I thought I'd talk some more about the difference between an artist at the top of his game, and one who's in decline. Obviously everybody winds down with time, that's nothing to be ashamed of, but I thought if we could isolate what that decline consists of, we might be able to take some steps to slow it down in our own work.
In my opinion an artist at the peak of his form is more likely to be aware of how weird the world around us is. He'll do a gag about sleeping but for him the real gag is that we sleep at all, and how strange the idea of sleeping is. Think about it! For a third of every day we lie flat as a board under a cloth which might have obsessive patterns on it, all the time happily clutching a pillow or a teddy bear. That's truly funny...all the more so because it's real.
In the example above (click to enlarge), it seems like the artist is also mocking the idea of bedrooms. When you think about it, it is kind of funny that we set aside a whole room to sleep in, and that we decorate it so differently than we do the rest of the house. Catch the low, ignorantly-executed window, and the way Mutt looks bunched up on the extreme edge of the bed. Those red spots are hilarious, as are the fez and the gloves!
There's also something funny about the minimal staging: a pleasantly unconscious horizontal friend, a low ceiling, a dopey chair, a low window, another planet outside the window (the Moon), a bed covered with obsessive dots, and Jeff standing in the middle, unaware that he's become part of the weird, awkward composition. Sheer bliss! It's all so delightfully strange and uniquely realistic at the same time!
Now look at this (above) more modern example, presumably done by an artist in decline. Once again the gag is about sleeping, but there's no sign that the artist sees sleeping as an outrageous activity. The artist has made his piece with the act of sleeping, it's perfectly normal for him! How sad! And there are other missed opportunities! The fact that it all plays out in a yard, and what a yard is, might have been a kind of visual gag if it had been handled right.
Maybe the problems like this come about because the artist sees the writer as the star, and thinks of himself only as an illustrator at the writer's service. Big mistake! The comic strip is an artist's medium, and in an artist's medium the primary satisfaction should come from the art, not the writing.
27 comments:
I have to think about that final statement for a bit to decide whether I really agree with you. However, I do note that I am less attracted to the later styling of the strip. Undoubtedly, Fisher wasn't drawing as much of it by this time. The syndicate had undoubtedly set up a group to work with Fisher, who probably just did pencil roughs of the strip by the time of the second. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a writing staff, as well, by then.
Actually, when it comes right down to it, I don't think there was much "Art" left in the later strips.
A brilliant analysis, Mr. F! I wish Fantagraphics would do one of those "complete collections" deals on Fisher's Mutt and Jeff. Meh, they, or someone else, probably will, since it's been done to Krazy Kat, Peanuts, Popeye, the Lyonel Feininger comics, etc.
An interesting paradox there: When is an artist is in decline, and when do they admit it to themselves. Many artists keep searching for the inner clue, that original driving force that compelled them to create in the first place. And - - as in Picasso case - - to keep working to stave off death ("as long as I am working I am alive".)
The late great marionette master of the 20th Century was Bil Baird. Along with being an innovator in his field, Bil was also a brilliant cartoonist. As he aged he could still do the outrageous (and dirty) cartoon-on-a-napkin, yet at the same time his "more personal" art became Aztecian, angular and abstract. This step into an opposite realm allowed him continued growth while his best most inventive days were behind him.
Man... as much better as the older strip was to the newer one, the newer one was still 2X times greater than anything in newspapers today. Now comic strips are done by ignoramuses who can't draw, exexpt for maybe Berkely Brethved, but even he is a little bland.
And I imagine that artists from MAD Magazine like Mort Drucker and Sergio Aragones and Al Jaffee are way past their prime, too.
Well for one thing, your art is in decline when there is an entirely different person doing it.
I know, you were using the examples rhetorically, and the creative work still may have been overseen by the originator.
But look at your fave artists and your favorite period for each, and how long it may have lasted. I think this is easier to do in music, where few pop artists get beyond a golden period of five albums or so.
Sometimes it is the spark of creativity, the willingness to stay a starving artist to justify the amount of work put in, the art becomes more an issue of making a living. Sometimes it is a health issue, such as eyes going, hands trembling, allergy to art materials. Sometimes it is the artist trying to stretch his abilities, losing his own style in the process. Sometimes it is a matter of youthful bravado still around when the technical skills have matured. Sometimes its all of the above.
I don't want to drop names, because the artists I love, I love too much. But here is one described anecdotally, which will pan out in the description to more general examples. His style had clear influences which he perfectly meshed into something all his own, perhaps better than sum of parts. He tried other influences, to get more illustration work, and less Funny Book stuff, often with much success. Not all stretching of his muscles were successful. Drawing likenesses not his forte, but given a job to do so, nearly wrecked his style. Then an allergy to tools of the trade, he stopped inking with brush. Then art supplies become harder to find as well, or those hiring him give him a smaller canvas. Or, more frequently in the downfall of artists, the workflow changes. Those asking for a certain level of work stop publishing him. He might find it more lucrative to do less work, and less frequent work, for bigger bucks for the film industry, Or he simply tires of his subject matter. Or the only time he is asked to draw, is at a convention table. Or you have become a factory of assistants, for good or worse.
I think a lot of artists might always look a bit harshly on their own work, and may not see a decline because they have always felt the work flawed in one way or another, but have jobs they have more pride in than others.
Perhaps one of the most satisfied artists to delegate his creative work, both the writing and drawing of it, was the late Hank Ketcham. Though a terrific designer and cartoonist himself, he remained perfectly happy, living up in Carmel, approving the faxed work of his staff until the day he passed on. He was arguably the exception that proves the rule. He also realized the sheer volume of it, over the decades, would burn him out. Not everyone can (or wants) to be Charles Schulz.
It's interesting to compare the two strips, but I don't think they serve to illustrate the question you pose, really. Or maybe I misunderstand the parameters of the question as you conceive it?
The idea of "artistic decline-why it happens" is fascinating to me. It deserves plenty of posts and discussion. I'm sure answers differ with each case and there are just too many tiny contributing factors to make more than broad generalizations, but a few truisms seem to me to be pretty solid.
First(and this is assuming the artist in question is extremely talented to begin with-in one way or another that's apparent), to avoid decline that's precipitous, an artist MUST keep seeing and doing, constantly. Keep working!
In tandem with that, he or she has to do their best to avoid laurel-sitting; that is, saying "that's it! I now possess my mad skillz" and continuing on from there. Seems sometimes even great draughtsmen stop maintaining a critical eye on the their own stuff, or trying something new(and btw this seems to oftener than not go hand in hand with retirement or not working professionally/consistently). How often does one see a pretty lousy drawing or painting from someone who seemingly can't tell that it's got anything wrong with it at all? This seems to manifest in both very new, inexperienced artists and older, very very experienced ones, and it's that loss of the ability to scrutinize that seems to contribute most to both a failure to develop and a tendency to falter.
That's what I've observed, anyway. I'd add that I'm of course not including things an artist cannot help, such as physical and mental loss of acuity(although the last, mental function, has been proven to be maintained much better by people who never stop working, so there's in fact a symbiotic payoff to that).
Oh boy. The perfect example of this is Chuck Jones. His "heyday" drawings were beautiful, with a certain sensitivity and charm. Flash forward to the "gallery" stuff he did in the mid 1990's when sericels and such were popular and all of a sudden Daffy and Elmer had loads of thick, effeminate eyelashes and things just got...weird. I often stopped to ask myself well...if I was in my 80's and maybe could not draw that well anymore..would I actually just stop? Or would I even be aware of any significant changes in my art?
What keeps people going..ego..ignorance..or just the sheer joy and need to create art..regardless of how it looks?
Cynthia
A lot of what you mentioned about Mutt and Jeff is what made the Far Side so great
I wonder if sometimes the younger artists in their hungry phase are trying to blister the world with brilliance, then they enter a more mature phase where they drop some of the frills and develop this almost effortless style and then as age and degradation of faculties set in, they begin to shorthand or cut corners due to simply not having the gas anymore.
I can think of some comic book artists whose work I enjoyed more when it was raw and unformed but still more full of promise. Their mature work I admire for its improved aesthetics. Finally, they've fully realized and coalesced the strains running through the early stuff, fulfilling the promise that excited me initially.
And then they get slicker and more facile until a lot of the texture drops away. The result is just tired. It's still recognizable but no longer has the energy of the earlier stuff.
With Charles Schulz, it seems his writing went that way. I know he had some sort of palsy or hand tremble for many years towards the end of his career that gave his later strips a wavery line quality that made Peanuts strangely less slick visually, but what I missed more was the bite and strong characterizations of the strip's prime years. They ran a Sunday one from 1961 where Linus wants to watch some roundtable discussion show but Lucy wants to watch a kid's show, so Linus trudges over to Charlie Brown's only to find he's missed his show completely. When he gets home, it turns out Lucy turned to the show too and ended up enjoying it and the one person who didn't get to see it was Linus.
Compared to a lot of today's strips, it's shockingly intellectual and the fact that it's a well-developed narrative in such a short form really excited me. Just so insightful about the human condition.
By the end he wasn't hitting those heights anymore. Still, I do like to celebrate him for when he was.
But the most breathtaking thing about this post (which I forgot to praise)?
The notion of the fundamental strangeness of human behavior. When we stop taking things for granted and consider them for themselves... wow, life IS bizarre.
I think it's strange we spend time sleeping and dreaming. But just as freaky to me is that we put all kinds of disparate stuff into our mouths, mash it up with our teeth until it looks disgusting, then swallow it.
Wouldn't it have been better to have used Peanuts strips as an example (controversial) than the Mutt and Jeff strips you have as example? The first strip was done by Fisher(1924), yes, but the second was wholly executed by Al Smith (1963). Bud Fisher had died in 1954.
Fisher owned the copyright and got a 60% royalty rate on Mutt & Jeff from his distributor. Through the years, he never wrote or drew the strip at all,it was delegated to other writers and artists, he merely read the final version, then signed the copy.
Schultz, bless him, wrote and drew Peanuts until he retired (and soon died) and the strip now appears as reruns and Fantagraphic collections. Could one say, actually, there are very few examples of comic strips drawn by the same artist for thirty, forty or fifty years?
Al Capp, while drawing L'il Abner had a great consistency throughout the strip's existence. It's tough to spot if he ever coasted, the guy had certain standards he held to himself. Walt Kelly's Pogo maintained a high standard until he died, too. His widow tried to keep the strip going for a couple of years until the syndicate canceled it.
A lost anecdote: Walt Kelly and Al Capp, at a comic artists conference in the sixties, got into a feud, with Walt Kelly demonstrating to Al how to draw Daisy Mae, and a fuming Al Capp retorting with his version of Pogo. The drawings are sadly lost.
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald,
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Lastangelman brings up ALL great points - but Kelly and Capp were friends. The "feud" was an extemporaneous gag they acted out for the benefit of their audience at the Newspaper Comics Council, according to Milton Caniff. They used to do comic "debates" on stage together at charity events, too. Capp called Kelly "one of the funniest men in the world" in his Playboy interview in 1965.
I agree with Cynthia and Joel Bryan's analysis: Chuck Jones and Schulz are textbook examples of the hardest and most poignant lesson in show biz: knowing when to get off the stage.
R. Crumb claims that most of the classic newspaper/comic book artist have about ten years of peak creativity, because the grueling schedule of producing comics every day wears down your resolve. I think that's probably the key, that you have to want to still want to be weird, to explore, rather than rest in a comfort zone. He also said the only artists to resist the usual trend were George Herriman (who was unique to about any trend) and Chester Gould, who always stayed interesting because he was completely, unapologetically insane. I'd probably add Milt Gross to the list as well, because he never calmed down.
I personally find the whole subject of artistic decline fascinating, probably morbidly so. It adds humanity to the cannon of these creators, to see their early crude, clumsy attempts, their effortless wondrous peaks and their inevitable declines. I like to see the arc of a life in a body of work. Al Capp the biting satirist of the 40's/50's and the bitter reactionary of the 60's/70's are equally fascinating. Strange things, these funnies.
On a side note, I want Bud Fisher to design my bedroom. Polka dot sheets and one foot wide windows, glorious.
Dunno if the degeneration of a strip (with it's division of labor) best exemplifies the decline of an artist.
But I agree a sense of wonder in the face of the obvious is very important!
Joel Bryan said:
I think it's strange we spend time sleeping and dreaming. But just as freaky to me is that we put all kinds of disparate stuff into our mouths, mash it up with our teeth until it looks disgusting, then swallow it.
THIS is why humans don't have eyes on their tonsils.
A lot of the decline here is due to Bud Fisher being replaced by Al Smith. It's natural to assume that the person who follows is always less than the person who originated the strip. But today at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, I posted an example of a strip that was just as good, if not better when another artist took it over... Salesman Sam.
In 1921, cartoonist George Swanson created the strip, pioneering the screwball comics style by introducing "takes", dropping dead in shock at punch lines and complicated backgrounds with funny signs sprinkled through. In 1927, King Features hired Swanson away from the small syndicate he was working for and another artist, C. D. Small. Small picked up exactly where Swanson left off, and the dividing line between artists was totally invisible to readers. In fact, Small's strips are even funnier than Swanson's.
Mike F was by the archive the other day looking at the strips as I scanned them and he marveled at the drawings and wondered aloud why he had never heard of Small. I told him the story of the strip, and he said, "Oh. That's it. Comic fans are prejudiced against artists who take over another cartoonist's strip, even if they're better than the first artist."
Here are the Salesman Sam dailies.
See ya
Steve
Rudy: I got the FOOEY magazine from Steve! Thanks a million!
It looks like the whole magazine was put together by a couple of people, using their friends for photography models. I get the feeling that a lot of small independents entered the magazine publishing field in 1960. Since distribution was reputed to be mob influenced, I can only guess that the mob had an incentive to open up to the little guy...maybe tax breaks of some kind. I wish I knew more about it.
FOOEY was a terrible magazine in some respects, but I'm still grateful for it. It had energy and audacity to spare, and it was an inspiration to people who were starting media projects of their own. Thanks again for letting me read it!
Rudy: I got the FOOEY magazine from Steve! Thanks a million!
It looks like the whole magazine was put together by a couple of people, using their friends for photography models. I get the feeling that a lot of small independents entered the magazine publishing field in 1960. Since distribution was reputed to be mob influenced, I can only guess that the mob had an incentive to open up to the little guy...maybe tax breaks of some kind. I wish I knew more about it.
FOOEY was a terrible magazine in some respects, but I'm still grateful for it. It had energy and audacity to spare, and it was an inspiration to people who were starting media projects of their own. Thanks again for letting me read it!
You said:
"He'll do a gag about sleeping but for him the real gag is that we sleep at all, and how strange the idea of sleeping is."
Sleeping,the World and our live as we perceived are really very strange,your reflection is pure philosophy.I forgot Sleeping as important.That make me think of that for the very first time!!!They make funny about the real thing so we are identified with the apparently nonsense:-)
The principal idea of the images related seems to be the writers effect on the inventiveness of cartoonists
The first comic is more free,has more suspense and humor in particular when Jeff shouts Fire!,Murder! and his friend stay asleep and you don't expect what happens and you have another surprise at the end.Here the storyteller was the cartoonist.
The second comic is more acurate and ordenated,the description is a bit boring and at the end you see something different.
How happen this phenomena?
Steve: A very well-done strip! It makes me want to draw!
I can't think of examples apart from Salesaman Sam, but I'm sure it happens that relacements are sometimes better than the original artist.
Milt Gross never went into decline. His work got better and better. Compare an early Dave's Delicatessen with a later Nize Baby. The Nize Baby is drawn better is funnier, isn't it? I don't know what his secret was, but Milt Gross was a master of the medium. Comics, that is.
Ah, good, glad you got it!! It's yours! But make no mistake, it is a very shitty magazine, but there is a wierd energy about it, something verboten, and in poor taste, put on by men with bad ideas. Which is funny.
The centerfold makes up for everything!
but that was a funny gag! which more than makes up for any technical prowess.
Wow! Hi Eddie, I've been reading your blog now and then for while after finding it on Kricfalusi's blog. This theory is so true. The world is weird, and when it doesn't look weird it's because were not paying attention. I think we lose our power to observe if we become to numb to our senses. Maybe this decline has nothing to do with age, but just a tendency to look too quickly at what's around us and only see symbols for things instead of the weird reality that is there.
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