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Wednesday, April 24th, 2024

Animation: Carlo Vinci Notes From Terry-Toons

Not long ago, archive assistant Amir Avni and I took a trip out to visit Carlo Vinci’s family at the home of his wife, Margaret. Mrs. Vinci graciously welcomed us into her home for a tour of her collection of artwork belonging to her late husband. Carlo’s animation desk, which he designed and built himself, still stands in his office just as he left it, with caricatures by co-workers hanging above it on the wall. Every room in the house has beautiful artwork filling the space. It was an awe inspiring experience to get a chance to see it all.

Carlo Vinci was a remarkable artist. He received classical art training at the National Academy of Design in 1930. He joined Paul Terry’s Terry-Toons soon after, and worked there for twenty years. He came West to join Joe Barbera at MGM, and ended up as the lead animator at H-B for twenty more years. But as I learned at my visit, those great achievements were only a small part of his story. In addition to cartooning, Vinci was an all-around fine artist, adept at oil painting, watercolor, illustration, stained glass and sculpture… in a variety of styles, from classical to baroque to art deco… with a wide range of subjects- still lifes, portraiture, landscapes and religious subjects. It was a mind blowing experience to discover the depth of talent behind a cartoonist we thought we already knew.

After we had viewed all the amazing artwork, Mrs. Vinci invited us to enjoy some home made Italian desserts with her family. Excited by everything we had seen, we had plenty of questions about Carlo and his wonderful career as an artist. We asked if she had met him before he started working for Terry-Toons or after, and she replied, "He was working for Mr. Terry when I met him. When we were courting, he lived in the Bronx, and I lived in Brooklyn. It was a long trip across town to meet for our date every Wednesday evening. Carlo would send me a little note with a cartoon every day in the mail when we couldn’t be together. I’ve saved them all these years, but I don’t suppose you would be interested in seeing them…"

Naturally, we were! Her son, Paul Vinci helped her to retrieve the hundreds of letters from a closet- all on Terry animation paper in envelopes with the distinctive Terry-Toons logo. Dating from 1938 to 1939, these charming little notes had a personal message, along with brilliant drawings depicting Terry characters. Paul commented that he himself hadn’t seen the letters since he was very small; and even then, his mother only shared one or two with him. They had been bundled away carefully for over fifty years. Mrs. Vinci has kindly allowed us to share these drawings with you…

All of us at Animation Resources appreciate the Vinci’s generosity. Since this article was originally posted, Mrs. Vinci has passed away. Amir and I will never forget her kindness and generosity.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Animation.

THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!

Animation Resources has been sharing treasures from the Animation Archive with its members for over a decade. Every other month, our members get access to a downloadable Reference Pack, full of information, inspiration and animation. The RefPacks consist of e-books jam packed with high resolution scans of great art, still framable animated films from around the world, documentaries, podcasts, seminars and MORE! The best part is that all of this material has been selected and curated by our Board of professionals to aid you in your self study. Our goal is to help you be a greater artist. Why wouldn’t you want to be a member of a group like that?

Membership comes in three levels. General Members get access to a bi-monthly Reference Pack as well as a Bonus RefPack from past offerings in the in-between months. We offer a discounted Student Membership for full time students and educators. And if you want to try out being a member, there is a Quarterly Membership that runs for three months.

JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

FREE SAMPLES!

Not Convinced Yet? Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month! That’s 560 pages of great high resolution images and nearly an hour of rare animation available to everyone to download for FREE! https://animationresources.org/join-us-sample-reference-pack/

Animation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.

Posted in carlo vinci, terrytoons | Comments Off on Animation: Carlo Vinci Notes From Terry-Toons

Monday, April 22nd, 2024

Filmography: I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles (Fleischer/1930)

This Saturday, the archive video guru, Eric Graf sat down to begin digitizing an amazing collection of Fleischer Bouncing Ball cartoons. These were among the most popular cartoons of their day; however, taken out of their original theatrical context, it isn’t quite the same experience viewing them today.

Each cartoon consisted of an animated introduction, followed by an invitation by the narrator to "Follow the bouncing ball…" A singalong section designed to get the whole audience singing was followed by an animated singalong where the characters interacted with the words of the song. If you’ve ever seen any of these films projected on the big screen, you know what fun it is to be singing along, and suddenly have the cartoon characters start cavorting with the words you’re singing.

Fleischer Screen Songs

This film is interesting, because it includes some early attempts at lipsync. The rabbit conductor speaks to the audience in stilted speech, obviously designed to be understood over the primitive theater sound systems of the time. But the stilted speech and the bizzarre drawings create a truly weird and wonderful effect. Drawings this strange don’t happen by accident! Still frame through this scene and check them out. Could it be that this scene might be some sort of animation equivalent of exquisite corpse? Marc Deckter has provided lots of great frame grabs of the crazy lipsync at his blog, Duck Walk.

An interesting side note is that the narrator who refers to the rabbit as “funny boy” is none other than pioneer recording artist, Billy Murray, disguising his natural tenor as a baritone. He narrates many of the Fleischer cartoons of this era, and provided the original voice for Bimbo.

Fleischer Screen Songs

We are fortunate to have over ten hours of Fleischer Screen Songs on Beta tapes. With your support, we have assembled a video digitization station where we can capture video. There’s literally hundreds of hours of cartoons waiting to be digitized… the entire Terrytoons syndication package donated by John Kricfalusi. The Warner Bros and MGM laserdisc box sets, the complete run of Format Films’ Alvin Show, and classic television commercials from the 1950s and 60s. As time and funding allow, we will be adding this material to our database.

Fleischer Screen Songs

I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles (1930)
(Quicktime 7 / 18 megs)

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of an online exhibit entitled Grim Natwick’s Scrapbook.

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Thursday, April 18th, 2024

Cartooning: Byrnes’ Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Four

Thanks to Clarke Snyder for this great Hurst ad.

We continue our series of posts on Gene Byrnes’ Complete Guide To Cartooning with the section dealing with…

MAGAZINE CARTOONING
Introduction by Charles D. Rice

PERRY BARLOW

Perry Barlow worked along side a star-studded group of cartoonists at The New Yorker which included, among others, James Thurber, Peter Arno, Gardner Rea, Charles Addams, Whitney Darrow Jr, Sam Cobean and William Steig. From its inception, The New Yorker was, as its founding editor Harold Ross described it, "a reflection in the word and picture of metropolitan life". The images were equal with the words, and this magazine contributed greatly to the development of cartooning. Here, Barlow discusses his ideating process for a Halloween cover.

WILLIAM VON RIEGEN

Von Riegen was featured in our previous post from this book, Part Three: Sketching. His gesture drawings were greatly admired.

EARL OLIVER HURST

Earl Oliver Hurst has been profiled extensively at Shane Glines’ excellent Cartoon Retro site. Hurst was primarily a "pretty girl" cartoonist whose work appeared in Colliers, True and American Weekly. His ads for Jantzen are particularly popular among current cartoonists. If you would like to see more, there is a great book on Hurst at Amazon… The Art Of Earl Oliver Hurst

KURT STOESSEL

H. Kurt Stoessel was born in 1909 in Germany, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was an illustrator and art director for several national magazines including The Atlantic. He lived and worked in Boulder, Colorado his entire career, and passed away on this day in 1984.

FRED COOPER

You may not know the name of Fred Cooper but you certainly have seen his work. He was a letterer, poster designer, illustrator, cartoonist, writer and teacher. Leslie Cabarga describes him as the original "clip art" artist- his "big head" cartoon characters were seen in dozens of magazines of the teens and twenties, and continue to be in use to this day. For more on this influential cartoonist, see Allan Holtz’s tribute in Strippers, and Cabarga’s book The Lettering and Graphic Design of F.G. Cooper

GLUYAS WILLIAMS

We mentioned Gluyas Williams was one of the most prolific and influential cartoonists of the 1920s. His work appeared in The New Yorker, Colliers and Life. Robert Benchley wrote, "I believe that Williams’ drawings will be preserved for expert contemplation both as data on the manners and customs of our day, and as graceful and important examples of its art." For more great work by cartoonist Gluyas Williams, see David King’s gluyaswilliams.com

ROBERT OSBORN

Robert Osborn was a cartoonist whose style influenced the UPA artists greatly. He worked with John Hubley on the film, Flat Hatting. He also did a great deal of illustration for the War Department, which we will be featuring in an upcoming post.

BARTOLI

Bartoli’s ink drawings appeared on the covers of quite a few issues of Holiday magazine in the late 40s and 50s. I haven’t been able to find out much information about him. Perhaps someone out there knows and will post some biographic info on him to the comments below.

MICHAEL BERRY

Michael Berry contributed pretty girl cartoons to Pictorial Review, Esquire, Liberty and The New Yorker.

JOHN RUGE

John Ruge’s elegant girl drawings appeared in Colliers in the late 40s and Playboy in the early 50s. His comic about an Irish Setter named Clancy was also popular.

RALPH STEIN & STAN HUNT

Ralph Stein was the author of a collection of pinup girl art titled The Pinup From 1852 to Now. He wrote the Popeye newspaper comic in the 1950s, and was an avid classic car enthuiast. Stan Hunt was a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He attended the New York School of Art and apprenticed under Willard Mullin. He passed away in 2006 at the age of 77.

RICHARD SARGENT

Richard Sargent contributed images to Pictorial Review and The Saturday Evening Post.

JAN BALET

Magazine Illustration by Jan Balet
(See Lief Peng’s Flickr set for more images by Jan Balet.)

Jan Balet was a childrens book illustrator who also did artwork for several women’s magazines.

RICHARD TAYLOR & FRANK OWEN

Richard Taylor was a cartoonist for The New Yorker and Playboy. Frank Owen was a cartoonist for The Saturday Evening Post He was the one who came up with the original story idea for the Disney’s cartoon, Morris, the Midget Moose.

Magazine Illustration by Richard Taylor and Frank Owen

THE IMPORTANCE OF CARTOONS IN ADVERTISING
By Don Herold

A STUDY IN LAUGHS

Gyne Brynes Complete Guide To Cartooning

ROY DOTY

Over the past half century, Roy Doty has been a cartoonist and illustrator with over 60 children’s books to his credit. He was awarded a Reuben by the National Cartoonist Society in 2006. See RoyDoty.com to see what he’s up to lately.

Magazine Illustration by Roy Doty and Jan Balet

Many thanks to Marc Crisafulli and David King for sharing this great book with us.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Magazine Cartoons.

THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!

Animation Resources has been sharing treasures from the Animation Archive with its members for over a decade. Every other month, our members get access to a downloadable Reference Pack, full of information, inspiration and animation. The RefPacks consist of e-books jam packed with high resolution scans of great art, still framable animated films from around the world, documentaries, podcasts, seminars and MORE! The best part is that all of this material has been selected and curated by our Board of professionals to aid you in your self study. Our goal is to help you be a greater artist. Why wouldn’t you want to be a member of a group like that?

Membership comes in three levels. General Members get access to a bi-monthly Reference Pack as well as a Bonus RefPack from past offerings in the in-between months. We offer a discounted Student Membership for full time students and educators. And if you want to try out being a member, there is a Quarterly Membership that runs for three months.

JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

FREE SAMPLES!

Not Convinced Yet? Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month! That’s 560 pages of great high resolution images and nearly an hour of rare animation available to everyone to download for FREE! https://animationresources.org/join-us-sample-reference-pack/

Animation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.

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Posted in cartooning, cartoonist, cartoons, comic strips, comics, Complete Guide To Cartooning, drawing, earl oliver hurst, education, fred cooper, gluyas williams, instruction perry barlow, magazine | Comments Off on Cartooning: Byrnes’ Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Four