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I'm too sleepy to post now, but I thought I'd put up an interesting video as a placeholder: it's the first episode of the old Dick Van Dyke Show from the early 60s. There's no need to watch the whole thing...it was the first show and they didn't quite get the rhythm right... but you have to see Dick's drunk routine which starts at 19:45. Watch it even if you don't like drunk sketches. It's great!
I'm reading Dick's autobiography. It's not very revealing, and he doesn't talk about how he acquired that famous personality and rubbery slapstick technique, but that's par for the course for biographies. I did come across one interesting tidbit, though...he said Stan Laurel told him that he got that cool walk by having the heels removed from his shoes. Where are my shoes? I'm getting them modified!
One final thought: I said they didn't get the rhythm of the whole show right, and that's true. Even so, watch how expertly most of the entire party sequence is shot and cut. Watch how that sequence is paced and how well the music was laid in. PRO-fesh-ee-yon-nal!!!!
P.S. For some reason the YouTube video above isn't embedding. Here's a link to the site:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIn8mPy5_jA
July 19, 2011 09:20 AM
http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/search/label/Will-Yum
July 19, 2011 01:30 AM
Layouts by Eric Wiese, Vincent Waller and me.Painted by Richard Ziehler-Martin
July 17, 2011 07:51 PM
Here's (above) a newspaper comic from 1896! I've blogged about this artist before, but I can't help doing it again...I guess I just can't decide whether I like him or not. Good technical draughtsmen were abundant in the 1890s, so the primitive drawing style must be deliberate. Maybe readers regarded this artist the same way we regard Edward Lear or Steinberg now, as primitive and sophisticated at the same time.
Be sure to click to enlarge all the pictures in this post.
Ahhhh...refreshed at the fountain of Herriman (above)! Here he is caricaturing Opper's style.
Newspaper cartoonists back in the day must have been under a lot of pressure to come up with funny poses. This artist (above) doesn't seem to have a knack for that, but you gotta give him credit for trying.
Slapstick was king in those days (above). I wish it was today.
Herriman again (above). I love the guy in the white suit, who's standing in profile. I also like the guys on the lower left and right.
I like the way this artist (above) lays out his page. He finishes the gag but still has space to fill at the bottom, so he ends the page with a bunch of random afterthoughts. Artists were free to pioneer new formats in those days. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't.
I'm amazed at how common plagiarism was in those days. How do you like the Dick Tracy rip-off above?
Here's (above) an interesting one. Helen Kane had just lost her lawsuit against the Fleischers (the judge claimed he couldn't see the similarity between her voice and that of Betty Boop), so she decided to stake her claim on her personna with a comic strip character of her own that looked just like Betty. It didn't do very well, and Helen Kane slowly slipped out of the public eye.
BTW: I heard a contradictory story, that Kane lost her lawsuit because it was determined that she had stolen her character from yet another singer. I have no idea what the truth is.
Thanks to Allan Holz from "Stripper's Guide" for the comics. A link to his terrific blog can be found in the right sidebar.
July 17, 2011 02:55 PM
If this had been painted in the 80s, it would have been a lot harder to read. Each major object (Rocks,Wall, Lockers, Furs, Benches) would have been painted harsh and clashing primary and secondary colors.Colors straight out of the Cartoon Color cel paint tubes. - like the paintings I posted a couple days ago.This BG uses more control to guide the eye and focus the viewer on what is important.It
July 16, 2011 12:38 AM
This should be a treat for the artists who come here: rare Dore illustrations from Chateaubriand's 19th Century novel "Atala." According to Wikipedia, the book was written to debunk the European idea that American indians were noble savages. Maybe it does...I haven't read it...but most of the illustrations I saw seem to say the opposite. Dore portrays America as a majestic Garden of Eden, and the indians as its ideal inhabitants.
Actually I'm glad that Dore added his own take to the story. Whatever the truth about native Americans, the portrayal of this country as an Earthly paradise is a useful one. This is nature the way we'd all like it to be. It's a partly Utopian vision that should spur us on to make it a reality.
American swamps (above) really are like this in places, except Dore neglected to mention bugs. In real life the two women sitting on the water's edge would be buried under a mound of army ants and mosquitoes.
Gee, this picture (above) fills me with memories of happy times around campfires at night. Fortunately places like this aren't that rare. You can find lots of places like this in America, some of them not far from cities and towns. Sometimes I wish it were against the law to build in or even near primeval forests. Maybe we shouldn't even build nature trails and roads there. We should just let it alone.
Or not. I'm always amazed that Yosemite and Seqouia National Park look so unspoiled, and that in spite of the kazillion plus tourists who go there every year. How does the park service manage to pull that off?
I wish I knew the story of Atala. This looks like two "Noble Savages" wearing togas, taking a swim in America's life-giving water. Geez, Dore was so sentimental.
Seeing these pictures reminds me of the way Africa used to be portrayed in the media. When I was a kid sub-Saharan Africa was portrayed as being mostly jungle, like the kind you see in Tarzan movies. But was it? The Africa I see on TV these days seems to be mostly grassland and scrub. What happened to the African trees?
July 15, 2011 06:36 AM
