

A new goal I have set for myself is to post something in this blog every day, whether it be a picture, a couple paragraphs, a YouTube clip or a college sized lecture. What better way to start than with my favorite subject: comics!

The ASIFA Animation Archive recently posted a number of "Blondie" Sunday pages, and wow, was I ever impressed. I know it's hard for us young people to fathom, but "Blondie" used to be really funny! Chic Young created the strip in 1930 and continued it until his death in 1973.

One of the things I admire about the old school "Blondie" is its ability to make dull real life family situations interesting and fun, while at the same time never forgetting that it is a comic strip and should be drawn funny as well.

This is my favorite of all the Sunday "Blondie" pages that the ASIFA Animation Archive has posted. When I first read it, I was totally envious of Chic Young's ability to mix ho-hum family life with good old fashioned comic strip sensibility (and a funny well-drawn strangulation, too). Don't skip this one, click on it and read it and be astounded! ...

I never imagined I would get to be such a "Blondie" fan. Thanks to the ASIFA Animation Archive for opening my mind!

A Good DVD Cover For You to be Amazed At ...

2007-09-22T17:01:00.000-04:00

To make up for assaulting your eyes with the stinky cover artwork for "Here Comes Mr. Jordan", let me now bathe your ocular organs in the cool soothing glow of "The Roaring Twenties", a DVD that got done right ...

The cover is good, and if that was all that came with the movie, I would still be a happy consumer. But lucky us, with this awesome gangster epic, we also receive a newsreel, a musical short ("All Girl Revue" ... woo woo!), a comedy short ("The Great Library Misery"), a Tex Avery cartoon ("Thugs With Dirty Mugs"), and some informative musings from Leonard Maltin. For all of their shortcomings, at least somebody at Warner Bros. has the brains to produce well-packaged media.

Another Bad DVD Cover For You to Laugh At ...

2007-09-21T17:43:00.000-04:00

I saw part of this film on Turner Classic Movies a few weeks ago, and liked it enough to want to see all of it. So I bought the DVD ...

And amazingly, the back is just as ugly! But this time it doesn't stop with the cover. The DVD menu is the most basic I've ever seen outside of a bootleg copy burned with a personal computer (not that I would know anything about that, if there are any copyright police on patrol here). It was just a blue screen with no title, and you can either "Play Movie" or "Choose Subtitle". What a gyp!

Where does Sony hire the people to design these things? I want this job. It isn't hard! All you need to make a good DVD cover for a classic movie is a movie poster or lobby card. That's what they were designed for ... to sell the movie to the public! And they can do just as good a job on the front of a DVD as they did ornamenting movie houses 70 years ago. Here is Barbara Stanwyck with proof:

Could you resist buying a few copies if she was looking at you like this from a video store shelf?

Inhuman Relations part 3

2007-09-14T22:28:00.000-04:00

Here is a "cheater" cartoon that really only took me a day and a half to draw. It is a remake of an old comic strip that I drew more than a year ago. A friend of mine liked it so much that she stuck a copy of it on a wall at work. One day it mysteriously walked ... I guess I should be flattered that somebody out there considered it worth pilfering. But this is an even better version starring Fred's wild Irish Slavic rose, Maureen Gilhooley-Chaloupka:

Inhuman Relations part 2

2007-09-09T14:29:00.001-04:00

Another cartoon, specially formatted for the comics-unfriendly blogger page. It is offered to you without comment.

All right, here is a comment: maybe you can see that I have an obsession with perspective. Even though I don't do it well, I am compelled to have lines converging on an imaginary plane. It doesn't matter if the lines represent bricks and sidewalks (as they do above), wood panel floors, tables, counters, windows, doors, roads, or whatever. This time I tried to do perspective with the signs hanging on the walls, but I just didn't have what it takes. Forgive my drafting sins.

Science Settles: Bette vs. Barbara

2007-09-08T21:24:00.000-04:00

I knew this would happen one day. Deep down in the pit of my guts, I knew that some where, some time, it would have to be done. I can put it off no more! Here is that somewhere, and now is that sometime!

As a mere spectator of old movies, I wouldn't have any problem saying that Barbara Stanwyck bests Bette Davis. But as a cartoonist and amateur scientific observer of humanity, I feel a strong sense of obligation to illustrate and justify my position.

"But wait!", you might be thinking to yourself, "Why does one have to be better than the other? Can't you appreciate them both for their uniqueness in what they have to offer?" My answer to you is this: you miss the point entirely! By analyzing these two giants with pure science, we are better able to prove logically and methodically which one possessed the largest quantities of skill, charm and greatness.

(Unfortunately, I am not as well versed in Bette's movies as I am with Barbara's, so there will have to be a slight margin of error figured into this study.)

Don't get me wrong about Bette, she was a fine actress, one of the very best. Even early in her career, she was a hot tamale with an amazing capacity for raw emotional explosion. Look at this scene from the 1934 movie, "Of Human Bondage", where she chews up and spits out this poor sucker who was unfortunate enough to be snared in her web of sin and deceit:

For comparison, here is Barbara in the 1931 film "The Miracle Woman", building up to a volcanic eruption of seething hatred and contempt for the church full of armchair Christians. I know you've seen this clip before, but watch it again, for SCIENCE:

Superficially, you might say that Bette's and Barbara's "emotional outburst" scenes were not altogether different from each other. Not so! As packed with power and disgust as Bette's tongue-lashing is in the first clip, it is also on the hammy and theatrical side. This is a performance and you know it's supposed to be a performance, and that's not a bad thing. In fact, I'd shell out money to see acting as good as this, from any modern movie or TV star.

In Barbara's clip, you can see that she is trying to control the urge to blow her top at the flock of hypocrites who caused her father's death. The longer she keeps the lid on, the more steam builds up. She is going along pretty good until she hits a word that loosens her hinges, and then she goes berserk. But she does this naturally and with undiluted sincerity, so much so that it looks like she really is flying off the handle at these people. By the end, she is in tears, and they are among the most realistic tears anybody ever shed in a moving picture. Bette was good, but not this good.

In conclusion, science has proven that even though Bette Davis was a powerhouse who could outplay almost anybody, Barbara Stanwyck gave us honesty and humanity the likes of which have yet to be topped. Thanks, science!

Box Fronts

2007-09-02T20:57:00.001-04:00

Spot the differences in these DVD covers from three great classic movies ...

The artwork for cover number one (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) was obviously put together with care and reverence for the movie packaged inside. The cover suggests the film is "old", but the great artwork makes it look like it would be an awful lot of fun to watch, too. You don't get the feeling that it's just some dusty old boring movie that your parents might have watched once before you were born.

Cover number two (Witness for the Prosecution) is much less interesting and exciting, especially for a movie that is incredibly interesting and exciting itself. This is an adequate, bare-bones type of DVD cover. It gives you the faces of the stars, and some mild action in the form of an agitated Marlene Dietrich in the witness box.

Cover number three (The Grapes of Wrath) ... Holy Jesus! This is bland as bland could be. Nothing but a plain white background with a bust of Henry Fonda in front. The cover gives absolutely no indication of the content of the movie ... it does nothing to suggest humanity and heartbreak, or even that this is one of the greatest films ever made. It is assuming that the people who have seen the movie before are the only ones who will be buying it. If I had never seen the movie (but had only heard vague comments of its worthiness), and I was looking at this ultra bland cover in a video store somewhere, I would definitely not touch it. Judging things by their covers is not polite, but it's HUMAN!

Over the years I have become a connoisseur of DVDs. The more movies I buy, the more discerning I become. Not only about things like artwork and write-ups on the back, but also on those damn buttons you have to press down in order to get the DVD to come out of the case. But those buttons are a subject for another day's reading of the Riot Act.

In my experience, Warner Bros. gets the award for having the best cover artwork, bar none -- even though some of the digital restoration techniques they use on the films themselves leave something to be desired (their engineers sure love to play with the contrast button) ...

Wow, look at "Christmas in Connecticut"! This is in a class by itself! The cover is totally fun and lively, and it's as festive as a Christmas party with your crazy Uncle Clevis. And you haven't even seen the movie yet!

Far behind in second place, at least when it comes to cover artwork, is MGM. They are just good enough to avoid being plain and bland, but their cover for "Ball of Fire" is definitely no ball of fire ...

Finally, 20th Century Fox will get lumped in with Columbia, Sony, and other miscellaneous corporations who wouldn't know a good movie cover if it jumped up and gnawed on their hairy nipples ...

That last one really takes the cake. It's inconceivable that a major movie company would put out an official DVD release (of a major movie classic, yet) with a cover like the one on "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town". Who the hell colorized Gary Cooper's pajamas?????

Life is Better With Blondell

2007-08-31T10:04:00.000-04:00

Most blondes leave me cold, but not Joan Blondell -- she was a warm blonde. She had spark and pep, and she lights up any scene in any movie she appears in, regardless of the size of the role. Here is a publicity photo for the 1931 Warner Bros. comedy, "Blonde Crazy", in which she starred alongside James Cagney (it was their fourth of seven films together) ... see if you can resist the impulses she wracks upon your feeble bodies, men:

Also in 1931, she appeared with Barbara Stanwyck in the crazy but super fun melodrama "Night Nurse". This is an amazing movie. In it there was not one, not two, but THREE scenes featuring Joan and Barbara in nothing but their underwear. It's not easy to steal scenes from Barbara Stanwyck, especially when various stages of undress are involved, but Joan achieved the impossible. I will give you a picture from the scene and leave it to your fevered imaginations from there:

Hey! I have become a bona fide Amazon Associate, I can add these swell link boxes to my posts, and they will take you directly to the product page where you can buy what I'm talking about. Do yourself (and me!) a favor and add the little lady to your video collection:

Commercialism

2007-08-30T12:06:00.000-04:00

ARRRGH! I have Google ads on the top of the page and I don't know how to get them off. It wouldn't be an issue if I was getting a kickback for them, but I don't think I am.

Inhuman Relations

2007-08-19T18:18:00.000-04:00

BIG NOTE: This I drew today, after a long period of being out of practice with ink brushing.

Poor Fred and Maureen, they are a couple of mixed up kids. First they were married with children, and then they were married with Irish accent, and now they are not married at all. As long as they are together in some way I guess it's all right, because they make a good cartoon couple:

See? Even they know they can't split. They are stuck together. I don't know if I believe in fate or prepaid destiny ... but it sure seems like there are some people out there who shouldn't be separated or else they would be lost souls. Just so you don't think I'm a storehouse of naive sentimental theories, a friend of mine told me a story like the one I strung out in the panels above, and I used it here almost verbatim! Yes friends, apparently love does happen that way in real life!

Hot Gross Girls

2007-08-17T11:51:00.000-04:00

I'm reading a terrific book called "I Shoulda Ate the Eclair" by Milt Gross, the funniest cartoonist ever. The book is 60 years old and I wish somebody would put it back in print already. The story is about a man named Mr. Figgits and how by refusing to eat an eclair he unwittingly divides the world in hatred! The pages are filled with funny pictures and lotsa broken English:

"Balmy was the day with pleasant. Noon-time it was almost. Populated gradually was the streets. By the sidewalks, loiterers..."

And plenty of cute cartoon girls too, as only Milt Gross could draw them:

FORBIDDEN

2007-08-15T21:52:00.001-04:00

I like titles that grab your attention! I will maybe call my next post "FLESH LUST", and make it all pictures of cute little fuzzy animals in colored wicker baskets.

It occurred to me that it has been a while since I wrote about Barbara Stanwyck, so here we go. First of all let me reiterate that this little woman was a powerhouse! There should be a statue of her somewhere with paid guards stationed to shoot all the pigeon vandals. If not a statue, at least let's get "Ladies of Leisure" on DVD. Then there would be no problems with the pigeons.

Nobody in the history of movies could take abuse like Barbara. Her career lasted almost 60 years, and during that time she was invariably slapped, punched, molested, shot, cut, burned, thrown against walls, dragged by horses, and one time she even preached the word of God from inside a cage full of real live ornery lions. She did most of her own stunts too, and not surprisingly suffered a few injuries behind the scenes (she fell down a flight of stairs, got third degree burns, and was thrown off a horse -- fortunately not all on the same movie).

Frank Capra made a sudsy melodrama called "Forbidden" in 1932, and he cast Barbara as Lulu Smith, a librarian who carries on a 20-year affair with an aspiring politician. The plot is tough to boil down, so here is the short of it: Lulu marries a hard-bitten newspaper editor to keep him from bringing scandal to her politician lover (he is the editor's sworn enemy). When the editor discovers her secret, he threatens to plaster it all over the front page and ruin the politician's career. As Lulu struggles to grab the evidence away from him, her husband gives her a hard sock in the mouth and she crashes against a chair and onto the floor. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT??? You'll have to watch this violence-packed video clip to find out:

Cartoon Studies - 8/06/07

2007-08-06T14:40:00.001-04:00

Here are some Owen Fitzgerald girls that I drew away from home. Huzzah! Now I have reference material to study these bubbly cartoon cuties wherever I go. I printed out a couple comics pages and now I carry them with me so I can draw them any time of the day or as I please. Some of these didn't turn out so well after I went over them with a pen ... doesn't it figure that the one I like best is the one in pencil that you can hardly see? ...

Hey, I get the idea that some of you think I am making up these drawings out of my own head ... NOT SO! If I could draw as good as this on my own, I would be out pounding the pavement for a good job drawing sexy cartoon girls ... making $50,000 a year and smoking only the best cigars while playing an endless round of pool on my very own pool table that I would keep in my kitchen (who needs to cook when you make $50,000 a year?).

No my friends, I draw from reference! Here are some of the fun panels I look forward to ogling (I mean "analyzing") ... if only learning was this much fun in school ...

These tremendous comics pages come from Cartoon Retro.

Cartoon Studies Part 5

2007-07-26T20:55:00.001-04:00

UGH! Just when I thought progress was being made, I rush out something like this:

Maybe you'll believe me if I blame it on the pencil. It was dull. After I did this study I sharpened it and now it draws like a million bucks. But it's too bad it couldn't save this thing above. I tried something new, I wanted to draw the whole panel and every character in it -- maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Moronica looks O.K., but Jeepers Creepers and Holy Tuna with Avocado, what happened to the policemen and the City Street Commissioner????

Cartoon Studies Part 4

2007-07-25T19:19:00.000-04:00

I figured that I would do some more Owen Fitzgerald studying today, but the ASIFA Animation Archive posted a humongous pile of Milt Gross comic strips and I was in love! Not that phony stuff between two people who make gooey eyes at each other and then turn around and forget the others' birthday -- no, I mean REAL love! The kind that only exists between a beautiful comic strip and a young virile cartoonist.

Unfortunately, even though Milt Gross is one of my favorite cartoonists, his stuff is real tough to copy! I did the best I could, but I feel as though I am shaming the Hyer family name by making public these shameful scribbles. Forgive me o' Germanic-Italian ancestors!

Cartoon Studies Part 3

2007-07-24T19:52:00.000-04:00

More Owen Fitzgerald studies! This guy was terrific ... it's too bad he finished his long illustrious career working on lousy Saturday morning cartoons in the 1980s and 1990s. If only he could have drawn even more sexy cartoon women, the world would be a better place today.

Cartoon Studies Part 2

2007-07-23T19:56:00.001-04:00

Today's quick study is of Owen Fitzgerald's lovely Moronica, "Miss Nitwit of 1950" (thank you no high heels):

(Yes I was trying to balance my bank account in the upper right corner)

Cartoon Studies Part 1

2007-07-22T17:06:00.000-04:00

Here's a new series of posts charting practice and progress in cartoondom. It occurred to me that Walt Kelly wasn't the only bright light in a sky of suns ... so here I am branching out ... to study new and different ways of putting lines on paper for the pleasure of the great unwashed (gee, that sounds too high-hat -- what I mean to say is that I want to be a more versatile cartoonist so I will study a wider assortment of greats in the field).

One of my weaknesses is drawing pretty cartoon girls. This is not an unusual obstacle. Most he-man cartoonists are quickly reduced to quivering sobs when they try to draw a pretty cartoon girl. Real human girls -- that is, the more talented ones -- evidently have naturally occurring cute-cartoon-girl-drawing genes. Take a look at Katie Rice's girls, or even this panel from Ethel Hays that was drawn almost 80 years ago:

Fortunately, a lucky few males have infiltrated this mysterious area, among them a man named Owen Fitzgerald, who drew more than his fair share of "cute girl" comics. Here's one starring "Moronica - Miss Nit-Wit of 1950":

So I decided to study Mr. Fitzgerald's work in hopes of learning something about pretty cartoon females. It looks superficially like straight copying -- drawing from old comics -- but there's more to it than that! Analyze what you're copying to see how the artist made it. That's what I tried to do in the two samples below.

Above, at left, I drew the pretty cartoon lady without doing much analyzing. Instead of solidly constructing her dainty head, it looks like I stuck a bean on a pole and attached it to her shapely figure. When I finished it didn't look so good. I studied the head more carefully and noticed that it was made up of two circles -- one big one attached to the neck and a small one for her lilting ladylike jowls. I even made a note of this discovery so I wouldn't forget it. I used it on the second drawing, at right, and it looked more decent!

But before I could celebrate my deduction of how to assemble pretty cartoon heads, I was hit with another obstacle -- high heels!!!! I used to wonder how women could stand to wear them, but now I wonder how cartoonists can stand to draw the damn things.

Maybe I will figure it out next time. Stay tuned!

P.S. -- Hey! Kevin Langley is studying Owen Fitzgerald too, on his Screwy Sketchblog!

Happy Birthday Barbara

2007-07-16T07:51:00.000-04:00

Today is Barbara Stanwyck's 100th birthday. I could type the reasons why she is tops, or I could give my thoughtful theories about her monumental acting ability and her magnetic personality, but I wouldn't think of it. Instead here are pictures of her cute face and a clip from a worthwhile movie. Follow the advice of THE NEW YORK TIMES when they said, in 1930, "Go and be amazed by this Barbara girl..."

It was tough choosing one scene out of the woman's great body of work, but here it is, one of her best. Henry Fonda has been up the Amazon for a year with no womanly company, and Barbara comes hither with some moves that could singe asbestos. Remember it's her birthday, so give her props and watch the clip. You won't regret it.

From "The Lady Eve" (1941)

P.S. - Some time today, tune into Turner Classic Movies, where they are giving Barbara her due with a 24-hour festival of her films (not all of her best, but the ones that are not easily available on DVD or VHS).

The Crazy Lady Hornet

2007-07-15T18:42:00.000-04:00

When last we left Mr. Fred, he was on the run from a wild-eyed wasp woman whom he had scorned...

... and then I left everybody hanging! Now, four months later, we string this yarn out to its intended length for the edification of inquisitive acquaintances:

Enjoy!

The Passion of Stanwyck

2007-06-18T21:08:00.001-04:00

Wow!!! Just when I thought I'd seen Barbara Stanwyck at her most intense, she springs another vivid performance in a movie I hadn't ever heard of before. Discovery is a wonderful thing!

Here she is in a scene from Frank Capra's satire of religious phonies, "The Miracle Woman" (from 1931). In the movie, Barbara's father has been the pastor at a church for over twenty years, but one day the congregation decides to get rid of him and replace him with a younger man. On his last day of service, Barbara gets up to the pulpit and delivers a powerful admonishment filled with more wrath and vengeance than the Holy Book itself. Words don't do it justice -- you have to see it!

Would you believe she never won an Oscar? Shame on the Academy.

Another Cartoon From Me

2007-06-10T18:32:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I put up a cartoon, so here is a new one with Mort the Stork and his Irish Assistant. Maybe you will learn something ...

World's Most Glamorous

2007-06-02T00:21:00.001-04:00

Do you know who these people are? Of course you do! Show your smarts and impress your friends by correctly labeling these magnificent mugs. If you get them right, you'll receive a handsome prize: respect!

Ode to Mae

2007-05-27T23:35:00.001-04:00

Why do I like Mae Clarke? Well, just look at her ... she's cute.

She also grew up in Atlantic City (where I was born), only 15 miles away from this spot at which I now type. It's hard not to have a favorable bias toward someone like that. And if she had just been cute, and raised in the same county as me, that probably would have been enough. But she was also a terrific actress. What would be the odds???

To all you classic movie fans out there, you know what Mae's most memorable (not best) screen moment was. It dogged her right up to her twilight years. I wanted this post to be the first one ever written about Mae Clarke that doesn't mention this scene ...

... And I won't!

Mae was a good actress, and she deserves to be known for better roles than that above. Unfortunately, her best performance was only recently made available to the public after seventy years of suppression and tangled ownership rights. The movie is "Waterloo Bridge", from 1931, and it was a belated victim of the Hays Code. Mae received plenty of rave reviews for her performance in the film, but the subject matter -- prostitution -- didn't survive the axe of the censors, and it was ineligible for re-release after the Hays Code came into full force in 1934.

In "Waterloo Bridge", she plays a chorus girl named Myra who gets stranded in London at the start of World War I, when the show she is traveling with suddenly goes out of business. She has no choice but to sell herself on the street to pay the rent. While patrolling Waterloo Bridge one night, looking for prospective customers, she bumps into an American soldier named Roy, who is too young and naive to realize that she is a prostitute. But soon he loves her, and she loves him.

This is a scene after Myra has run away from Roy while they were visiting his parents house. She loves him, but she thinks of herself as a worthless trollop that he would be better off without. He thinks otherwise, so he tracks her down ...

I can relate to this scene! Who can't? A lot of us have acted like assholes toward the people we love. Usually it's us, the males, who give our best gals the worst guff. Mae really gives poor Roy hell, whether she did it intentionally to scare him away for his own good, or if she really believed she wasn't good enough for him and she was unleashing all the vitriol she saved up for herself, on to Roy. Who knows for sure? It's just a damn good scene.

Sadly, she never got another part as meaty as this one. A number of bizarre and unfortunate personal circumstances forced her to retire from movies in 1937, at the tender age of 26. Even more unfortunate circumstances forced her to return to the movies in the 1940s, although in smaller roles, until by the 1950s and 60s, she was almost exclusively doing walk-ons and cameos in major motion pictures.

But it was all for the best. By her own account, she actually preferred this kind of work. In fact, if you don't blink, you can see her in "Singin' in the Rain" as a hairdresser!

Why You Need to Buy the New Popeye DVD

2007-05-07T16:15:00.000-04:00

Between 1967 and 1992, hundreds of classic black and white cartoons were shipped to Korea to be "colorized". The process was primitive and brutal. An army of poorly-paid Korean animators was hired to trace and re-draw every frame and background from a black and white cartoon, and then re-paint them all in color, and re-film them. Basically they made brand new cartoons out of old ones.

Unfortunately, as you can see below, adding color didn't make the "new" cartoons any better. Great stars such as Betty Boop, Porky Pig, and Popeye never knew what hit them:

On the left, Popeye and Olive in "Morning, Noon and Nightclub" (1937); on the right, the re-drawn colorized version of same.

The non-English-speaking artist who re-drew the backgrounds for the colorized version of Popeye's "A Clean-Shaven Man" (1935) changed "Wimpy's Barber Shop" to "Wimby's Bbep"!

These beer-drinking skeletons are from a scene the super wild Betty Boop cartoon "Minnie the Moocher" (1931). Colorized at right.

For many years, these great classic cartoons have been abused, butchered, and molested by their owners in order to make a profit. And now that they have disappeared from television altogether, it has become harder and harder to find these cartoons in their original state -- even on "discount DVDs", which usually feature poor quality copies, or re-drawn colorized versions of the cartoons. Yes, the future looked mighty dim for classic black and white animation, until ...

Popeye to the Rescue!

This soon-to-be-released DVD set will feature the first sixty Popeye cartoons -- all of them un-edited and completely cleaned and restored to their original glory. That's 550 minutes of crisp, clear cartoon goodness! Plus 5 hours of bonus documentaries and extra cartoons! If the DVD sells well, other companies that own the rights of other classic black and white cartoons might finally see the folly of thinking that "no one watches black and white anymore" -- and make their vast vintage libraries available on DVD, too!

So when July 31, 2007 finally arrives, run, do not walk, to your nearest center of commerce and lay down your hard-earned spinach for Popeye!

NOTE: Some of the pictures used on this page come from The Fleischer Popeye Tribute website.

Color Coordination part 3

2007-03-27T21:47:00.001-04:00

It wasn't enough to butcher Max Fleischer's life's work only once?

This is a clip from the 1980 full-length movie, "Hooray For Betty Boop", which tries to patch together miscellaneous bits of Betty's cartoons (with re-recorded dialogue and ear-twisting songs) into a "story". Now, I might have been able to come to terms with the fact that all of the clips are redrawn and colorized ... and I could maybe have forgiven that Italian woman trying to imitate Mae Questals voice ... and it is remotely possible that I could have almost slightly accepted the cutting up and repasting of the cartoons into a full-length "story" ...

But ANY movie that uses MUSIC LIKE THIS isn't fit for a DOG to PEE ON! I beg of you, save yourself four minutes of your life! Spend it with loved ones! Experience the joys of helping others! Donate to worthy causes! But don't watch this clip! Don't do it!

(This is the devil talking: "Mwa ha ha ha! Come on! Hit that Play button! This movie is good for your soul! Nyar har har har!")

Peggy Lee Doesn't Know Enough About You

2007-03-26T13:09:00.000-04:00

Here is an honest to goodness YouTube gem ... a Peggy Lee "music video" from the 1950s! As she sits behind a teacher's desk singing "I Don't Know Enough About You", she is accompanied by her husband, guitarist Dave Barbour (hey, is he sitting in the Dunce chair?????).

Betty Boop Backgrounds

2007-03-11T01:09:00.000-05:00

I'm off my colorized cartoons from Korea kick for a while (I wanted to say for keeps but I never know when I will want to complain about them again!). So here is some good stuff for a change ...

These are some of the cool backgrounds that were featured during the cave scene in the Betty Boop cartoon "Snow White". I continue to be amazed at these vintage 'toons from the 30s. Most people assume that because the cartoons are "old" they are primitive and not interesting. Not so! Take a look at these killer backgrounds (which I had to cut up and patch together to show in their entirety) ...

"She'll never find another sweet man like me"

"Put a 20 dollar gold piece on my watch chain"

"Give me six crap-shootin' pallbearers"

"Let a chorus girl sing me a song"

"A Red-Hot Jazz Band"

"Hey boy hand me over another shot of that booze"

Color Coordination 2

2007-03-02T22:48:00.001-05:00

Here are two clips from the original and the "redrawn" colorized versions of the Betty Boop cartoon, "Snow White". OY!

The Original

The Colorized

By darkening and / or removing the cave backgrounds, and adding that annoying 1980s synthesized drum beat to Cab Calloway's vocals, they have turned this lovably bizarre sequence into something just flat-out creepy!

Color Coordination

2007-02-28T06:54:00.000-05:00

Everyone needs a goal in life, and I decided mine will be to eradicate every last "redrawn colorized" cartoon in existence. Sending classic black and white 'toons to a Korean animation sweatshop to be completely re-made was a dumb thing to do in the 1970s and 1980s, and even today cartoon fans can't escape these colorized abominations. It is like being forced to watch a summer stock company perform your favorite movie ... you want the real thing, not a shadow!

Amazingly, these still show up on public domain DVDs where their black and white counterparts should rightfully be; the colorized versions are copyrighted while the originals are the ones in the public domain!

First a vintage Betty Boop (with Satch!) ...

I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You (1932)

When this cartoon was sent to Korea to be redrawn and colorized in the late 1970s, Louis Armstrong and his orchestra's scenes were erased from the picture (which is understandable because the animators couldn't re-draw and colorize the live action scenes). For this reason, the color cartoon is missing more than two minutes of footage!

See for yourself - Here is the redrawn / colorized / re-recorded / butchered 1980 version that came back from a Korean animation sweatshop ...

I'll have more about these redrawn abominations in a future post. Forget about them until then and enjoy the brilliant black and white toons in their unmolested grace.

Who's that Voice?

2007-01-28T20:04:00.000-05:00

This is a late post on the subject, but January 12, 2007 would have marked the 95th birthday of vocal giant Sara Berner. Not only did Sara provide an astoundingly expansive range of voices in your favorite Warner Bros. cartoons -- the Italian Momma Buzzard in "The Bashful Buzzard", Mayzie the Lazy Bird in "Horton Hatches the Egg", Irish-toned Kansas City Kitty in "We the Animals, Squeak", the surprised Mother Gorilla at the end of "Baby Bottleneck", and even Walter Lantz's Andy Panda among many others -- she was equally active on just about every popular radio program in the 30s and 40s (as the text in the picture above explains). She would probably be best remembered as Mabel the telephone operator on Jack Benny's radio show (below, with Bea Benederet, who played her co-operator Gertrude).

As though a prolific career in animated cartoons and radio shows weren't enough, Sara also appeared in a number of movies, most notably in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" (she and Frank Cady play the couple on the fire escape, whose dog is murdered by Raymond Burr - see below). She also appeared in "Carrie" (1952), "Spring Reunion" (1957), the gritty crime drama "The Naked Street" (1955), and had uncredited vocal appearances in the Bing Crosby / Bob Hope joyride "The Road to Morocco" (she's the voice of Mabel the Camel) and Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" (as a telephone operator ... do you see a pattern here?).

Unfortunately, Sara died in December 1969, a mere few weeks before her 58th birthday. Despite her impressive talents and enormous contributions to cartoon and radio voice work, her name is mostly unknown today. So give the little lady her due and tell a friend about SARA BERNER today!

More Looney Tooniness

2007-01-28T18:26:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody! If you enjoy these great toons, say some nice things about them in the comments. Average human type beings such as myself like it when someone adds their two cents to these posts. Try it ... it's fun!

On to the toons --

Porky's Hare Hunt (Hardaway / Dalton, 1938) - The first appearance of the rabbit that became Bugs Bunny.

Porky and Daffy (Bob Clampett, 1937)

The Henpecked Duck (Bob Clampett, 1941) "I want a divorce! I want a divorce!"

Wise Quacks (Bob Clampett, 1939)

Porky's Last Stand (Bob Clampett, 1940) "Ho-dle-ay, start the day right!"

You Oughta Be in Pictures (Friz Freleng, 1940)

The Case of the Stuttering Pig (Frank Tashlin, 1938)

Looney Tuniness

2007-01-22T16:00:00.000-05:00

Hey folks, it's been a while! No more Google Video, YouTube, DailyMotion, iFilm, or any of those other kind of sites for me, they all have my number. It's just as well, because I recently found a whole mess of classic Looney Tunes available to watch online, FREE OF FEE! It looks like Warner Bros. conspired with AOL to release several dozens of these cartoons on AOL Video for the pleasure of the screaming masses -- could this be a direct reaction to the rash of complaints by Warners about these 'toons being uploaded to YouTube and DailyMotion? Mmmm...could be!

More good news -- a number of these cartoons are Porky and Daffy shorts from Bob Clampett and Frank Tashlin in the '30s! Most of the black and whites have been computer-colorized, but at least they aren't the redrawn Korean versions -- those should all be burned. Anyway, here's some timely toons:

The Daffy Doc -- (Bob Clampett, 1938) Daffy needs a patient, and who else but Porky could fit the bill?

A Coy Decoy -- (Bob Clampett, 1941) Porky and Daffy star in a pre-"Book Revue" Book Revue.

Porky's Road Race -- (Frank Tashlin, 1936) Porky races a slew of famous faces, including Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, and the "Cheerio Special". I remember this one!

Gold Diggers of '49 -- (Tex Avery, 1935) Porky and Beans the Cat go on the hunt for gold in Tex Avery's first cartoon for Warner Bros., with animation by Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett.

Disappointmentism

2006-12-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

There haven't been any cartoons here lately because I keep getting Runtime Error messages when I try to use Google Video. Does that happen to anyone else?

I said I'd give the whole shebang up if Google gave me a headache, but I am working on a solution to the problem. It just seems like nobody wants to host any of these great cartoons!

Nasty Quacks -- Again

2006-11-30T06:51:00.000-05:00

Read the post from Tuesday that goes along with this cartoon!

Nasty Quacks (1945)

New Video Soivice

2006-11-29T17:49:00.000-05:00

So long, DailyMotion! Google Video will have my uploading business from now on. I don't want to have to re-upload all the videos I've posted before, so I will just start over from yesterday with Frank Tashlin's "Nasty Quacks" and continue from there. But readers be aware, if Google drops any of these videos there ain't gonna be no more of these here cartoon posts! I will retire and leave that kind of stuff to the real professionals like Kevin Langley and Duck Dodgers.

What the BLANKETY-BLANK-BLANK BLANK??!!

2006-11-29T06:58:00.000-05:00

DailyMotion stuck a k-nife in my back! They pulled a YouTube and deleted all but five of my videos! Rassa-frassin' moola-boola hoy vaye!

Stay tuned for further developments in this stinkin' story later in the day.

Nasty Quacks

2006-11-28T20:07:00.000-05:00

Daffy becomes a family pest in this funny Frank Tashlin cartoon, for which he directed without screen credit. Some of the highlights in this short are Daffy's speedy growth beside the calendar and his looser expressions throughout the cartoon (was that the work of Izzy Ellis?). Also interesting to note are the angular, stylized movements in a number of scenes, which look as though they came out of a Dover Boys-era Chuck Jones cartoon.

Nasty Quacks (1945)

My Favorite Duck

2006-11-27T19:22:00.000-05:00

Dover Boys-era Chuck Jones cartoon, starring Porky as a nature-loving picnicker and Daffy as the wild crittur who stirs the pot. WOOHOOWOOWOOWOO!!!

My Favorite Duck (Chuck Jones, 1942)

Sylvester vs. Elmer

2006-11-26T16:34:00.000-05:00

An alley cat won't let Elmer Fudd get any sleep in this Friz Freleng cartoon.

Back Alley Oproar (1948)

Bingzi Bangzi: Land of the Vicious Apes

2006-11-25T18:58:00.000-05:00

Here's an early Bob McKimson cartoon in which Bugs finds himself the new offspring of a maternal gorilla and her cranky mate. As great a draftsman as McKimson was, I've heard that drawing cute characters did not come naturally to him when he was an animator for Bob Clampett, and he would usually have to be "leaned on" to draw characters in a cute way. When he started directing on his own he could design characters any way he pleased, and the results are mixed in this short. These are some homely cartoon gorillas!

Gorilla My Dreams (1948)

Cross Country Detours Revisited

2006-11-24T18:24:00.000-05:00

Tex Avery owned the animated travelogue, and today you'll see my all-time favorite Avery travelogue.

This whole cartoon is a riot, with an uncountable number of hilarious gags, like the cute little deer who turns into Mae West (actually rotoscoped footage of Tex's secretary Trixie), the dog's trek from Alaska to California ("Trees! Trees! And they're all mine!!"), the lizard "shedding its skin" (courtesy of a real stripper brought in especially for the cartoon), the croaking frog ("bang!"), and the split screen with a snarling gila monster on one side and a little girl reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the other (one side for grownups, the other for children).

Here's a little side note: I used to think it was OK to have lousy art in a cartoon if the jokes (?) were funny, but my eyes have been opened to the dopeyness of such a way of thinking. Take this cartoon for instance -- it would not be remotely as funny if Tex and the gang were subpar artists. Trying to imagine the creators of "South Park" and "Family Guy" doing something like the split screen gila monster scene in this cartoon makes me woozy in the head!

Cross Country Detours (1940)

Cross Country Detours
Uploaded by darmstadt

A Hare Grows in Manhattan

2006-11-23T16:28:00.000-05:00

Friz Freleng gives us a look at Bugs' humble beginnings on the East Side of New York:

A Hare Grows in Manhattan (1947)

Bugs Bunny the

2006-11-22T17:40:00.000-05:00

Bugs blasts a band of Japanese soldiers on a remote island in this Friz Freleng cartoon that will probably never be seen anywhere ever again. It was included on the first few copies of Volume 1 of the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdiscs, but decent law-abiding citizens of Japanese ancestry made loud objections, and the cartoon was replaced in later copies with "Racketeer Rabbit". This cartoon was also one of twelve that Warner Bros. blocked from Cartoon Network's "June Bugs" marathon of 2001.

For all the hubbub, this cartoon is actually a little bland and generic ... but the ending is pretty funny!

Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944)

Bugs the Heckler

2006-11-21T19:13:00.000-05:00

As heckling has suddenly gained national attention through the horrifying antics of one Mr. M. Richards, here is an instructional short from Tex Avery on the dangers of heckling and being heckled -- eventually you both fall off of a cliff!

The Heckling Hare (1941)

Shuffle Off to Buffalo and Other Points North

2006-11-20T10:50:00.000-05:00

I posted this video ages ago, but YouTube removed it when they deleted my account. So here it is again, re-uploaded on DailyMotion for your viewing pleasure. Watch for a number of gags that would appear thirteen years later in Bob Clampett's "Baby Bottleneck" (which is itself in line to be spotlighted here soon).

Shuffle Off to Buffalo (1933)

To make this post a double feature, here is the Academy Award winner from 1947 -- reportedly this was one of several Bob Clampett projects which were in early stages of development when he left Warners in 1946, and Friz Freleng ultimately ended up directing this cartoon. Tweety is no longer naked, and Sylvester answers to the name of Thomas!

Tweetie Pie (1947)

Running Out of Hare Jokes?

2006-11-19T20:14:00.000-05:00

Today you'll see Frank Tashlin's contribution to the Bugs Bunny catalog of "Hare" cartoons. Surveyor Elmer Fudd is working on the wailwoad when that scwewy wabbit weaks havoc along the wight of way ...

Unruly Hare (1945)

A Pivotal Preston Blair Secret That Was Right Out There in the Open -- Revealed!

2006-11-18T19:20:00.000-05:00

(Hey everybody! These covers are from different editions of the same great book ... buy it now and learn your stuff, and help make cartoons skillful and fun again!)

I made my discovery while trying to draw The Head (above) in correct perspective, just like in the book. After drawing him for the umpteenth time, I never thought I'd be able to get his facial features in the right place. In the picture above, you can see that the eyes, mouth and nose -- while vaguely proportionate -- don't properly follow the construction lines (which are supposed to wrap neatly around his egg shaped dome and indicate where his features fit).

Up to that point I had been copying these egg poses right out of the book ... however, the book also says to draw the face on an ACTUAL EGG and study it from different angles in that way. So I got a plastic easter egg and marked Mr. Head's features on it, and here's what happened:

Wow! The perspective is more accurate and the facial features are closer to where they should be! I should have listened to Preston sooner!

Hare Runneth Over

2006-11-18T12:57:00.000-05:00

So far we've seen two "Hare" cartoons from 1945: "Hare Trigger", directed by Friz Freleng, and "Hare Ribbin" directed by Bob Clampett. Today we'll get to see Chuck Jones' Hare! And at the end of the picture, be sure to have yourself checked for RABBITITUS.

Hare Tonic (1945)

Fred and His Irish Wife Paint the Town Black and White

2006-11-17T18:35:00.000-05:00

The price of admission to the Atlantic County Cartoon Show is an occasional feature of my own cartoons and Preston Blair doodles. Here's part three of the new collosal-sized Mullein Fields comics I've been working on. I have a long way to climb on the art ladder before I can go from "amateur" to "good draftsman", but here's my cartoon ability as of 3 hours ago:

Mama, Buy Me DAT!!!!

2006-11-17T09:27:00.000-05:00

Here's another "Hare"-raising cartoon from 1945, this time from Mr. Bob Clampett:

Hare Ribbin (1945)

Friz Has a Hare Trigger

2006-11-16T16:39:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to Cartoon Land, you wonderful folks! Today's installment is one of the more than 30 different Bugs Bunny cartoons with a title that plays with the word "Hare". This cartoon also features the first appearance by Yosemite Sam, "The meanest, roughest, rip-roarin'-est, Edward Everette Horton-est hombre that ever packed a six-shooter!".

Hare Trigger (1945)

Return of Vintage Toons? Mmmmmm... Could Be!

2006-11-12T21:32:00.000-05:00

Now that my finances are in better shape, I can go back to super-duper high speed internet again, and re-start uploading classic cartoons for the enjoyment of Mr. and Mrs. Everybody. That is, if Mr. and Mrs. Everybody is still here ... yoo hoo! Elsewise, I'll just have to entertain an audience of one (Luckily I am easily amused).

Another Cartoon from My Self

2006-11-06T22:12:00.000-05:00

Here's the sequel to last week's cartoon ...

Here I am!

2006-10-29T17:35:00.000-05:00

On October 1st, I moved into a tiny house in the woods off of a busy New Jersey State Highway, and there are no wireless internet thing-o-mabobs in the neighborhood to accidentally connect to. So I am stuck with slowpokey old dialup. That means I can't upload any more cartoons here, and I can't even watch any on DailyMotion or YouTube (I tried, and a 10 second clip took more than 5 minutes to load). This just might turn into another one of those blogs without a purpose!

Whether for a purpose or not, I found time to dig up my old comic strip and change it around to my present liking. You might remember (you all look very perceptive, I'm happy to say) that the old strip was called "Mullein Fields", and that's what the new one is called too. Fred is still Fred, but now he wears a bowtie and glasses a la John Q. Public, and his wife Maureen now has bushy hair and a bonnie brogue. These changes were made to adhere to new interests that I have. One of these new interests is Old Time Radio, and it wasn't until I drew this cartoon that I noticed its big influence on my little old self ...

"Pssst! I think I've seen that kind of thing done somewhere before, Molly."

Hello Hello Hello

2006-09-11T15:09:00.000-04:00

I wish I were posting more often, there are so many great cartoons that I'd love to put up here. I'll see about uploading a bunch of them throughout the week and sharing the wealth in an upcoming post.

Meanwhile, a few of the cartoons that I had left on YouTube were thrown out when they gave my account the ol' heave-ho. One of them, "A Car-Tune Portrait", from the Fleischer studio in 1937, I re-uploaded to DailyMotion ...

A Car-Tune Portrait (1937)

The reason I'm re-spotlighting the cartoon is because I've found some neato supplementary behind-the-screen goodies that go along with it (courtesy of Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research).

MODEL SHEETS!

TYPED STORY & ANIMATOR ASSIGNMENTS!