Heartaches Pilot 15: the Ponzis Pity The Pooch

Poor old abandoned Curly Fuzz Poodle wanders the cold cruel city streets alone.
He puffs on a discarded doggy bone; his sole comfort in a world fated against used toys.
He gives in to his destiny.
A rich corporate magnate and his wife happen to be taking a stroll downtown to see how the lower-half lives. Mr. Ponzi, a dog-lover, stops and sees the ragged dog. "Hey Sweetums. Look! A poor homeless mutt! What a shame!"
Mrs. Ponzi: "I think he's foul and should be euthanized along with the rest of the working class!"Mr. Ponzi: "Nonsense and balderdash! You forget that I was a low class bum, myself once! But I worked my way up the hard way! -By stomping on the carcasses of my peers! That's the American way!""By Gadfry, this is my chance to get into Heaven Honey! I may be a dirty corporate executive, but I'll do something nice for the little ragamuffin pup! Not for free, of course! Nothing comes cheap in this here world! You bet your big smelly behind! Harumph!
Here Poochie, how'd ya like to make a few honest bucks? Can you do tricks?"
"MMMMm... smell that green ambrosia!"
"OK, boy. Let's have a trick. SPEAK! C'mon boy! Let's hear ya! Woof, sir, WOOF!"
Curly Fuzz stands up. It's his chance to make it in the world!
He pokes his finger through his magic talking ring.
...and yanks his enchanted string
His voice box is badly rusted and alas, only emits a raspy garbled backwards message.
The corporate magnate is shocked. He doesn't recognize this rusty language. "Egad! a foreigner!!"
Mrs. Ponzi, a member of the landed aristocracy is completely incensed. Mr. Ponzi pockets his cash, outraged.
"You call that speaking??! Why, I oughta deport you! I bet you're a damn communist - or worse!"
"Now look what you've done to my lovely wife!! You've ruined my trophy! Do you know how much it cost to fatten her up like that?"
to be continued

Howie Post Gone Too

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you know that Howie Post is one of my favorite cartoonists. Well, I just heard that he recently passed away. I hope that he at least knew that he had recently been rediscovered on all the blogs.
He's known mostly for his Harvey comics, especially Spooky and Little Audrey. I used to buy Harvey comics and go right to his stories without knowing his name. I just recognized his style. He was the most cartoony and fun artist.
Ger Apeldoorn has been putting up Howie's rarer earlier comics. They look influenced by Dan Gordon and Walt Kelly.
Howie's girls look like Owen Fitzgerald's! Really cute.


He is also good at drawing evil furniture - which made im a natural for drawing Harvey comics that were all about medieval superstitions, demons, witches and succubi. Great subjects for little Christian kiddies!I always liked his fairy tale houses.
I love when cartoonists try to draw realistic! Look at this "man".

Of course, Howie draws the best trees.


Howie was a real cartoonist. He knew (like the rest of us) that all men are ugly and goofy, but that women were beautiful.
Goodbye Howie. May you have 72 virgins waiting for you. Or even if they aren't quite virgins and there are only 20, I hope they are as cute as your girl drawings.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2010/05/post-post-post-monday-remembrance.html

Heartaches Pilot 14 : Puppet Trauma Theater

Shan comes over with her own hand-made puppet collection. She puts on a funny show to try to cheer Roxy up and make her forget about her great loss. Shan waves Fuzzy Bunny's whiskers on Roxy's nose. Roxy resists happiness.
The trauma begins. Instantly the cute puppets attack each other's most personal weaknesses.
"Oh yeah? Well I hate you, Gooney-Thing! You're nasty and ugly!" yells Fuzzy Bunny. "Let's settle this with extreme violence!!" Shan bashes the adorable puppet faces together. Bash Bash Bash Bash! Their interior cardboard structures collapse.
Roxy is a bit shocked but intrigued by the subtle multi-layered drama.
Shan brings up her foot-puppet- a rational authority figure man character: Mr. Probation. He calms the fight down with reason and soft pseudo-psychological buzz words. Now Roxy thinks that's funny and starts to cheer up.Shan presents the topper to the skit - her butt puppet: Poopy the Poodle Tard who talks with a fart whistle!

The curly tard reminds Roxy of her lost poodle toy and she explodes into tears.She turns around and buries her face in her pillow.
Shan is very worried now. When even butt-puppets fail to cheer up a kid, you know there is a serious problem.

Toy Drawing 10: How To Draw Porky

If you are trying to teach yourself classical cartoon construction, this is a gift from on high. From high up the stairs where Mike Fontanelli lives. It's a beautifully sculpted 3 fully dimensional Porky Figure.
Good sculptures of cartoon characters tell you what cartoon shapes really look like in perspective. Note in the 3/4 shot that his cranium is not stacked directly on top of his lower face and jaw. His brain extends behind his jaw.
Toys don't generally have a line of action. They need to stand up, so they are usually sculpted around a vertical straight line. This helps you isolate just the construction of the character too.
Note where the shadow falls in his eye. That tells you that his eye is sunk into his flesh around the edges and that the part of the eye at the right is farther away, because the shadow indicates we are seeing more of the edge of the sunken eye on that side.

Learning to draw something rude in 3 D is especially important to the eager student of animation.

A nice down shot of his impressive braincase.
See how the cheeks and smile work? Together, they form a muscle of flesh that points towards just above the center of his snout (nose).

Bonus Pigs:


Now if you get Mike to strip and pose for you, you could also learn the construction of Tex Avery's Spike the bulldog.