You'd think that a having a jacket like Lane's would break the clean line of the silhouette, and maybe it does, but it doesn't matter. The shoulders and lower back on the jacket form an arrow pointing down to the butt. The flare on the jacket bottom acts like a rising theater curtain, creating a reveal for what's below.
Wood rightly perceived that seamed stockings trump unseamed ones, at least in cartoon drawings. That fine little line catches your eye, and makes you want to follow it upward.
Seams (above) are no longer a manufacturing necessity, they're there for looks.
While I'm on the subject of backshots, I can't resist mentioning that I like the dynamism in photos that show a woman walking briskly away from the camera.
Does this (above) remind you of the Don Martin's gag where the chivalrous men shoehorn a fat lady onto an escalator?
Painter John Currin's women (above) would never have that problem. They're designed for the modern urban environment.
Photgraphers and cartoonists are are on same level, they know what the men like to see.
ReplyDeleteYay! Sexy womens' asses. Exactly my kind of eye candy, especially on a great weekend like this. It felt weird the other day looking at those disgusting pictures of that sheriff's backside. Don't get me wrong. I like a bit of grotesqueness once in a while, especially when it comes to funny cartooning (e.g. Basil Wolverton...).
ReplyDeleteThat comic has some of the best leg drawings overall! When she's sitting on the desk, her legs are at all these weird angles but it works wonderfully.
ReplyDeleteIn these you don't really have to think about what's going on in the subjects' heads- because they're cropped out of the photos.
ReplyDeleteI've seen those seams down the back of the legs in a Warner cartoon before. I can't remember exactly which one.
ReplyDeleteI used to think they were construction lines of the leg that got drawn in anyway, all makes sense now!
SUPERDUPERMAN! (from EC's MAD #4, April 1953) is, in my humble opinion, the acme of comic art in America - and still unsurpassed.
ReplyDeleteIt's right up there with POPEYE on Plunder Island, FEARLESS FOSDICK & the Poisoned Beans, the original SHMOO story, and POGO's Simple J. Marlarky and "Pandemonia" sequences.
Elite company, indeed. Bravo, Kurtzman and Wood!
You can almost hear the nylon rubbing.
ReplyDeleteAh, so what if yer really Superduperman. Yer still a creep!
ReplyDeleteNothing sells a sexy female backshot like haughtiness and disdain for what she's walking away from
Mike: Ahhh...Fosdick and the Poisoned Beans! Yes, giants truly walked the Earth at one time!
ReplyDeleteJosh: Good point! All the Louis drawings in the first third of that story are brilliant!