Congrats to ADDTF for one solid year of reading comics naked.

Also, welcome back ADD and In Sequence.

Did I miss anyone?

 
Not Quite Work Safe, Palooka!

I'm slipping. While working on the Freddie Moore post a few days back I noticed a small announcement on the Cartoon Retro message board that there were new additions to the tour Shane Glines has set up for the site. Katie Rice and Luke Cormican are to present the too-cute-to-live Forestland, and Fred Osmond will be bringing us the swinging stylization of Rufus and Horny. Looks like amazing stuff.

If you haven't checked out the Cartoon Retro tour yet, start at the beginning and slide your way through samplings of the great cartoon illustrators from the turbulent years between the Market Crash to the Big One. Topics will also include Louise Brooks and her influence on the commercial arts, Shane Glines' own independent cartoons, and vintage pin-ups, jazz, and cartoons, plus much more. And Hot Socks! The feature I'm most looking forward to, Lily and Flinch, sure looks darb, fella.
posted by Steven at 2:37 AM

 
Giving 'Til It Hurts

I popped on over to Pixar storyboard artist Ronnie del Carmen's kickass blog yesterday and discovered that comic message board mainstay and uber-Hellboy fanboy Rick Cortes was hospitalized and is having trouble making payment on some major medical bills. Members of both The Drawing Board and The Hellboy Forum are doing all they can to help Rick through this crisis. Many of the members of these boards are professionals in comics and animation, and numerous pieces of art have been donated to an ebay auction for this cause, including original work by Mike Mignola, Drew Struzan, Cameron Stewart and many others.

The organizers have requested that even if you're unable to contribute financially or artisically, it would also be incredibly helpful to spread the word. And keep checking back. There should be many more pieces to come in the following weeks.
posted by Steven at 4:22 AM

 
Free Comic Thursday - White Boy





Over at the good ship U.S.S. Catastrophe, Kevin Huizenga serves up an odd assortment of comics, including Crockett Johnson's Barkis, Stan Lee and Dan DeCarlo's Homer, the Happy Ghost, Strange Adventure's Artist From Other Worlds with art by Alex Toth, and many others. One of the most interesting selections on the page is Garret Price's White Boy/Skull Valley.

The first and only place I have ever seen White Boy was in The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, a monster book that is a must-have for anyone with an interest in comics history. There were only two White Boy strips showcased, both of which I've scanned and made available at the top of the post (click either for a larger version). Such a small sampling of the strip only made me want to find more. So far as I know, the only other reprints of any of these strips were in Nemo magazine.

White Boy began publication as a half-page Sunday strip in late-1933 and only lasted three years time. The story starts off in the late 1800's with the adventures of a young boy who is captured by a tribe of Native Americans, eventually living peacefully with them and learning their ways. About halfway through its run, the strip suddenly switched both its locale and time period to a dude ranch in the 1930s, dropping almost all the characters and situations that had been developed thus far and changing its name to Skull Valley.

The strip's greatest asset was in its depiction of the American landscape with a style usually seen in magazine illustration as opposed to the funny pages. As a matter of fact, White Boy cartoonist Garrett Price was better known as an artist for the New Yorker and various other books and periodicals. Though it appears as if he worked steadily throughout the years, even less is known about Garrett Price then about his strip. What little is known is that he was born in Kansas in 1896, graduated from both the University of Wyoming and the Art Institute of Chicago, and continued his studies in France.

It's nice that for most of the strips Kevin has provided the option of seeing them at a larger size, however be warned, the strips appear to be out of order. As I mentioned above, I'm fairly certain White Boy eventually became Skull Valley, and didn't actually alternate between the two titles as is presented above, though I could be wrong. Regardless, being so rare a find there aren't that many runs in Kevin's fine collection, so it shouldn't matter much what order you read them in.
posted by Steven at 4:38 PM

 
Glass Houses

The latest edition of Indy Magazine centres on City of Glass, the acclaimed graphic novel adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli from a novel written by Paul Auster, which is due to be republished this summer. This issue goes all out, with an analysis of the work in question, interviews and essays by most of the participants (including the normally interview-shy David Mazzucchelli), and much more. I really can't over-emphasize what a great package this is.

As a side note, I first heard about this update earlier yesterday via Ringwood Ragefuck, followed by an email from Indy Magazine itself. Normally I would have been informed even sooner through the magic of alt-comix booster Egon, but it seems that former Flat Earth Hunk-Of-The-Month Billy K. has a hate-on for Indy Magazine and neglected to mention the news. Word of advice, pal, before this feud gets out of control. Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

Update - Judging by a recent post on Egon, Billy K. and Indy Magazine's William Kartalopoulos seem to have patched up their differences. Crisis over.
posted by Steven at 3:50 AM

 
The Elusive Appeal of Freddie Moore



Ages ago I posted a short link to a thread on the Cartoon Retro message board devoted to Disney animator Freddie Moore. Since then I've checked back periodically for the board's continuous updates on this fascinating artist, all the while meaning to repost the subject here. Cartoon Brew, the one animation site you can't do without, gave me the necessary kick in the ass to revisit Moore with this post announcing their first guest columnist, Mark Mayerson. Mayerson had written an article entitled Animators and their Scenes which includes a small profile on the talented Mr. Moore. Coincidentally, part of this article was also posted on Cartoon Retro. Small world.

Now, while the main appeal of the Cartoon Retro thread devoted to Moore may be in the sumptuous, rare, gigantic, and non-work safe drawings the members of that fine board have cobbled together, an entirely different reason to pay a visit is in discovering further information on Moore's troubling life and tragic death. These revelations counter the accepted scenerio and much of what has been written in the Illusion of Life, a book that is considered by many to be the animator's bible and the definitive history of Disney animation. Bigshot Steve Worth explains.

"Moore did NOT injure himself by "hitting his head on a car while drunk". He was getting out of his parked car (I think it was on San Fernando Road) and a drunk driver sideswiped him. (Moore was sober at the time.) He was taken to the hospital, but he had no insurance or money to pay for the treatment. The doctors told him that they wanted to do more tests, but that would cost money. They would give him the day to try to line up cash, but if he couldn't find any, they would have to discharge him the next morning. Moore and Jeckyl got on the phone and called all of Fred's old friends at Disney to ask to borrow money to help pay for his treatment, but everyone turned their back on him. Jeckyl said that one after another of Freddie's friends told him "Freddie just wants the money to get drunk again..." The hospital finally discharged Moore when it became clear he had no way to pay his bills. He was sent home in a taxi, and died on his front doorstep with his house key in his hand from internal bleeding."

And that's just the beginning of Mr. Worth's heartbreaking anecdote, which, if true, is a sobering lesson on how the victors can rewrite history to further their own means. The thread also contains Freddie Moore's 14 rules of good animation, conversation on the art of appeal in drawing, caricatures of Ward Kimball, Freddie Moore and former Disney employee/Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly, as drawn by Kelly himself, and plenty more. Almost too much, in fact. If you have any interest in the history of animation or in the workings of one of the most naturally talented draftsmen of the first half of the 20th Century, check it out.
posted by Steven at 3:31 AM

 
Sidekicks



"Spelling Beatrice has the typical sidekick outfit. Bright yellow colors that scream 'kidnap me!'"

I was eating lunch at work and rereading the first book in the Sidekicks series when I began to think about the sad state of children's comic books. Then I realized that, like the authors of Sidekicks, I work in the animation industry, specifically children's entertainment. Hundreds of people in this city alone make their living creating television programs for a segment of society that the comic book industry has written off entirely. I read all these debates about what children may or may not want in their comics, and what if anything can be done about it, and here I am involved in a multi-billion dollar industry that does the job without even batting an eye.

Though Sidekicks authors Dan Danko and Tom Mason have moved on from working at Malibu and Marvel comics to writing animated and non-animated television programs and finally to book publishing, it's obvious that their love for comics, and specifically superheroes, hasn't diminished. Hey, they even dedicate the first volume to Jack Kirby. Unfortunately, it seems as if the best venue for them to tell a superhero story for children is through a book, as opposed to the medium from which superheroes originally came from, which is as poor a reflection on the comic book industry as I've ever seen.

Sidekicks revolves around the adventures of thirteen year old Guy Martin, aka Speedy, the fastest person in the world, a title which was held until recently by Fastest Man Alive Man. Guy is practically the only sane person in a world seemingly gone mad. In fact, he's practically the only character with any real superpowers. Despite this, he's ignored, treated like a serf by his mentor, and doesn't get any credit whatsoever for, y'know, saving the world and stuff. The major superheroes, The Big League of Justice, are never around when they're needed, and his fellow sidekicks are what you'd get if the Legion of Substitute Heroes replaced the Teen Titans. Only worse. Much, much worse. Every superhero convention is up for grabs, from gripes about spandex to brainstorming the team battle cry to obviously moronic plans for world domination. Even the chapter titles and the cute spot illustrations by Barry Gott contribute to the mayhem, creating a complete little package of superhero send-up and homage.

All the obstacles Guy is saddled with throughout the story not only create most of the humor, but also make his maturation as a hero that much more challenging and satisfying for the reader. He even does the fine superhero tradition of the "noble loser" proud, with the object of his affection not caring for either of his identities. Guy is the narrator of the stories and the only fleshed out character of the bunch, which, while adding to reader identification, also leaves too many of the other characters relying on the same schtick over and over. With a few of the characters this isn't a problem, as even their one-note performances are interesting enough to create hilarious variations on a theme ala Krazy Kat, or when pitted against other one-note characters for interesting combinations of personality tics. Still, it would be nice to see even one other person expanded upon in later volumes, even if it did dilute the madness just a little.

Considering that I like to centre this blog around comics, without an emphasis on superheroes, I had my doubts about reviewing a non-comic superhero story. That, and this is obviously not a book that is targeted to me, so I wasn't sure if I should review it straight or try to think like a kid. Considering the culture shock I felt at a recent all-ages punk/ska show, the latter would probably not be a good idea. I can say that for every time I groaned at a character that overstayed his or her welcome or a joke that was too obvious or just plain beaten to death, I laughed at least three times as much for what did work. If I chuckled out loud at most of it, my little nieces and nephews, already outgrowing Captain Underpants, would probably bust a gut reading these over-the-top grossout adventures. Let them get their own copies. And surprisingly the heroic climax, which consisted of equal parts courage and absurdity, struck a chord in me that no superhero comic published in the last five years has been able to do, so I'm glad I got over my initial doubts.

All in all, a better way to get kids into superheroes, or remind adults of why they liked them in the first place, then just about anything the Direct Market currently provides.

Sidekicks can be found at Amazon U.S. and Amazon Canada, and practically anywhere online or in the real world that fine books are sold.
posted by Steven at 4:18 AM

 
Clash of the Titans!

"Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, and why we died. All that matters is that today, two stood against many. Valor pleases you, so grant me this one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, the HELL with you!" - Conan the Barbarian.

Strip Fight is a weekly battle among cartoonists, in which a common theme is chosen and each participant must create a one page comic within a week devoted to that theme. Then, for a week afterwards, the comics are put to a vote.

The latest theme is Jenny Everywhere, a public domain character I helped create. If you have the time and the inclination, do me a favour, check out the stories and cast your vote. The following are my three favourites.

Dalton Sharp fufills my dream of seeing a kung-fu Jenny with a lobster claw in place of her left hand. That and he's one of the few to give her some heft.

Ex presents my other favourite type of Jenny story. Something quiet and mundane shown with beauty and grace.

Tony Walsh is by far the most experienced of all Jenny artists. This particular strip is a prequel to his still ongoing Drag Racing Monkeys epic, which is completely fucking rad.

The worst part is narrowing it down from three. Sigh.
posted by Steven at 2:55 AM