Don Martin and the Essence of Cartooning.last dentist scene

All fields of art branch out and take in influences and skills from other fields - sometimes eventually to the point where it rejects its own reason to exist, but thank God for the purists who remind us why we chose our particular field in the first place.If you could boil down the definition of a cartoon to one concept could you do it?
Don Martin sure could.
It's not acting; that can be done better on stage and in live-action movies.
It's not "story"; that can be done much better in novels and live action movies.
It's not even funny voices or sound or movement. All these things are add-ons that already exist outside cartooning.
There is just one element that can only be done in cartoons; its "fundamental atom" as Eddie calls it. What is it?
It's not grossness or slapstick either.
I am dying to read your answers (and arguments).

Sergio Aragones and Basil Wolverton also distill this atom and focus all their work around Eddie's atom.

Assorted Liquors and the cartoon production system

To satisfy popular demand, I have posted more sneak peeks at the new George Liquor Show...

Thought you might like to see the stages of art production that happen before animation and what the difference in drawing approaches are.
Storyboards are rough. Their purpose is to tell the story, make the characters seem spontaneous and have a lot of guts.
A storyboard artist doesn't need to draw "on model" but does need to know how the characters look and act. He has to feel the story as if it is happening right in front of him at the very moment he is drawing them.


He has to be able to change personalities and fit himself into the souls of the characters. He should not rely on stock animation poses and expressions. He needs to FEEL the right characters and their proper distinct emotions within the context of a story and make it all seem like the characters are creating the story as they go along, just by being themselves in the situation they are in.

This has happened very rarely in the whole history of animation. Most cartoons - even in the classic age - feel contrived or controlled by their creators. Chuck Jones and Tex Avery characters are frequent victims of their directors' whims, but not compared to cartoons today where everything is completely contrived and controlled by super conservative committees or even individuals with too many rules holding back any chance of spontaneity and invention.


Clampett's characters always seem self motivated; the story follows them, not the other way around. Fleischer Popeye cartoons are self motivated even though their cartoons are highly structured. This is an amazing achievement.
For me, the storyboard artists I like are ones who can fit themselves instantly into diferent characters and spontaneously play out their dramas. You have to be very observant of life, not just of other cartoons to draw stories that aren't mere illustrated scripts with rubber stamp acting.
Layout drawings are tighter and more finished. They have to have construction, more details and flip well from pose to pose so they can be animated. This is a more anal job than storyboarding. The layout artist has to do his damnedest to not lose the guts of the storyboards by toning down the poses, expressions and humor in the storyboards.

He still has to understand the story and the context of every pose and expression, but he is preparing the scenes to be functional and clear.

Inkers pretty up the finish of the layouts and give the drawings weight and a hierarchy of forms. They need to understand the order of importance of the elements that make up the total form and use line technique to enhance the visual ideas inherent in the drawings. A knowledge of construction is very helpful to good line artists. It's not just having smooth lines.
I'm lucky to have found inkers who did many of the lessons and exercises on my blog and now have a clear understanding of how to get the best out of the layout drawings.

more layouts...
No matter what artistic job you are doing on the assembly line of cartoon production, your work will be much better if you know the whole story, get the jokes, understand the characters and constantly refer to your storyboard. ....and know how to draw.The natural progression of a non-supervised ignorant assembly line (modern cartoon production) is for each creative step of the way to decay and stray further away from the original intent. Like when you dupe things multiple times-each dupe loses more information than the previous one.


This is a very hard natural tendency to fight, but fight it you must if you are to have finished cartoons be as exciting and spontaneous as the original ideas they sprang from.

Having a studio system geared to prevent the natural decay of copying copies is a huge factor in whose cartoons end up with the strongest, most believable characters.

I envy the Looney Tunes system most of all.

Some Things Milt Gross Excels At

I think Milt Gross is probably the most all around talented cartoonist in history. Many great cartoonists are known for certain distinct skills or unique traits. Gross had a ton of rare skills.

CHARACTER DESIGN

Oddly, many of Milt Gross' main characters were fairly indistinct basic 30s style comic strip characters. He used more imagination in the designs of incidental characters.

What really amazes me is that he will design each character in a crowd individually, where most cartoonists will just repeat the same designs in a wall of generic people.

I love this kid design!

ANIMALS

Gross is my favorite funnny animal designer.

FACIAL HAIR DESIGN

Gross knew that facial hair is intrinsically funny, especially when you juxtapose variations of it.

He loved to draw mustaches and beards. Here he draws the same mustache 3 different ways.

He uses the facial hair to help create the expressions.

UNABASHED INCONSISTENCY OF CHARACTER DESIGN

Like all truly creative cartoonists, Gross wouldn't ever draw the same character the same way twice.

This Indian's turban, proportions, beard and nose are different shapes and sizes in every panel, yet you always recognize him as the same character. Even the stripes on the turban can't make up their minds about which way to transverse the hat. You would get fired at any studio today for being this free and creative. I don't even think it's possible in CG.
Kirby shared this talent of eschewing consistency in favor of spontaneity and visual fun. I used to be in awe of how his uniforms would change from panel to panel...so would his machinery and weapons. I think I read somewhere that it drove Stan Lee crazy, but he had to put up with it.

Kirby would change Doctor Doom's mask of armor from panel to panel to give him expressions! A crazy impossibility; cartoon license in a serious comic book!

Most comic artists draw the same characters as if their faces are even incapable of moving:

COMPOSITION

This is a rare talent for any cartoonist. Milt Gross was a master of staging and composition.

One of his unique recurrent framing devices was to have an L shaped frame to one side of the panel.I haven't noticed other cartoonists who use this. Maybe I'll try it. It looks so great.

OPPOSING POSES

This is a device that really makes the characters come alive. One character's pose directly affects and balances the other's pose. The poses compose around each other.

The negative spaces between them are as much of a design as the poses themselves.
Other artists with this skill: Harvey Kurtzman, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery,Owen Fitzgerald, Hank Ketcham.

Owen Fitzgerald was also very aware of the power of opposing poses.

CROWD CONTROL

Composing crowds is very hard to do. The more details and characters in a scene, the harder it is to arrange them so that you can see what's important.

Gross arranges his groups of people into clumps in a clever hierarchy. The kid and the man are one clump. The evil Punjabs are another clump that fit into a large overall shape. Then that shape is in turn broken into sub-clumps. The main Indian in front has a unique outfit and is separated by more tightly grouped villains behind him.

Even that group has a sub hierarchy made of sub-sub-clumps.

Gross even controls his mayhem scenes. Everything in this panel reads clearly: first as an overall statement of anarchy, but then it breaks up into sub-scenes and groups of actions and characters.

Jack Kirby has this same talent of controlling complicated crowds and making them easy to read.http://www.animationarchive.org/2008/01/comics-jack-kirby-in-not-brand-echh.html
Owen shares another trait with Kirby and Gross - design and control of crowds.

Other artists noted for drawing crowds are the Mad artists of the 50s. The difference between their crowds, and Gross' are that the Mad crowds are usually wall-to-wall haphazard piles of people with not as much planned arrangement.
The fun in these is to hunt through the picture to see how many gags you can find. It isn't an overall design.

FRENETIC ACTION

Controlling crowds with composition is difficult enough, but then to add a feeling of wild action with a lot of stuff happening is simply amazing.

Every one of these panels of crazy action has a plan and a center of energy that controls the arrangement of the mayhem.
All the crazy stuff flying out of this window radiates from the same point. The crowd and police at the bottom of the frame curve around and frame the radiating energy.


More of Milt's rare skills and talents to come...



http://comicrazys.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/thats-my-pop-moon-mullins-3-1948-milt-gross/

Some Disney Book Wrinkles

Ashanti sent me these examples of Disney book wrinkles. A bit more elaborate than what you would want to animate, but nice looking as illustrations.

Wrinkles Were Actually Studied In Art Schools Once

Eddie is fascinated with wrinkles. He can talk for hours about them. He makes me think about them. While we had illuminating discussion of wrinkle theory over pizza one evening, I drew this sketch of how I remembered George Wunder's wrinkle technique looked.

I'm personally interested in how wrinkles are drawn in cartoons and comics. Honestly, most people can't draw wrinkles for crap. Me, included. I learned the "cartoon skin" approach to wrinkles from classic cartoons.Bob McKimson just wraps the clothes (and fur) skin tight onto the characters.

Even Rod Scribner, who is known for liking wrinkles, just draws loose fitting cartoon skin.

See how real wrinkles look. Nothing at all like cartoons.



Here are a couple variations of loose cartoon skin.

I think it's funny that even though this Mickey toy is actually made of fabric, they went out of their way to sew it up as tight as cartoon skin. Wouldn't it be cool to dress like this in real life?







Wrinkles are extremely complicated, and there is actually a physical science of how they work, which is much too complicated for cartoonists.



Old time illustrators like Rockwell, were wrinkle masters.

Wrinkles at one time were studied at art school. It was considered a serious part of art fundamentals. Art schools in general must have been much more serious about actually teaching you things at one time.

Eddie's theory is that art schools should be run like fascism. When I see the results of this kind of teaching 80-100 years ago and more, I tend to agree.



Comic strip wrinkles.

Milton Caniff loved wrinkles and he developed a style of drawing them that was widely copied by other comic strip and book artists. These wrinkles are more realistic ha cartoon wrinkles, but I suspect that they were copied superficially from illustrators like Rockwell.
Comic artists and cartoonists tend to be self taught. These old time great ones had much higher standards of art to imitate that we do though and so their superficiality is still much more skilled than our generations'. That's because we are 20 steps removed from the real thing and they were only 1 or 2.


I always loved Jack Kirby's wrinkles. I don't know if they are strictly sensible, or just stylized from copying his own heroes' work.


Kirby is especially rebellious, because he took a whole comic genre that can only be convincing with cartoon skin and then he went and sagged and wrinkled it up.

Superheroes wear cartoon skin underwear to show off their muscles. When a real live person wears a superhero suit, it is much less impressive and points to how wacky the whole idea of superheroes is. That didn't stop Kirby from creating the first superheroes that wore realistic saggy, lumpy underwear.

Artistic Graphic Shading in Cartoons VS Cold CG

Isn't this painting beautiful?Eddie has been doing some posts about 2d vs 3d graphics, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

In old style cartoon paintings, none of the lighting attempts to be "realistic", which to me is the appropriate way to render a cartoon.

http://uncleeddiestheorycorner.blogspot.com/2008/08/thinking-about-3d-animation.html

Most CG movies I've seen try to light everything sensibly, which translates to without imagination or an artist's touch to me. Certainly without fun or cartooniness.

Even when they attempt to be less realistic, it just looks like blurry Photoshop to me.

CG also has a way of really looking fake.I actually like the colors in this, but they aren't helping the characters come alive or anything

Feet don't stick to the ground. All the separate parts are floating on top of each other. It looks like a collage to me, rather than a whole artistic image and statement. It sure doesn't look like real characters.

Compare it to the beautiful, clear and natural painting of Lady and the Tramp above. With much less work, but a lot more skill and confidence, it achieves more depth ...or "reality".

Characters can't even make eye contact in CG, let alone ground contact.

It seems the more real the execs try to make this medium, the more unreal, floaty and cheesy it looks. And it costs a zillion times more than actual entertainment made by real entertainers and cartoonists.

what are we looking at here? is this an accountant creating a comedy expression?

CG studios have an unnatural obsession with spending a fortune trying to outdo each other making realistic water. Can someone explain this fetish to me?

I mean, I can turn on the tap anytime I want for free and the water looks even more realistic.


They also seem obsessed with seeing who can make the ugliest plastic humans. I'm not sure who the winner is in this contest. There is a ton of competition.


Humans are hard enough to do in 2d, but in 3d they are guaranteed to look like rubber cadavers. But they refuse to give up.

It seems like a medium that fights everything that comes natural to cartoons and animation. - and for that matter-live action, which it thinks it is emulating.

Unlike this old time illustration/cartooning combination style which is full of life and appeal.
Anyway, I have nothing against the idea of rendering or shading in cartoons. I loved these old cartoon paintings from Golden Books when I was a kid. Still do. They don't look fake at all. They look fun, perfectly natural and have the joy of an artist's hand caressing our CG-wounded eyeballs.

This kind of rendering is not photographically real but it has a much more artistically controlled kind of depth than a camera can give you. The effect and appeal depends completely upon the skill, talent and personality of the artist. It's also way more natural, in effect more "realistic".
What I find unappealing about most CG is how unimaginative and soulless it looks. It looks like a machine made it, instead of an artist. We have all talked about why this is so. Is it the inherent handicap of the technology? Is CG like photoshop? Like, no matter how good a traditional painter or artist you are, you simply can't get Photoshop to look as good as your real paintings. Is that the problem with CG?


Or is the problem that the people in charge of billion dollar studios just choose to be machine like and unartistic? It's very hard to say. I know many artists who have great skill and talent who work at these studios, who in private tell me they hate the limitations (both of the medium and the executives), but I also read on blogs that CG is limitless in its creative scope. That's what I would imagine - if I hadn't already seen a dozen CG movies that all look equally mechanical, bland and like not a living soul ever touched them.

Also interesting to me is how good these low tech old viewmasters from the 60s look and they are just photographs of sculptures . The "realistic" lighting doesn't hurt these.

http://uncleeddiestheorycorner.blogspot.com/2008/08/which-has-better-background-styling.html
These Flintstones Viewmaster sets are beautiful. Why doesn't someone make a cg movie with this much design and appeal? Surely it would cost a fraction of the outrageous budgets of the average movie today and look 20 times better. How much can a good designer cost?

These suggest that CG could actually make fun looking more natural and artistic movies.
Someone on Eddie's blog said that CG is still in its infancy and that's the reason it's still so primitive compared to 2d. I don't know about that. It's at least 20 years old and characters still can't talk naturally, walk on the ground, have weight or be actual characters.

2d developed at an incredible pace. From Steamboat Willie to Snow White in 9 years. CG, to me anyway, is still crawling its way towards Steamboat Willie. At least Ub Iwerks' first films were able to have characters look at each other....and they were actually imaginative and fun on top of that.

..and CG animators have the advantage of 30 years of golden age cartoons on video that they can freeze frame and study, whereas the people who made the great more natural cartoons had to create all the techniques from scratch.



Well I still believe, against all the evidence, that it is possible to find a way to use cg artistically, abstractly and even in fun cartoony ways.


I just wonder how long it's going to take, and in the meantime ... why will no one make some 2d for a fraction of the cost that is much easier to make natural and fun?

A much lessy risky enterprise.


The most creative animation I ever saw in CG was something Chris Wedge made in the late 80s for a Nickelodeon logo. I forget what it was called. It was a funny little character made up of disconnected tuber like blobs. It was funny, imaginative, appealing and magical. It was using the medium to do what you couldn't do in any other medium.

someone help me out and send me link to an image or clip of it!

inking tips and some napkin drawings

Cartoon Ads could save animated entertainment - leave out the boring parts

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/search/label/Dennis%20the%20Menace




It's hard to beat cartoons (good ones)for getting the audience to at least watch/read the ad.

I don't mean just "animated" or stylized animation like some commercials today; I mean pure professional entertainment character based cartoons, like what top entertainers do: Al Capp/ Hanna Barbera/ Disney and others used to do.

http://www.animationarchive.org/labels/lil%20abner.html


Boy, cartoon characters sure love their cream of wheat!

And you can't beat using a hillbilly to sell laundry detergent to keep your filthy rags smelling sweet!

In an era where it's getting harder than ever for a sponsor to get someone to read or watch his ad, it's a good time to bring back the concept of using cartoons to sell your products.
I stress cartoon again versus "animation".

CARTOON INGREDIENTS:

INSTANT VISUAL FUN APPEAL:

Cartoons have a natural appeal to almost everyone (except those in charge). Here's my theory why: Cartoons are the people's art. It is art that distills the most fun things about life and cuts out all the boring parts. It focuses on the parts first that are fun to look at and humans are an extremely visual species.

For example: The shapes of girls are very fun to look at, but untended bikini lines are not as much fun, so cartoonists generally leave that part out when they draw pretty girls.

CHARISMA - Unique fun personality traits
We are also very social and are attracted to people (or characters) with charisma- strong unique entertaining personalities.

The most successful old cartoons combined these two traits and distilled them into their purest essences. They left out the bland, ugly and boring parts: they didn't need to show us every pore, mole and hair follicle, or every blade of grass, or every leaf on every tree.

FANTASTIC IMAGINATION:
They also observed life and gave us their unique comments on it, but didn't take it too literally. They just presented us with the fun parts and added a liberal amount of creative fantasy to it. They had imagination, which seems sorely lacking in cartoons today.



The extraneous details that aren't the fun parts of life are what many animation producers today dwell on, while getting positively outraged when you try to inject the essential parts of cartoons- distilled fun, appealing characters (appealing to the eyes, ears and emotions) and imagination.

The boring parts are what feature animation producers in particular think are what constitute "quality". They call it "believability". The audience will believe in a lumpy pile of millions of hairy pores with a bland movie star voice, rather than a simple well designed instantly recognizable personality with a clearly defined fun expert cartoon voice.

Or they go the opposite direction and make things so graphic, flat and stylized that they leave out the humanity and unique humor of cartoons and funny personalities. Cartoons for art directors instead of for the dirty unwashed masses whose ignorant tastes demand funny characters that look and act alive.


I had a meeting at a major studio a couple weeks ago with a very nice and polite executive who asked me to go lecture at their animation studio about how to create enduring iconic characters. "We've had some successful movies, but our characters don't seem to outlive their movie appearances. We want to know the secret to creating characters like Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera."

I take that as a good sign. An executive actually recognized the difference between a character who is instantly recognizable as a charismatic star and a modern shapeless blob of pores and hairs with a bland voice who just fulfills his role in a stock cartoon plot and then dies after the movie does its obscenely marketed blockbuster first weekend. But then you never see anyone with a t-shirt of the characters, it's impossible to write new stories for the characters.

Real cartoon characters are easy and fun to caricature. They have clearly defined designs and traits.

Real cartoon characters are so powerful, that in the hands or real professional creators the stories write themselves and it's easy to keep the characters alive for decades past their initial debut.

I'm getting a sense that everyone in the business is starting to be shaken into some kind of reality lately, and they are understanding that real cartoon characters are needed again, but they struggling to figure out what they are, where they come from and why there have been so few icons in the last couple decades.


I do know the secret(s) to creating real cartoon characters and it's not hard to understand conceptually but it's also not something that can be taught to anybody. Maybe I'll do a post about it later.

I'm personally lucky to be able to finally participate in the concept of "direct sponsorship" or what they have now renamed "Branded entertainment". I've only been pushing it for 20 years!

Anyway I got off on a tangent about other stuff, but the main point of this post was to show how powerful classic cartoon ads were when they used iconic well-loved cartoon characters and their creators to pitch products. It's an idea that is so obviously simple and sensible that I'm astounded how long it has taken for me to try and bring it back.


Another great way for advertisers to go is to get cartoon creators to create new characters as mascots for their products:


It's not as good as having characters that are real characters who can exist in stories, but it's still much better than having commercials that everyone fast forwards through and swears at.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/10/ipana.html

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Kurtzman and Composition

This top panel has 2 large elements:

1) The falling pig.

2) The cliffs/rocks that he is falling off.




Each of those two parts is then again split up into smaller parts that make the bigger parts read clearly and look good.

1) The pig's pose follows a clear line of action and his clothes and features flow along the overall organic curve.

2) His silhouette is framed by the rope and the rope itself has a pleasing design which leads in perspective to the smaller pig in the distance.


3) Between the rope and the cliff you can see a few smaller falling rocks, clearly framed between the 2 larger elements.


4) The clouds have distinct shapes and are then broken into smaller rounded forms that flow along the overall shapes. The two clouds create a pleasing negative shape between them.


5) That negative shape frames a falling pick axe.

You can also split up the cliff half of the image into its individual rocks and the flowing details along the rocks. Everything fits together in an organic pleasing artistic pattern. No wonkiness. No haphazard arangement of unrelated shapes and details. This is all very cleverly thought out. It's not by accident. Every element is carefully arranged to create an overall design.

It is split up into segments, each which then again is split up and carefully arranged into smaller parts that enhance the larger parts. This pattern works al the way down to the smallest details.

I encourage my layout artists to use this system of hierarchy. It makes everything read clearly. It frames the most important elements of the picture and it makes for an overall pleasing graphic statement. It's also very hard to do, but Kurtzman makes it look easy.





http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/

Kurtzman is a master of clarity and design. I would love to see this concept of hierarchical arrangement of compositional elements return to cartoons. It's a sign of top professionalism and artistic control - and it both performs a function (making the important elements read well and quickly) and is really pleasing to look at.

Those 2 ingredients make it art.

Function and aesthetic.

Go see more of this lost classic comic by one of the all time great cartoonists!


Milt Gross is another master of composition:

http://comicrazys.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/thats-my-pop-moon-mullins-2-1948-milt-gross/


Although his style is different than Kurtzman's on the surface, he is using the same underlying controls to make his images read.


Howie Post has this talent too:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/06/howie-post-tree-king.html

Some Nice Paintings Of Woody

http://comicrazys.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/woody-woodpecker-whitman-tell-a-tale-1951-walter-lantz-studio/
I like the carefully controlled washy brush technique in these and the limited palette. Lots of neutral areas too.


Speaking of which, I am almost ready for a BG painter and/or color stylist.

If you have good technique and don't like to paint cartoons pink purple and turquoise, then I have some work for you.

Here's some stuff I like, but I'm open to many techniques:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/11/flintstone-bgs-using-grays-between.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/12/donalds-diary.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/07/painting-technique-scott-wills.html


http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/02/hep-cat-can-funny-cartoons-be-beautiful.htmlhttp://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/12/hb-holes.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/02/rojankovsky-drawing-skill-plus-design.html

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/12/color-theory-montealegre-lion-hearted.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/10/color-theory-neutral-or-natural-colors.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/11/color-theory-art-lozzi-on-bob-gentle.htmlhttp://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/10/color-theory-eye-relief.html

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/03/background-painting-kristy-gordon.html



All these paintings share 2 traits:

1) Good confident stylish brush technique, http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/07/mel-crawford-cartoon-painting-genius.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/11/art-lozzi-scooter-looter-paint.html


2) Rich warm related colors that aren't just primaries and secondaries crammed together.
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/01/happy-colors.html

These color choices paint a whole picture, not a bunch a of separate competing elements.

Here's what I'm not crazy about:

Fuzzy airbrushed screaming colors...that break up the image

What makes Funny Puppets

I love vintage puppets. They are totally different than post-muppet puppets. The muppets were great, but they ruined puppetry by making everyone else think that they had to copy them. Sort of like how Peanuts ruined comics, even though it was wonderful itself.

Here are the traits that I think make puppets the most fun.

You can't have too many strings.

Off-balance poses add precarious excitement.



The Jaw has to be obviously separate from the face.




If there is a human host, it's good if she never makes eye contact with the puppets and even better if she looks positively creeped out the whole time.


Having wall-eyes is a great puppet attribute.


Here's Howdy Doody's gay twin brother.



A seam down the middle of the face adds realism and believability.





If a puppet is gonna wear clothes, it is essential that they be lumpy and bunched up at the crotch. This contrasts nicely if the face is totally smooth shiny and wooden.

Here are some fun puppets.



The burn-victim effect can be mesmerizing to children.


Here are some severely happy looking prosceniums.

The whole atmosphere of puppets should be so evilly happy that it hurts.

These puppets are crappy, but I like the proscenium.

stuff

Gill Fox

Here's a guy whose name I've seen before, but I didn't realize what a great and versatile cartoonist he was until I checked out one of my new favorite comic strip sites:

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/search/label/Gill%20Fox


Fox did an amazing imitation here of Hank Ketcham's style. Did he work for Ketcham for awhile?
Look how controlled and beautiful the layouts are. People could sure draw way back when!

Here's a funny 40s dirty style.



Here's a character Eddie told me about, "Peter Pain" and I thought he just made it up! What great ads. Doesn't this just make you crave pain and relief?I can't believe one guy can draw in so many styles.


Here's one Amid will love. (Me too!)

More stuff from George

George has many sides to his personality...warm and cozy...

He loves regular folks and America's great traditions.
He admires God's work.

He is defensive of his loved one.




He believes in discipline.
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Here, scare the kids with this if they are being disobedient.

WB Pitch

These are silly and just for fun. Not intended to desecrate the classics. No one can improve on the original directors' work. I'm just trying to help get the classic cartoons in the public eye again. It drives me crazy that these cartoons are barely seen anymore.

for Wicks

I've always wanted to do wraparounds to classic cartoons and managed to get some interest, so here are a few quick sketches for the pitch. Of course they would be more detailed and thought out once we actually made 'em, but these are just some ideas of degrees of varying from the models to see how the execs take to the idea.


Here's some wraparounds for the 50s WB cartoons and I loved this packaging:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/02/bugs-bunny-show-and-cartoon-packaging.html

I want to do the same sort of thing for the 40s cartoons and draw the bumpers in a caricatured Clampett style. (Don't worry, the arms and legs wouldn't be this skinny. This is just my doodle style, not my layout style)

For Mitch L

Thanks, Mitch!


for Harmke

40s style Bugs:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/07/constructing-bugs-bunny.html

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/10/heckling-hare-step-by-step-construction.html

Thanks, Kevin!

I would do more new HB cartoons in this style though. My theory is that the HB cartoons had great raw material, but because of time, money and conservatism never took full advantage of what they had.

george sentimental

these were cleaned up by Art Fuentes

Sody Pop Models from layouts

Harmke did a swell ink of the final pose.

Improving with Practice

I am very impressed by the folks who encourage friendly critiques and allow me to help them to constantly improve.

David is one among the good ones, and he even has some of his own style that he brings to the drawings. I like it. He warms them up somehow.

Mort Drucker's Girls

Milt Gross, Funny Animals and Meanest Man plus Meat

One of Milt Gross' specialties (almost everything he does is a specialty) but he really defines "funny animals".


http://comicrazys.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/pasha-the-persian-illustrated-1936-milt-gross/



I'd swear Jim Tyer must be hugely influenced by Milt Gross. Look at the eyes and smiles. And of course the craziness.
http://www.animationarchive.org/2008/07/comic-books-jim-tyers-funny-animal.html




http://comicrazys.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/dinky-the-amateur-dentist-jim-tyer/




Milton Knight is a modern heir to the Gross/ Tyer school. New York cartooning. Ever see his Hugo comics? Great!
http://comicrazys.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/mighty-mouse-spotlight-comics-1987-milton-knight/

Here are some more classic Gross daily strips - starring funny humans, courtesy of Marc Deckter.


Milt Gross also draws the funniest sausages.

George Liquor Setups

Boy, can Jim draw funny back views