A BIT OF "A BIT OF FRY AND LAURIE"

A couple of clips form "A Bit of Fry and Laurie." These guys are great!

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS: CARTOONIST

I don't know if Tennessee Williams ever drew anything but I regard him as a cartoonist. You could say that he's a cartoonist with a typewriter, rather than a pencil. His stories are over-the-top and funny, and his characters are fun to draw. Here's a drawing I did (below) of Anna Magnani from the William's film, "The Rose Tattoo." Magnani was brilliant in this film. What an under-rated actress!

Williams comes from the Ibsen-Chekhov-Strindberg school of writing. These guys liked character conflict, even when it didn't make any sense. It was really drama for the sake of drama with the then-fashionable nihilism added to justify it. Actors liked the plays because they were full of dramatic fireworks but the public was slow to warm to them. I think people were put off by the unrelenting seriousness. These were pretty depressing plays.

The writer who saved the movement from oblivion was Tennessee Williams and he did it by making the new style funny. Oh, his work was still serious on some level but it was serious the way cartoonists like to be serious, which is really a caricature of seriousness. In a Williams play you never knew whether to laugh or cry.

Maybe Williams' best-known play was "A Street Car Named Desire." Brando was great in the film version! Even John K who hates Brando in other films, likes him in this one! I read that Brando had a whole closet of tee-shirts for this film, each one stretched and bunched up to a different side to make it seem tight from a different camera angle. Here's (above) a half-minute clip from the film.

When I was a kid I'd see these Williams movies and wonder what the heck was going on in the adult world. Was I going to have to live in a mansion with a Big Daddy? Was I supposed to hang around with alcoholics and sleazy women in slips? Would I be expected to break mirrors with my whiskey glass? They go through a lot of mirrors in Tennessee Williams films.

BLOGGER WON"T LET ME PUT UP PICTURES!

Or maybe my computer's on the Fritz. I don't know. I can't figure it out. Whatever it is, it'll probably be better tomorrow. Anyway here's something that'll probably look good in print. It's the opening title for an old 30s radio show called...


GRAND CENTRAL STATION


ANNOUNCER: (SLOW BUILD) As a bullet seeks its target , shining rails in every part of our great country are aimed at GRAND CENTRAL STATION, heart of the nation's greatest city.

Drawn by the magnetic force of the fantastic metropolis, great trains rush toward the Hudson River... (FASTER BUILD) ...SWEEP down its eastern bank for 140 miles...FLASH briefly by the long, red row of tenement houses south of 125th Street!

SFX: RACING ENGINE. TRAIN'S BELL.

ANNOUNCER: DIVE with a roar into the two and one half mile tunnel which burrows beneath the glitter and swank of Park Avenue! AND THEN...

SFX: ENGINE CHUGGING SLOWS. TRAIN'S BELL. HISS OF AIR BRAKES.

ANNOUNCER: ...GRAND CENTRAL STATION!



Nifty, huh? That's what a REAL writer does! Why can't we have writing like that in our industry!?

IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO DRAW AT THE ZOO?

No it's not, not unless you have a special reason. If you're a realistic animator working on a sequel to "The Lion King" then by all means go and enjoy yourself, but if you're a cartoonist you might find yourself wondering if the trip was really necessary. Artist-friendly zoos are a myth.


Zoos used to be a great places to draw. Older zoos like the one above kept exciting animals like lions in horizontal cages where the lions used to pace up and down for half the day (the other half was spent outside). It was hard on the lion but great for artists who got to see repeated side views of dynamic walks only a few feet infront of their sketchbooks. The cages were indoors and the lighting was perfect for drawing. Best of all, there was no wind to blow your paper and you got to hear the lions roar at each other with the sound echoing off the walls.


Modern zoos put the lions into enormous outdoor habitats. It always takes visitors a minute or two to locate the lion who's usually sleeping behind a rock. No roars, no pacing, just...sleep. If you try to draw the parts of the lion that are visible then you encounter the other problem, namely the difficulty of drawing on reflective, snow-white paper under a blazing sun. Contemporary zoos are not really artist-friendly.


Another myth that artists have is that it's fun to draw at baseball games. Is it? From the grandstands the players are tiny figures that seem to be miles away. If you can see to draw those guys then you've got better sight than I have. It might be fun to draw the fans if they'd only turn around but they won't, unless it's to give you a dirty look for drawing them.

LEARN TO DRAW YOURSELF

If you're an animation cartoonist then it's your responsibility to learn how to draw your own mannerisms and quirks. Pay attention to the way people describe you! Things you do that annoy other people are particularly valuable! Don't stop slurping your soup, study it! Analyze the slurp! Forget about drawing at the zoo, that's for realistic artists. If you're a cartoonist then YOU are the weird and funny animal you ought to be studying!

I'm too sleepy to illustrate this with new drawings but here's (above) a few old ones that might help. The top one is how I feel when I'm talking to people in a restaurant. It's probably not the way I really look but cartooning is more efficient than realistic drawing at portraying mental states and it was fun to draw it that way. Anyway I had to analyze what I was feeling and what kind of personality I have before I could draw it.

Ditto with the second drawing. The first bite of pizza is sacred to me. You have to tune out the world and focus solely on the delicious food in front of you. I tried to...to... I can't type anymore. I'm falling asleep.......

CURSE OF THE PUFFY CROTCHES

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

THE BEST CONVERTIBLE EVER

The car above isn't the best convertible ever, I just put it there as a teaser. No modern car qualifies. The modern aesthetic allows only the head to appear behind the wheel. You can't get an open car feel when you're cocooned that way. 

Early convertibles had a better idea: They (above) were a sofa sitting atop a motorized carriage. The driver was high off the street and could feel the wind all over his body. Driving it must have seemed like a magic carpet ride. If you didn't look down you'd hardly be aware you were in a car. It would seem like your seat was just floating down the street.

Okay, here's (above) my pick for the best convertible design of all, the best of the best. I speak of the Stanley Steamer. It has all the advantages of the austere gas-propelled car at the top of the post but is a beautiful work of art besides. I actually had a short ride in one of these, thanks to Jay Leno.

Here's (above) a later version of the Stanley. It's still beautiful but now you have to open a door to get in and you're behind the engine rather than above it. It's a great design but I prefer the earlier green and brass model. In the newer version the driver is a functioning part of the car's steering and control rather than a god-like figure who floats above it.

Here's (above) a Mercer Raceabout. The dashboard is far in front of the driver so he still feels somewhat independent of the car. No doors, a beautiful piece of work. This is one of the last convertibles that really delivered the convertible experience. After this drivers would sit in enclosed boxes.