MORE RANDOM EDDIE SKETCHES

Here's some idea sketches I did for various projects I worked on.

Haw! I like the idea of an inventor who's harried by his own inventions. Here Igor tries to impress his master by making everything user friendly, and then has to live with the consequences.

This (above) is an excerpt from something I did for Theory Corner. Normally I can't draw John but for some reason I don't have any trouble doing continuity about him. Maybe that's the secret of caricaturing hard to draw people...you do a comic about them and a different part of your brain kicks in.

Here's (above) a sketch from another strip. How do you like the short bell bottoms John's wearing? He doesn't really dress like that but he used to draw other people that way and I picked it up from him.

Here's (below) a fragment of a different continuity, also for Theory Corner. It's about an acting class exercize....

...well, it went on for a couple more pages. This reminds me that I seriously considered taking acting classes at one time. I didn't want to be an actor, I just wanted to see if doing that would make me a better storyboarder. I didn't end up doing it because I became interested in something else instead...stage movement.

By that I mean how an actor sits, walks, gestures, enters and exits and relates to other actors. There used to be lots of acting coaches who taught this sort of thing but they're a rarity now. I couldn't find one, and I live near Hollywood for Pete's sake!

I had to learn stage movement on my own, being mindful of the maxim that says "The man who teaches himself is taught by a fool."

FROM MY SKETCH FILE

Here's a few sketches from my sketch file. This (above) is a title card I art directed. The expert lettering was done by Ted Blackman and the great character art by Jim Gomez. 

I did this drawing (above), as well as the others below. What the heck was it for? I can't remember.

This (above) isn't continuity, it's just a doodle that has sentimental value to me. The sketch on the lower right marked the first time that I realized it was possible to break the rule about silhouette value.

Above, no continuity, just more breaking of the silhouette rule, this time on the doodle on the lower left. I went out of my way to put shapes inside of each other and it worked...in my opinion, anyway.

'Just fooling around.

Above, a couple of unused panels from Spumco's "Fire Dogs 2."

Haw! This (above) was an unused idea from the theme park level of the video game.

Above, Little Miss Muffit, my favorite Nursery Rhyme character.

A LONG KISS

Sorrreeeee!!!!! Another cheater post from the past! I am just soooo doggone busy! Don't worry, I probably won't have to do this again after today. Anyway, as long as these drawings are up I can't help but make a fresh comment on them.

These are were just fooling around doodles. It struck me as interesting that when you kiss a girl you can't see how she's reacting. I mean, she could be reading a book over your shoulder and you'd never know it. If your eyes were closed she could put a piece of liver against your lips and you'd go wild with smooching it. Boy, you really have to trust that the person you're kissing is into it just as much as you are.

I did a whole bunch of kissing poses that day. If I ever find the others I'll put them up.

GIRL WATCHING (COMPLETE VERSION)

Last night I had dinner at Steve's and the conversation turned to beautiful women we'd seen at restaurants. It happened that two seasoned girl watchers were in attendance, and they generously agreed to share their knowledge with the table.

What follows is an explanation of the code they use to discreetly communicate with each other when a beautiful woman enters the room. Sorry the doodles are hard to read: they were done with a fine point Bic pen.  Maybe enlarging them will help.

BTW: Sorry the drawings got so sloppy. I rushed them so I could get some sleep. 

Also BTW: Many thanks to the men who shared their secret code with us. 

CARTOON ACTING

Well, I gave the talk on cartoon acting at Woodbury on Saturday night, and it turned out great. I made a few gaffs, and had some lapses of taste that appalled the audience,  but taken all in all it was a fun night.

The Chief Presenter, discussion leader, and Master of Ceremonies was Steve Worth. Steve put up some great acting scenes that were so intense that I found myself lost in thought right up to the minute I was supposed to speak. 

The clip immediately preceding me had to do with a tearful, poverty-stricken mother who was about to throw herself and her baby into the river. It turned out to be the best introduction imaginable! The audience was so happy to be relieved of their anxiety about the poor mother that they laughed at just about everything I said, whether it deserved it or not....the perfect set-up for a talk about comedic acting!

After the show I met Margaret Kerry, the actress and dancer who did the live action reference for Tinkerbell in Disney's 50's version of "Peter Pan." She did the voices for Spinner and Paddlefoot in "Clutch Cargo," and even worked for Hal Roach on "The Little Rascals." Margaret was super nice and still beautiful, a delight to talk to.



The earlier part of the day was pretty interesting, too. Lester Hunt, the philosophy professor and author from Wisconsin, and who comments on Theory Corner every time the subject is philosophy or aesthetics, treated me to pizza at Lido's! 

Boy, Lester and I have a lot in common! We agree about so many different things that I was actually relieved when we found something to disagree about. Lester likes Thoreau and I don't. The problem is that he's right about so much else that it's making me wonder if I misjudged Thoreau. I'm really not looking forward to it, but I'm determined to spot read through "Walden" some time in the near future.



After lunch we drove up to Ayn Rand's old house at 10,000 Tampa, which is not far from where I live. Other famous residents of the area were Barbara Stanwick and Marlena Dietrich. We took pictures of ourselves at Nobel Middle School, which is at her old address, and we cruised around the mini-mansions above the area because a commenter to this site once said that the true location of her house was  slightly North of the school. 

Back to acting, I think I'll put all my theories of that type into a xerox-pamphlet that I'll sell on this site. Don't worry, it won't cost much. I just want to be able to call myself an author.

MORE CARTOON ANATOMY!

How about a few more words on how laughter happens? I'm obsessed with finding out why the cheek enlarges so much, even for a smile as shown above. Mark Mayerson says the cheeks enlarge to accommodate the extra skin which is pushed out of the way by the smile. He's almost certainly right, but...well... where's the wrinkles you'd expect to see if skin was being packed that way? And why don't you see the skin traveling upward in steps, into the cheek?

I really shouldn't pursue this. The answer is probably obvious and I'm just being dense.

Here's a picture (above) that seems to confirm Mark's opinion. The cheeks don't bunch up much, maybe because the skin is spread all over the side of the face. Boy, this face resembles a screaming baboon!

The small picture on the lower left (above) is interesting. It shows the lower jaw receding backwards into the face as the woman laughs. The upper teeth don't seem to move much.


Of course it's an effort to hold a smile very long. You get tired of keeping the cheeks up. When the strain becomes unbearable (above) you stop supporting the cheeks and the meat collapses downward, back into it's home in the muzzle.

I've seen lots of flabby muzzles, especially on middle aged men and Star Wars fans.

KISSING DOODLES

We're all in a romantic mood from reading about the vist to Uncle Eddie ("Theory Corner for Women" a couple of days ago); what could be more appropriate than some kissing drawings?

TONY CURTIS SMOKES

I've had a pretty busy day today so forgive me for putting up a skimpy post. Here's some doodles I did while watching "The Defiant Ones" on TV a couple of days ago. Tony Curtis smokes up a storm in that film but I couldn't draw fast enough to get

most of it.

Anybody know of any films that contain good smoking scenes?

CURSE OF THE PUFFY CROTCHES

Why is that!? Who's responsible for this!!?? Do other people have this problem or is it just me!!???

BE BACK SUNDAY!

DO YOU PLAY WITH YOUR NOSE WHILE THINKING?

I do. These pictures were assembled from the margins of papers I was doodling on while thinking yesterday. These aren't good drawings but I include them here because they help make a point, namely that without cartooning we'd never be able to record a lot of the little things in life.

I don't know about you but my life doesn't contain many super events. When I'm not working most of my day consists of waiting while old ladies argue with the cashier, trying to eat while driving, complaining about the state of the world, oogling girls, trying to find a pen that works, etc. Illustrators like super hero artists aren't interested in stuff like this. If cartoonists didn't draw it then it would go completely unrecorded by artists.

I just saw a DVD of "Cars" and was struck by how little "small event" acting the film contained. The cars displayed fear of the dark, shyness and awkwardness when the story required it but these were clearly subordinated to the story and were never allowed to dominate whole sequences. For contrast think of how W.C. Fields devoted entire sequences of his movies to micro events like trying to shave when someone was blocking his view of the mirror. 

THEORY CORNER - SCIENCE SECTION

The reason is that the normal human attention span for just about anything is probably only two or three minutes. When the limit is reached people collapse then have to summon the strength to begin a new round of attention. The guy in the drawings wasn't bored, he was actually intensely interested in what was going on around him. He simply reached the end of his attention span.

So far as I know this important phenomenon was discovered by John Krisfalusi. One day I met John for lunch and I found him animating flipbooks on the restaurant table. Most of the books were funny, I wish you could have seen them, but one one book in particular stood out. It showed a guy getting a glassey-eyed stare, collapsing then straightening up again. I asked John what it was and he said he was just animating what the people at the other tables were doing. I stared at those people while John made more flipbooks and that's when I noticed what I drew above. Every single person at every table got a glassey stare and collapsed every few minutes. It's subtle, and I probably would never have noticed it if I hadn't been for the flipbook, but when you know what to look for it's unmistakable.

Interesting, huh?