Author Archive

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

Biography: Howard Brodie

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Birth/Death

Birth:November 18, 1915, in Oakland, CA

Occupation/Title

Sports Artist, War Artist, Courtroom Artist

Bio Summary

Howard Brodie was borrn on November 18, 1915 and went to California School of Fine Arts in Sacramento. He didn’t stay there long and he worked as a sports illustrator for the newspaper the San Fransico Cronicle.
At the age of twnety-seven, he enlisted in the army as World War II broke out. With his art background and experience drawing the human figure, he worked as a war time artist for a magazine called “Yank”.
After World War II ended, Brodie continued doing War Illustrations in Vietnam, French Indochina, and Korea.
In 1953 He went back to work at the San Fransico Cronicle. He also later in life became a courtroom artist and did sketches for many famous trials, even some where media was not allowed to film.
Today he is almost 93 years old living in California with his wife. His son also lives nearby.

Early Life/Family

He went to the California School of Fine Arts in Sacramento for a short period of time. After that He inlisted in the army and served for the majority of his life, always keeping the military close to his heart.

Education/Training

He didn’t finish schooling, but he worked as an sports illustrator and drew college football programs. He also had on the job training doing his famous wartime illustrations. Although he didn’t have much professional education, he learned a lot on the job and became an insightful artist.

Career Outline

Started out as a sports illustrator and when World War II broke out he became a war illustrator. Later in life he became a courtroom illustrator.

Comments On Style

His style is sketchy and quick, because of his subject matter. The focus of his work is people in motion, either in sports, combat, or in the courtroom. He had no time to be neat. His style hindges on evoking feeling to show the viewer the emotion behind the actions and the sadness in his subjects.

Influences

Brodie was influenced by his work as a sports illustrator. He became an expert on quickly capturing a moment and emotion even with his always changing surroundings. Even after the war

Personality

From the interview I read from him, it seems as though he is a very serious man. He has seen horrible things that most people can’t even imagine. His past has greatly affected him and his art.

Anecdotes

This man has gone through hard times and been in many dangerous situations that nothing can scare him now! He even lives over the San Andreas Fault. Danger has always been part of Howard Brodie’s life, even in his nineties.

Miscellaneous

Because of his illustration jobs, Brodie was able to witness many historical events throughout American history including the Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal and such court cases as Charles Manson, the Shooting of Ronald Reagan, and the Chicago Seven.

Filmography

Howard Brodie was featured in the documentary “They Drew Fire” directed by Brian Lanker. It focused on the over 100 wartime artists during World War II, including Howard Brodie.

Honors

Because he was put in harms way many times during dangerous combat zones, Brodie was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, USAF

Related Links
ASIFA: Cartooning: Byrnes’ Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Three
ASIFA: Cartooning: Byrnes’ Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Five
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0248543/

Bibliographic References

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/soldiers’_story_5-27.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0248543/
http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/biography.aspx?artist=28597
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Brodie

Contributors To This Listing
Enoch Allen
Mallory Carlson

To make additions or corrections to this listing, please click on COMMENTS below…

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Sunday, May 1st, 2011

Biography: Thomas “Pap” Paprocki

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Birth/Death

Birth: 1902

Death: January 4th, 1973

Occupation/Title

Sports Cartoonist/ Illustrator

Bio Summary

During the first half of the 20th century, newspapers thrived because television had yet to dominate the America. At the same time, sports cartoonists enjoyed the levels of popularity that are usually reserved for the athletes that they illustrated. By the mid-1940s, Pap Paprocky became well – known through his nationally syndicated illustrated column Sports Slants. Pap’s clever and stylish spot-cartoons that peppered the perimeter of his drawings were proven to be successful and their popularity lasted nearly 40 years.

Early Life/Family

Education/TrainingCareer Outline

During mid 20’s, Pap was working at New York American. But from 1932 to 1967, he worked for Associated Press and had done over 6,000 illustrations.

Comments On Style

Pap’s artwork was best known for dynamic composition, strong black line work, dead-on player likenesses, and subtle use of gray tones.

Influences

Personality

He was best described as a broad-shouldered, hearty, congenial man with a year-round tan and an addiction to brown sports coats, brown shirts, brown slacks and elaborate practical jokes.

Anecdotes

Miscellaneous

Filmography

Honors

Related Links

A-HAA: Cartooning: Byrnes’ Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Three

Bibliographic References

BIO-AAA-503

Contributors To This Listing

Won C Hwang

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Sunday, May 1st, 2011

Biography: Robert Ripley

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Birth/Death

Birth: Dec. 25th 1890
Death: May 27th 1949

Occupation/Title

Cartoonist, explorer, reporter, entrepreneur, radio and television personality

Bio Summary

Robert Ripley led, by all accounts, a very singular life. He created one of the most popular panel comics in history, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, along with immensely popular radio and television programs of the same name. As his popularity grew, so did his ability to travel the world and bring the strange and bizarre from foreign lands back to Mr. and Mrs. America.

Early Life/Family

Born Leroy Ripley on Christmas Day 1890 in Santa Rosa, California to Isaac Davis Ripley and Lillie Bell Yocka Ripley. He was the oldest of his two siblings, Ethel Ripley and Douglas Ripley. As a young man, Ripley was already a promising artist and athlete. By 13 years old he pitched semi-pro baseball and made the advertisements for the games. Robert had sold a drawing to Life magazine at the tender age of 14 (Life was an early magazine, unrelated to LIFE of today). During Robert’s first professional baseball game he broke his arm, effectively ending his sports career at age 15. This event no doubt lead him to take up cartooning as his profession. He officially changed his name to Robert Ripley in 1913 because the editor of the editor of the Newspaper at which he worked said that Leroy did not sound “manly” enough for a sports writer.

Education/Training

Robert Ripley’s official education stops at Santa Rosa High school, which he dropped out of.

Career Outline

Mr. Ripley started his career as sports writer for the San Francisco Bulletin, later he continued the same line of work at the San Francisco Chronicle, before moving out east. In 1913, Robert moved to New York and shortly got onto the payroll of the New York Globe, again as a sports writer. After a very slow day in sports, in lieu of the next day’s column, he submitted a cartoon of nine random bits of sports trivia entitled “Champs and Chumps.” The cartoon was far more popular than his column ever was. So, after a name change, Ripley’s Believe It or Not was born.
After a couple of years at the Globe, and later the New York Post, his strip went into syndication in 1929. By this point Believe It or Not had become immensely popular, and Robert Ripley started to travel internationally, reportedly visiting 201 countries and traveling a distance equal to 18 trips around the world. In 1933 he opened his first Odditorium in Chicago wherein performers would showcase their bizarre abilities, such as Joe Laurello, who could swivel his head 180 degrees. Until the late 1940s Robert hosted a radio program based on his cartoons, which he then turned into a television program.

Comments On Style

Influences

Personality

Robert Ripley seems to be a bit of a contradiction. He was noted as being extremely shy, yet also a well established ladies-man, sometimes with upwards of five girlfriends at a time. He believed smoking and card playing were evil, but that did not stop him from being a big social drinker and enjoying chasing young women. One thing that seems consistent is his eccentricities. He was known for wearing the traditional costumes of many cultures that most North Americans would never have heard of. He owned a Chinese Junk, but didn’t know how to swim, and a collection of cars, but never learned how to drive. While he was very through with his work and claimed that all his cartoons are extensively fact-checked, he was an outrageous liar in his personal life, lying about his date of birth, and that he had an extensive college education when he was a high school dropout.

Anecdotes

Miscellaneous

Published Charles Shultz’s first paid work when the Peanuts cartoonist was only 12 years old, about his dog Sparky, who could eat glass. Sparky would form the basis for Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy.
Robert died after filming the 13th episode of his television program, about curious death and burial customs from around the world.

Filmography

Honors

Honorary degree from Dartmouth college
Voted the most popular man in America by the New York Times

Related Links

http://www.animationarchive.org/2007/04/cartooning-byrnes-complete-guide-to.html

Bibliographic References

Ripley’s Believe It or Not! special edition
http://www.nndb.com/people/293/000113951/
http://www.ripleys.com/robert-ripley.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ripley

BIO-AAA-519

Contributors To This Listing

The Dave Hvizdos

To make additions or corrections to this listing, please click on COMMENTS below…

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