Howie Post, the cartoony Harvey artist

Harveytoons had a very appealing house style. It's generic but cute. Almost all their kid stars were the same design.I'm not sure who did this really cute cover...Warren Kremer?

Casper is Elmer Fudd without ears. He is a living dead construction model- the ultimate bland!
Spooky is Casper with a dognose and freckles. And he's a smartass bully.
Audrey is Casper with a dress and hair.
So is Dot.
Hot Stuff has pointy ears and horns.

Richie has cashWhich character doesn't belong?

HOWIE POST

When I was a kid there was one Harvey artist I loved. I thought of him as "the fun one".Jerry Beck later told me it was Howie Post. He did the 1950s Spooky and Little Audrey comics. He continued in the 60s but someone else started to take over.
Howie not only drew the most likable versions of the characters, he did the nicest backgrounds too. His haunted forests were great!
These examples are actually a little later than the most cartoony stuff he did. I found these online, but I have a stack of 50s Harvey comics somewhere and as soon as I find them I'll post some.

I always thought the comics were drawn better than most of the animated cartoons.

Just for comparison sake, here are the same characters drawn by Ernie Colon. Not so cute. Kinda serious looking. (This is also a bit later)

Colon is obviously a good draftsman and he must have been fast, because he did tons of titles all through the 60s, and I read 'em all.
He's not as appealing and not at all cartoony though. He also has a tendency to draw the characters mean.Colon did this weird thing that confused me when I was little. He would combine regular bighead Harvey kids with little head incidental characters. Tiny close set eyes even on the kids.

The adults had heads that were a quarter the size of the kids' heads! Check out your collection of Richie Rich comics and get creeped out! The adults are a different species than the kids!

Sometimes he made the kids positively demonic.Audrey could use an exorcism!

Howie Post's cute Audrey.

Compare the proportions of her features in Post's design to the Colon one.
Her eyes are bigger, wider apart and set on angles.

Howie's caveboy Melvin




Here are some more great covers from the 50s. Kremer?



The earliest comics looked more like the cartoons:

So you might be wondering, "Why do you like these characters if they are generic and bland?"

Well Casper is very bland indeed and I didn't like him as much as the other characters. But the stories were about magical impossible stuff happening and that was good enough for a reading or 2. The other characters have a bit of personality and much appeal when in the hands of appealing artists.

These are for kids and have simple stories with simple personalities and I'm completely fine with that - as long as they look fun! And they aren't pretending to be anything more than that. I never heard the artists (or writers!) telling us about the great acting and storylines - although I'd say they were still ahead of animated features on both scores. They were silly and sincere. Fun throwaway entertainment. A classic American tradition.

They also were done very cheap. You could buy a fist full of these comics for a buck and still have money left over for smokes and cokes. Generic and silly for 10 cents makes more sense to me than generic and hard on the eyes for $100,000,000 or more. Plus the Harvey style didn't squeeze every other style out of business. There was a lot of variety in comics and cartoons back then.



If you're gonna do simple and soft for kids, an appealing visual style can do a lot for a lack of "deep" content.

These look like they are drawn by someone who never grew up and is still immature, silly and playful. He'd let you stay up past your bedtime and eat big helpings of ice cream.

Howie Post's really cute and lively drawing style gave the comics a light hearted and imaginative personality.

I liked the early cartoony Harvey comics but didn't care too much for the late 60s comics when they started looking too serious and the style got dreary and less cartoony.
These look like they are drawn by an intelligent mature man who always balances his checkbook. He'd be sure you got to bed on time and finished your cauliflower.

It's amazing how different artists can bring such different feelings to the same designs and material.

Harvey comics is a naturally cute style.

I'm saddened by the realization that the concept of cute and appeal may be lost forever.

Look what happens to a once cute style today when really serious people get a hold of it.

These folks would make you go to church every day of the week!

Did you know that there is a huge difference between "Design" and "Style"?

I was thinking about doing a post on that, but it'll take some work.

Mel Crawford - cartoon painting genius

I can't even imagine how someone can be this talented and skilled.
Awesome!

Here's a guy who doesn't cheat at all. He just knows how to draw and paint for real.


Mel Crawford is a genius children's illustrator. The guy can do all kinds of different styles!



I'm not positive that every one of the rest of these are his but they sure look like it to me.
Anyway, they are really beautiful...and fun at the same time.

Isn't this one great? Now these are some cute rodents!



Mel is the best Hanna Barbera painter for sure.

http://inspiration-grab-bag.blogspot.com/2006/03/mel-crawford-pebbles-flintstone-1963.html

http://inspiration-grab-bag.blogspot.com/2006/01/mel-crawford-magilla-gorilla-big.html


http://fun-all-around.blogspot.com/2006/04/yogi-bear-and-cranky-magician.html



http://fun-all-around.blogspot.com/2005/12/mel-crawford-rootie-kazootie.html


To young cartoonists: Here's why I keep saying, don't learn a style. Learn to draw well! Then you can work in many different styles without cheating!

Styles come and go. Skill is always useful and will keep you in demand.

Learn your old fashioned principles!

Thanks to Trevour for this contribution:

Is it a cartoon? Chapter 1

Here is a picture made by someone who understands the particular secrets of what makes a cartoon have cartoon appeal.

Yogi by Mel Crawford


Now here is a cynical horror made by scum:

That last post about the pretenders sneaking into the cartoon world and bringing their tiny heads and beady eyes with them gave me an idea.

I think I'll start a series of posts to see how many people think there is a distinct difference between what is a cartoon drawing and what is pretend.

The line between cartoons and lies is really obvious to me and has been since I was a small tot with a big head and eyes myself.

I'll start it off with some of my picks.

CARTOON

All these artists are cartoonists. They understand that their pictures are supposed to be fun to look at and instantly appealing. Cartoonists like you.

Now here's...

LIE

These pictures are made by inhuman monsters who hate you and your kids.

Warning: don't steal Vicki's one of a kind design. It's copyrighted!



Little tiny snake eyes on fat mammals are so cute!





If it says "'TOON" in front of it, it's a guarantee it's not a cartoon.
It's amazing that Bugs Bunny survived this line-up! Although cut to shreds...

The worst was when it became vogue to make pretend "classic-style" cartoons and they got the same old Saturday Morning cartoon writers who wrote Scooby Doo and Superfriends to watch a couple of old Bugs Bunnies and then try to write like that in script form. The writers didn't understand cartoon jokes, so they would copy the old ones and then explain them to the audience. And the actual cartoonists on the shows that really did love the old cartoons had no say in the making of them.

And then they ship all the art and animation to Korea where they really have no idea what makes American cartoon drawings and animation work...and don't care.


Well these were all easy.

I'll try to find some that are trickier next time and you can vote on them.


Kali just pointed this out to me:
A real sign of fake cartoons. Cartoons that teach you something that the creators themselves don't believe. Like-just because you are crippled, doesn't mean you can't be a great athlete just like all the other kids.
And just because you are retarded and evil, doesn't mean you can't make up cartoons.

Real cartoons can easily do this:

Bill Tytla - Terrytoons - cute animation, is it such a bad thing to have appeal?

I think this is Tytla but whoever it is animated a super cute Mighty Mouse.

CUTE:







Big eyes and big pupils is a quick formula for appeal.



A little round tummy for a cute drunkard.

Cute is hard to define, but you can see the contrast between Tytla's drawings and the animator who did the next scene in the same cartoon.

NOT CUTE:


CLICK HERE TO WATCH CLIP! (4.6mb)

BONUS RETARDED INBETWEEN:

WHAT IS CUTE?

How do you define cute and appealing in the first place? It's especially hard to now, because the whole concept has fallen out of style. Most artistic efforts are purposely unpleasant now, whether visual or audio.
BABY PROPORTIONS:

The most general and obvious traits that make us think "cute" are big heads and big eyes.

Babies, kids, kittens, puppies are all cute to us because we are wired to want to protect the helpless.

These babies are generic cute. They say only the obvious.

This Chuck Jones kitten has the obvious traits too, but also is a very specific design which makes it even more cute because it appears more real.

Bugs Bunny can be bland, cute, funny or ugly, or some combination of everything, depending on who is drawing him and when he drew him.
Friz tends to draw him non-descript.

Jones draws him many ways. Here he is not exactly cute, but handsome. Taller proportions, but well designed shapes and good balance.He's a bit cuter and more stylish here.

McKimson is not known for cute. He has a tendency to draw his characters with tiny craniums and big jowls. His cartoons are hilarious, but I think he sometimes gets a bad rep for drawing the characters too "adult".



McKimson drew Porky with a huge head here, but still it doesn't add up to cute. See how hard it is to define what actually makes something appealing?

This is REALLY supposed to be cute. I love McKimson even though he has a tough time with cuteness. He is the Man's cartoonist.


This McKimson title card is more appealing than many of his drawings. I think it's a Scribner pose and Scribner has a natural appeal and cuteness in all his drawings-even when he tries to draw ugly.
Jones has an appeal in his characters when he doesn't get too cutesy.
This character is supposed to be ugly but is drawn with much appeal.

Cute and Weird is good too
FUNNY WEIRD AND CUTEClampett strikes an amazing balance of all at the same time.
Big pupils adds to the big eye effect. Clampett drew the biggest eyes of any animator in the 40s.

McKimson drew a lot cuter when he drew for Clampett.

Scribner too. The combination of him and Clampett makes for the ultimate cute weirdness.


Some pure cuteness is too much for me (like Disney babies), but when you add in other spices, like weirdness and twists it makes for a cute but sick combination and that's what I like best.

Rex Hackelberg is a perfect combination of cute, weird and great imagination.

Rex is one of the last few men who still have an eye for visual appeal. The last efforts to keep cute alive seem to be coming mostly from a handful of girls. You know who they are.

Young guys love ugly today-in all things, cartoons, music, pants, unshaven faces, you name it. They think it's not "cool" to have taste and pleasure. Thank God that girls have more sensitivity to pleasure and the finer things in life. Maybe they can save us from ugly coolness.

CUTE/UGLY
You can even draw ugly with cuteness and appeal, as Basil Wolverton proved.


Appeal and cuteness comes partly from the baby traits, but there's more to it. A real designer has a way with shapes and balance and those attributes are much harder to explain. I'll work on it.

It's especially hard to explain today, since the last 40 years have largely abandoned the concept of visual appeal so no one even knows what it is. I wonder when ugly girls will come into style?



Will CG animation EVER achieve appeal?

I'm curious, which of these do you think of as cute or appealing?

Madison dance

Ever try combining cute with retarded?

Gene Hazelton - Reynolds Wrap, the perfect cigarette foil

Here's Gene Hazelton. He was a cartoon designer/ Layout artist for Clampett, then Avery and probably many others.

It seems he might have also designed animated commercials, like this one.

Girl In Reynolds Wrap Foil Land

Those were the days! When a cute little girl can take time out from play to sell you cigarette tin foil!




Gene is a great draftsman and is especially known for his very appealing cute style.

Let's bring back cuteness and appeal to cartoons, sometime, huh?
Looks like some Hank Ketcham influence too.

Mmm, don't you just want to eat that foil? It melts in your fillings.


Ed Benedict liked Gene and his work a lot and always talked fondly of him to me. Gene designed many of the cute kid characters in Hanna Barbera cartoons. Pebbles, The Cave Kids, Magilla's little bitch and many more.


He also drew many of the Hanna Barbera comic strips in the 1960s. I used to collect and save them all and copy the drawings.
Gene did the layouts for Tex Avery's "Farm Of Tomorrow".

He did layouts on the UPA Dick Tracy show. His episodes really stand out for their great design and appeal.

I don't know a heck of a lot about him and what else he did, but I always like his stuff when I discover it.

Anyone else have any info on this wonderful cartoonist?

Bill Tytla - Terrytoons - ear flaps

Here's what Tytla can do with no direction and not much money. Pretty cute!
He's probably remembering some stuff from Country Cousin that his pal, Art Babbitt did a few years earlier, but it's a little more mid-40s style and less loose.











CLICK HERE TO WATCH CLIP! (4.56mb)

Bill Tytla - Terrytoons - drunk mouse

Bill Tytla's known for his weighty powerful style of animation, but he seems able to jump to other styles pretty easily too.

This is him drawing and animating really cute. From a Mighty Mouse cartoon.
It's probably partly inspired by his pal Art Babbitt's Country Mouse animation, but I think this is cuter.










There is a lot of great animation in Terrytoons but the studio gets overlooked by many people who love animation and my guess is because it had a bad inking and and inbetweening department.

I noticed as a kid that the animation seemed sloppier because the characters wobbled around, and I later realized it's not the animation, but the tracings. Ever see those bad color retracings of old black and white cartoons? Like Popeye and Porky Pig? Those terrible ugly tracings ruined those great cartoons. It's not that bad in Terrytoons but it makes a lot of animators and historians kind of turn away from the wonderful animation in many of them.

(They'll all say it's the bad stories, but that doesn't add up. Disney had terrible stories and people love those cartoons ... because of the animation...and they have tight finishes.)

Some great animators who worked at Terry through the years:

Carlo Vinci
Jim Tyre
Bill Tytla
Connie Rasinski
Frank Moser
Ralph Bakshi!
I think Art Babbitt may have worked there early on...
I actually love Jerry Shields (if that's the name of the guy who doesn't do overlapping action)



CLICK HERE TO SEE small VERSION! (4.8mb)





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