DAVIS & KURTZMAN DRAW THE SAME STRIP

Kurtzman wanted to pitch a comic book version of Dickens' "Christmas Carol" but after doing one page he decided the project was more likely to sell if he brought in Jack Davis to do it. Consequently we have the same page, even the same panels, done to a finish by two interesting artists. Which do you prefer?


I should mention the book I got these from but I can't find it. The title was something like "Interviews With Artists."

ITALIAN FASCIST SCUPTURE

These statues were commissioned by Mussolini to decorate The Mussolini Forum, which was to house the 1944 Olympics before WWII intervened. As decorative sculpture they're not bad; as art...well, what do you think? Me, I'd say no. The technique is highly professional rather than artful and there's no transcendant quality in them.

The statue above (topmost) put me off when I first saw it because it seemed to be glorifying a bully or a thug. I think I was wrong because beefy guys like that have been universally admired since the 30s. Even Captain Marvel (above) used to look that way. If you look close you can see some sensitivity and intelligence in the statute's eyes.
These are physiques (above) that I associate with Nautilus machines. I used to think exercizes that emphasize specific muscles were a modern invention but you see figures like this in Rubens and other old masters so I guess I was wrong. The guy on the right looks like he had a killer bowel movement.

I like this kind of manly sculpture (above) but the hair looks like it was turned out without much thought. Zaidenberg (the 40s how-to-draw author) used to draw deco hair like that using charcoal to make quick, chisel strokes. Ruskin in "Seven Lamps of Architecture" warned against schlocking what appears to be unimportant details like the hairline. I think he was right.

DISNEY'S NEW GOOFY CARTOON

Warning: I'm about to criticize a cartoon that I haven't seen yet (it hasn't been made), that I've only seen two tentative concept drawings from (one shown above, topmost), and whose story I only know from a description in the newspaper. Not only that but I'm terribly hurt that they didn't ask me to work on it so I may, without knowing it, have a mean, small-minded desire to snipe at it from the sidelines. There, that's my disclaimer. Now the criticism...

I have to say that I'm wondering if the project is getting started on the wrong foot. According to the newspaper the story is about Goofy's attempt to install a new, high-tech TV in his house. Is that really a good idea? It's the type of premise that has no suprises built in. The gags and the acting could all be predictable. Not only that but it's a frustration story and frustration premises (like Pluto and the flypaper) tend to pass on their frustration and unease to the audience. When you think about it, the best Goofys - the ice hockey, football, and basketball cartoons, aren't about frustration. They may seem to be, but they're not.

On another subject, it seems to me that subtext of every good Goofy cartoon is the weird universe that Goofy inhabits and the delight the character takes in doing things with his amazingly agile hands and feet. The character is a full-animator's dream. He's also a physical actor's dream. Goofy is not the average guy next door any more than James Bond is the average spy. Goofy and Bond are hyper-characters and anything less than star-quality scenes will diminish them. Goofy can either exude charisma and magic as in the best Kinney cartoons or he can be a bland guy-next-door-type the way Reitherman treated him. Which way will Disney go? I guess we'll see.

Thanks to Amid's "Animation Blast" for the excellent Sibley animation drawing above. Drawings copyrighted by Disney.

PARTY AT THEORY MANSION!

Gee, I guess that's the end of the party. I gotta get Mike to a doctor. If you don't have a ride home just sack out on the sofa! See ya!

T. S. SULLIVANT: GENIUS

This isn't a post, I just wanted to put these pictures up for friends. Beautiful aren't they?

PARTY INVITATION!

But to ease the pain of two days without Theory Corner......


I invite everybody to a party at the world famous THEORY MANSION (above)!!!

PLAYBOY'S LATEST CARTOON ANTHOLOGY!

The best current book bargain I know of is "Playboy 50 Years: The Cartoons" which originally sold for $50 and is now an overstock selling at Barnes & Noble for $13. The colors have been "remastered", i.e., simplified and drained of their subtlety, but for thirteen bucks, hey, it's still worth it!
I organized a few of the better pictures above (topmost) by colorists I like: Sokol, Dedini, Davis and Kliban. I also put together a collage by artists whose colors I like a lot less (above) (come to think of it, the center artist above isn't bad...he should be in the "good" pile). What's the difference? Why are the colorists on top so much better than the guys below?

Right away I can see the better artists use a lot more darks. Most of them also use more white. The good ones also seem to have a bold plan while the lesser artists are content to use whatever seems unoffensive. The red, white and blue schemes don't work...maybe they'd look better with more pure white areas.

 
Nobody ever talks about Kliban's color but the examples in the book are all first-rate. His color is funny, it actually enhances the gag. This restaurant picture is especially good but I can't figure out what the color's doing. Anybody care to venture a guess?

IT'S HARD TO BE SANTA!

Steve Worth just sent me these Santa pictures and I pass them on to you. Man, it must be hard to be Santa! The guy on the bottom has the worst job, he has to wear a mask all day!

WHAT KIND OF MAN READS THEORY CORNER?

From extensive studies we know what kind of man reads Theory Corner. For starters he's young, well-dressed, popular with the ladies and has a killer music and book collection. Women have been overheard to say that he's often mysterious and elusive with a kind of Dean Martin cool. "Like James Dean but hotter!" said one woman!

THEORY CORNER men are adept at urban survival. They know how to use an extendo-fork to obtain a tasty and nutritious meal on the cheap. They're up on the hot films like Lugosi's "Raven" and Lorre's "Stranger on the Third Floor" and they cultivate a fearsome look of disdain for cartoon fans who like the wrong cartoons. THEORY CORNER men even smell good!

Other blogs will attempt to lead you to believe that they will give you that real He-man aroma. This is not so. In fact, THEORY CORNER positively reeks with He-man odors! At least that's what women tell us!

WHY ARE THERE TEEN GANGS?

I don't pretend to know all the reasons for teen gangs but here's one plausible reason that's frequently overlooked: kids who are not suited for college feel they have nowhere to go. For years teachers warned them that if they didn't study they'd be selling fast food all their lives and they took it to heart. I imagine they reasoned that if adult life was going to be pointless and boring then they may as well enjoy their teen years. Gangs don't do much for you but they do provide excitement and if you get killed while young what have you lost? A life of drudgery.

It seems to me that we need to ease up on the college or the scrub bucket rhetoric. It seems to me that an awfull lot of complex and well-paying jobs can be done by non-college graduates. Shakespeare didn't go to college, nor did Thomas Edison, Carnegie, Walt Disney, Ben Franklin and Bill Gates. Before the G.I. Bill (after WWII) an enormous number of complex jobs were done by non-graduates. They must have done a pretty good job because we went from an agricultural country to the pre-eminent industrial country in the world on their watch. People who believe we can't advance unless we send a whole generation to study Derrida are ignoring a lot of history.

Sometimes it seems to me that the America has hardened its heart against blue-collar workers. I first noticed this when the middle class cheerfully allowed the manufacturing jobs to go overseas in exchange for lower prices. The middle class had office jobs and weren't affected by the job loss but blue-collar workers were decimated. When even office jobs started to go then the middle class suddenly declared a crisis and started talking about the danger of "outsourcing." Where were these people when the blue collars were hurting?

I see the same thing happening now with this insistance on absurdly high academic requirements for jobs that never required them before. In my school district you need a Masters' Degree to teach grade school. I believe that absurd requirements like this reflect a class bias; middle class kids tend to have these degrees and blue-collars don't. Who's most likely to get these newly-restricted jobs?

Just for the record, I identify completely with the middle class and I'm a big booster of higher education. I don't want to dumb things down, I'm simply arguing for compassion and common sense. We should keep standards high but remove artificial barriers to upward mobility. Exciting jobs should be within the grasp of whoever can best deliver the goods. I wouldn't show non-academics the mop and bucket. I'd show them a vision of success through hard work.

DELACROIX'S SKETCHBOOK

Made during his visit to Morocco in 1832. From an artbook: "Illustrated letters."

ILLUSTRATED LETTERS

Boy, it pays to write to artists. Look at the answers you get!

These letters are by Victor Hugo (topmost), Daubigny (above), and Gauguin (below). The Daubigny letter looks like it was done by Ardizzone (spelled right?), the modern illustrator.

THREE PAINTINGS BY WARD KIMBALL

I don't have time to comment on them but they sure are interesting. Obviously Kimball would have had no trouble making a living as an illustrator if Disney hadn't worked out.

All these pictures are from Canemaker's "Nine Old Men" book.

WHY I DON"T KEEP A DIARY

I mentioned this subject briefly before but here's the longer, more fleshed out story: a long time ago, when I first came to LA, I decided to keep a diary. I had to buy a girl-colored diary (not the one above; I wouldn't have gotten something that over-the-top) because I couldn't find any masculine ones. The key wasn't much protection against intruders and I promptly lost it but while it lasted it was better than nothing. I put all my secret thoughts into it. I kept it in a locked file cabinet and I never took it out of the house.

One day I was in a really philosophical mood. The ideas were first-rate and they were coming fast and furious! These were too good to write on napkins; I decided to grab my diary and run to a restaurant where I could write in seclusion. On the way to the parking lot I passed the apartment complex jerk and (most likely) drug dealer. I hated the guy and he hated me so we gave each other the usual icy stare and I got in the car and drove away. So far, so good.

About half way to the restaurant I suddenly realized that I'd left the diary on top of the car when I got in and had driven away while it was still up there! In a panic I checked the roof of the car then turned around and traced my path back home, carefully scoping out the street. I didn't see anything but I didn't really expect to. The diary most likely would have fallen into my parking space. When I got to the parking space there was nothing there but the drug guy, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I asked him if he'd seen a book on the ground and he nodded "No" in a way that tantalizingly could have meant "Yes." Later that night I heard uproarious laughter comming from the drug guy's apartment. My guess was it was the drug guy and his biker friends reading my diary.

So what does it all come to? My worst enemy reads my girl-colored diary. Not only that but the diary was full of incredibly sappy, whining passages like, "I'm so good and the world is so bad. Why doesn't the world recognize my goodness?" It's like something Little Lord Fauntlyroy would have written to express his anguish over finding a hair on his lace cuff. Well, I never wrote or even thought anything as wimpy and self-pitying again so I guess I got something out of the experience. Most of all what I learned was..... NEVER KEEP A DIARY!

ARE YOU A HEDGEHOG OR A FOX?

Isaah Berlin asked the question in a famous essay and people have been repeating it ever since.
Are you a hedgehog, i.e., someone who has one strategy that they apply to every situation, or a fox, i.e., someone who has many possible strategies? If you're like me you probably consider yourself a fox in this respect but it's possible that friends who know you would disagree. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Hedgehog atrategies are suprisingly effective.

The most high-profile hedgehog I know of was General Patton of WWII fame. Pattin often took command of units that were demoralized from innaction. The previous command was usually mired in the bog of too much information. They had conflicting intelligence about the enemy so they did nothing while they tried to sort it out. Patton would take over and immediately order an attack. Morale would shoot up immediately. Automatic attacks may seem like a dangerous strategy but Patton rightly figured that bad morale was a greater threat than a formidable enemy besides, if the enemy were so strong why hadn't they attacked before now? Hedgehogs are blessed with certainty and self-confidence and that's a big asset.

MORE "SUNDAY FUNNIES WERE BETTER A HUNDRED YEARS AGO!"

Click to enlarge.

TWO GREAT AMERICAN DRAMAS!

It strikes me that I wrote about these films before but if I did I can't find the post in the archive so I'll take another stab at it. In my opinion these are among the best dramas of the last half century. Glengarry is the best play about the dark side of making a living; Marty is the best play about finding someone to love.

Notice that I didn't say Marty was the best romance. Marty isn't a romance, rather it's about needing people and survival in the relationship jungle. I like it because it's about a subject that's really important. It's amazing how many dramas are about unimportant things. Animated films are often about learning to be yourself, which surely rates at the bottom of any objective list of important themes.

 
Glenngary is about how serious work is and how easily work can be taken away from you. You have to work to live yet work is not a right but more like a kindness that an employer bestows on you and can withdraw at any time. I don't mean to attach any political interpretation to this, I'm definitely not a Marxist, I simply note that it's surprising that something as vital as a job is apt to be so fraught with insecurity.

In modern society we're no longer independent hunters or farmers but rather supplicants with our tin cups out, hoping that someone with a job to offer will look kindly on us. It seems odd because philosophy and religion describe each individual as immeasurably important yet in another way we don't seem to be important at all. It's a puzzling icongruity which David Mammet presents without comment.

THE AMAZING GLEN KEANE

On the comments page Anonymous is always asking me what I think about Glen Keane. I don't have much to say about the man that's original. Like everybody else I think He's a wonderful draughtsman and animator and I'd kill to take a class with him. I just regret that Disney chose to do so many feature films about realistic human beings that required Glen's level of talent to pull off. It must be hard to make fun and imaginative films when so much attention has to be devoted to the technically grueling task of moving anatomically correct figures around the screen. Glen sometimes lectures to art schools and a friend told me that his latest lectures are full of references to a book called "Blink." I'm listening to a library copy of that book in the car now. According to the book we should trust our first impression of things. Our brains are very good at sizing up people and situations and finding a single criterian for judging them accurately. Glen applies this to drawing. On the first glance a person might strike you as boxy or wolf-like and that's the way you should sketch them, no matter how much other analysis you do. John K used to say that. It sounds right to me.

MIKE'S OBJECTIVE METHOD OF FILM CRITICISM

Mike is by far the most objective film critic that I know of. He has a great method and you don't have to be Mike to use it. Any reviewer using it will get the identical result regardless of educational or ethnic background, regardless of religious or ideological bias. Mike's method is scientific. Even a man from Mars would have no trouble using it. OK, here it is in the man's own words...

"First you add up all the female nude scenes (Hurray!). When you've done that you add up all the male nude scenes (Yuck!). Subtract the number of male nude scenes (Yuck!)from the number of female nude scenes (Hurray!) and voila, you have the numerical value of the fim! The higher the number the better! That's all there is to it!"

I feel so lucky to know Mike.

THE FIRST MODERN BATHROOM SYMBOLS

Believe it or not, I'm old enough to remember the first time male and female stick figures were used to designate restrooms. Previous to that the restrooms were labeled with words like "Ladies" and "Gentlemen" or "Seniors" and Senioritas."

I remember the very night I first saw the new symbols. They were on the lavatory doors of a Marie Calander's-type family restaurant that my friend's dad took us to. A bunch of frustrated patrons were gathered outside the restroom doors trying to puzzle out what the signs meant. The consensus was that the bell-shaped, flared stick figure might be a be a girl with a dress but what was the other figure? One lady thought it was a woman wearing a pant suit. Maybe both the bathrooms were for women, one for traditional dress wearers and one for pants-wearing new-agers. Somebody guessed that the the mens' rooms were somewhere on the other side of the building.

Every once in a while a frustrated citizen would knock on the door and if there was no answer he'd cautiously open the door and let himself inside. Everybody waited with baited breath to hear what he was seeing. When he came back with the answer the relieved crowd streamed into the appropriate rooms then ten minutes later a new crowd would form and the whole cycle would start up again.

What everyone in the crowd would have agreed on was that the new symbols were bold and futuristic. We all felt like we were entering restrooms on the starship "Enterprise." I wondered if it meant we'd all be wearing capes and gauntlet gloves and be carrying ray guns soon. It was heady stuff. A real glimpse into the future.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I take Thanksgiving very seriously. Americans have a lot to be thankful for. I think about Valley Forge and about Washington nobley returning control of the Continental Army back to Congress after the War of Independence, of the Marines who died on Iwo Jima, of the fact that even the President of the United States couldn't enter my house if I didn't allow him. I think about how what we think of as the Jazz Age and the age of pulp magazines and Clampett cartoons coincided with millions being hauled off to slave labor camps in Siberia. I'm truly grateful for all that America's done for me and I'm delighted that a holiday exists to celebrate that. Now for some serious eating!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!!!!!!!