HALLOWEEN MASKS AND PORCH DECORATIONS

I like this idea (above) of underlit faces that get larger as they emerge from the cauldron. This idea might work as a porch decoration with paper bag heads.

Yikes! An evil marionette (above)!

Here's an example of the embossed cardboard decorations that used to be everywhere at Halloween time. I wonder if the net has any articles about the German company that used to make them.

Lots of people have a bench outside their front door. Benches just cry out for big sitting paper puppets.

Above, more paper puppet ideas.

Aaaargh! Here's (above) another vintage cardboard decoration. These sold cheap, believe it or not. Kids used to buy them. I like the idea of inexpensive, imaginative things of quality that kids can afford to buy with their own money.

Above, more porch decoration ideas.

Wow! Nice costumes!

Ditto!

Haw! Halloween stores should sell posters like the one above. You could leave them up all year.

I love the masks that kids make. Instead of a Kool-Aid stand kids should open up lawn stores at Halloween to sell masks that they make.  I'd buy them, wouldn't you?

HALLOWEEN MASKS 2013

I'm so busy...but I couldn't resist another Halloween post. What do you think of this (above) 50s cut-out mask?

This (above) is what's available locally.

If only you could buy masks like this (above) in my neighborhood.

Or this (above).

WOOOWWW!!! Where can I get hold of these (above)!!!???

Aaaah...vintage plastic masks!

Paper mache masks always look great!

MILTON CANIFF

There's a nice coffee table book devoted to Milton Caniff and I thought I'd write about it here. Caniff was the guy who did Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon for the papers in the 40s and 50s.

The cover above was colored by Marie Severin. If her bright and colorful style looks familiar that may be because you've seen it before...in Caniff's Steve Canyon.

Before Caniff lots of "serious" comics were muted, greyed down, in the style of the old pulps (above).

Yikes! Even Wally Wood (above) fell prey to the muted color enthusiasts.

Caniff popularized a light, airy, bright color approach (above), even with dramatic subjects. Maybe he did it to compensate for his liberal use of black. He was famous for that.

He sent the engraver a hand watercolored copy of every Sunday page. The color had to be just right.

The book covers his early newspaper work (above) before he did the strips that made him famous. Haw! Duke Ellington is identified as "colored" in the headline, showing that even artists are products of their times.

The book also includes a lot of preliminary sketches. I always like to see an artist's roughs.

Caniff did a lot of caricatures (above) for the newspapers.

For the comic strips he invented a boxy, geometric way of drawing women's heads. Maybe he was influenced by famous square-headed women like Garbo and Joan Crawford.

Caniff frequently had his picture taken with the models he drew. Not a bad idea.

BTW: Someone asked what I'll be dressed as for Halloween this year. Aaaargh! I'm so pressed for time that I'll probably do my Muskrat Lodge uniform again. How about you guys? What will you be wearing?

Also BTW: Holy Cow! I have one crossed eye in this picture! I crossed my eyes deliberately for the photo but how I achieved just one crossed eye is a mystery even to me.

Also, also BTW: I have my eyes on this Lincoln stovepipe hat. It probably won't fit though. Halloween hats never do.

THE NEXT POST....

CRIME, LOWLIFES, MURDERERS

What other animation site reports on the seedy urban underworld as often as Theory Corner? 

Here you'll find suspicious characters.

Gritty industry.

Jealous husbands.

Ex-friends.

Blighted lives.

Capture!

Coquettes.

Lowlifes.

Juvenile delinquents.

Thugs.

Secret societies.

Hot muggy nights on the fire escape.

Murder on the waterfront.

The first light of morning.

The milkman delivers.

Morning coffee in a rush.

The maid arrives for work.... 

....and discovers a body.