SOME INTERESTING ADS

Here's (above) a terrific magazine ad for mustard written by, of all people, Dorothy Sayers, the mystery writer. It's a masterpiece of understated pitchmanship. Click to enlarge.


Laxatives like Ex-Lax, Sal-Hepatica and Phillips frequently used comic strips (above) to sell their product. I wonder how the entire laxative industry came to be so focused on this one kind of advertising.

When I was a kid I used to love the Peter Pain demon. He'd lay in wait for some poor slob to pass then he'd jump out and clobber him with his pain bat. My friends and I drew countless parodies of this. Maybe the best ads always lend themselves to parody.

Much credit to the Cremo people who conceived of this new way to sell their cigars: imply that their competitor's cigars were made by people who didn't wash their hands after using the bathroom. Click to enlarge.

DO CARTOONISTS GET WORSE WITH AGE?

I imagine that they do, though there are exceptions (like Milt Gross). Anyway, here's (above) a beach cartoon by Don Martin, done when he was fairly young, and another beach cartoon (below) done when he was older. I thought it might be interesting to compare the two to see

if we can isolate the difference that age makes.

Let's see...hmmm...well, the emotions in the top cartoon are more extreme, and the poses are more caricatured. No doubt about it, young people are more judgemental about the people around them. They love to ferret out the phony and roast him over hot coals. Older people have a more live-and-let-live attitude, which is lethal for a cartoonist. Old people need to stop being so tolerant and learn to abhor everybody like young people do.

I notice too that the older Don Martin isn't as touchy-feely as the younger one. The girls in the topmost cartoon are all over the handsome guy. They can't keep their hands off him. And what's that quality in the faces in the older artist's cartoon? Is it intelligence!? What the heck is intelligence doing in the Don Martin universe? Martin characters are supposed to be stupid! We can all learn a lesson here. Cartoonists must constantly be on their guard against the debilitating influence of IQ points.

Here's (above) another example of Don Martin's early style. I'm dying to blow up the drawing of the zombie guy to life size, mount it, and stand it up in my hallway. Boy, nobody can draw stupidity like Don Martin!

GOTTA' BE GONE TIL TUESDAY NIGHT!

THE GLORIOUS, AWE-INSPIRING 40'S CHEMISTRY SET

Before the era of nuisance lawsuits, before my own time even, there were glorious toys. One of the all-time best was the fully-loaded chemistry set, which came in a metal box like the one above. To judge from the look of it I'd say this example is from the 40s. I'll bet there were even better ones in the 30s.

Every boy in that era had seen a million mad scientist movies and they were all chomping at the bit to blow things up and transform themselves into monsters a la Jeckle and Hyde. Of course, once they got the set, they got channeled into doing the experiments in the set's book, which were still pretty dangerous and awe-inspiring.

They also wanted a high-voltage lab like the one in "Frankenstein" and there were electrical sets to fill that need, too. I have a 600,000 volt spark generator in my garage, I guess because I want to make dead bodies come to life just like the kids of that era did.

If you're interested in hands-on chemistry you should spend 25 bucks for the Granddad's book above. I think Amazon has it. I used to have my own copy and I loved it. Chemistry must have been a lot of fun way back when.

"Popular Science" and "Popular Mechanics" used to be crammed with chemistry-related articles. Here's a small article about evaporation (below) from the March 1948 issue of Popular Science (cover above). Notice that it's not mathematical. Kid chemistry should be taught this way for at least a year before making it mathematical. Get kids interested in the subject first!

The article's below. Click to enlarge.

THREE MILT GROSS HANDS

Milt Gross does terrific hands. Usually they're not as detailed as this ginger root with finger nails (above) but this is a close-up so it gets the royal treatment.

Here's (above) a knobby, pointy hand that manages to be more interesting than whatever it's pointing at. With funny hands like this to learn from why are we wasting our time drawing normal, boring hands? We're cartoonists! We're supposed to be inventive!

Here's a dandy's hand. Maybe it's a deaf dandy's hand because it looks like it's executing sign language. I wonder if sign language poses could be helpful for drawing funny hands?

I love this hand because it suggests a whole set of mannerisms and a character to go with it.

Sometimes interesting hands require interesting, quirky arms like the ones on this Ted Geisel drawing (above). It's great how a single hand can suggest the way a whole character should be drawn. That's because the hand was non-standard. Drawing standard body parts dulls the imagination.

CARTOON ANATOMY: EARS

Most print cartoonists draw ears the way Don Martin drew them above.


It's a "C" within a "C", or a lower case "a" within a "C."


For caricatures and more realistic characters the "C" isn't enough. For those the more high class "Y" within the ear shape is necessary.


Some poor souls are born without the "Y!"



"Y"-less ears aren't very common, thank heaven.



I've seen so many boxing movies that cauliflower ears actually look good to me.



Most ears slope a bit. I think mine are like that.




Some, like Lyndon Johnson's, are vertical. Sometimes the vertical ones come with exaggerated lobes (above) and tons of ear hair. Ear hair is too big a subject to tackle here subject so I'll have to leave that for later when I can give it a seperate post.

Gee, this guy has lost his "Y." What's left is a puffy disappointment that doesn't deserve the noble name, "ear." Is this what happens when you get older? Are we all destined to loose definition there?

Big ears (above) aren't linked to the face at the lobe so they stick way out. These are noble ears that indicate poetic intelligence in the owner.

Another ear (above) without a fully-formed "Y." I include it here because the major chambers of the ear are symmetrical. Look at it, the top and bottom alcoves are the same size. This may be without meaning...on the other hand the person might be the Antichrist.

A number of how-to-draw books put the ear near the middle of the head. I don't know about that.

An awful lot of people are like Kali, with the ear favoring the back of the head.

Well, that's enough science for now.

I NEED SOMETHING I CAN PUT UP FAST!

I'm too sleepy to post something new. How about if I reprint this article I wrote for Animation Magazine way back when, when I was doing "Tales of Worm Paranoia?"

Thanks to Mike Fontanelli for the caricature of me, above. John K did the one that accompanied the article below.

Click to enlarge!