Thursday, April 13th, 2023
Politics is on everyone’s mind today, so here are some more rare political cartoons. These three articles come from the January, 1916 issue of Cartoons magazine. They paint a vivid picture of the United States on the brink of entering a World War.
Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Archive
This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Editorial Cartoons.
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Wednesday, March 15th, 2023
One of the great heavy-hitters in the entire history of cartooning, Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. was born in Philadelphia on August 25, 1913, although his family relocated to Bridgeport, Connecticut during his second year.
Migrating to California to work on Donald Duck cartoons at Walt Disney Studios in 1935, he stayed until the strike in 1941, long enough to animate on Snow White, Fantasia, Dumbo and The Reluctant Dragon. As good as Kelly’s animation was, (had he stayed on, we’d all doubtless be reading about Disney’s TEN "Old Men") his greatest achievements still lay ahead.
After leaving Disney, Kelly worked for Dell Comics. Here is a story he did for a 1946 Raggedy Ann & Andy comic book (the cover is from a 1948 issue)…
During his stints at Dell and the New York Star, Kelly introduced his most memorable creation to the world- in the unassuming form of a philosophical, swamp-dwelling possum named Pogo. The true heir of Herriman’s Krazy Kat and Uncle Remus, Pogo was an American comic strip masterpiece. A flawless blend of slapstick, parody, allegory, political commentary, intellectual whimsy, social satire and Irish poetry- Pogo can be read on several levels at once, and it set a new standard of excellence in newspaper humor strips that has never been equaled.
Kelly has been compared to everyone from James Joyce to Lewis Carroll to T.S. Sullivant. He was named "Cartoonist of the Year" in 1952, and was elected president of the National Cartoonists Society two years later. He was the first strip cartoonist to be invited to contribute originals to the Library of Congress, and published some three dozen books during his lifetime- classics, all.
It’s impossible for Gen X-ers weaned on modern tripe like Dilbert and Drabble to imagine the incredible graphic brilliance within the panels of Pogo. I remember literally getting lost in a Kelly Sunday page as a child, staring at the inspirational artwork for hours on end.
More than any other influence, I owe my choice of profession to the master, Walt Kelly. Here’s some cool stuff from my collection. Enjoy!
Mike Fontanelli
Los Angeles, 2007
Make sure you click on these… They’re amazing!
Thanks, Mike for allowing us to digitize your original Pogo Sunday pages. For those of you out there who still don’t understand how our archive works, what you see here on this blog is just a small representation of what our archive contains. For instance, we scanned Mike’s Pogo inks at 1200 dots per inch- much larger than you see here on the blog. Each one of the Sunday pages comes out at a filesize of 1.7 gigs. For a sample of how detailed our scans are, click on the image below and compare it to the last panel of the last Sunday page…
You can see the grain in the paper! We scan every image in our collection at this resolution.
Fantagraphics has just embarked on publishing a complete set of Kelly’s “Pogo” dailies and Sunday pages. The first volume is out now and every cartoonist should have a copy in their library. Check it out!
Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources
This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Newspaper Comics.
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Today, we have an exciting post for you… original artwork by Milton Caniff for the Steve Canyon newspaper strip.
Animation Resources supporter, John Ellis is working with the family of Milton Caniff on a DVD release of the live action Steve Canyon television series, which debuted in September of 1958 on NBC. In searching through the family’s collection of memorabilia, John stumbled across a batch of original inks of daily and Sunday pages that the family didn’t realize that they had. The estate of Milton Caniff has generously allowed Animation Resources to digitize the material for inclusion in our cartoon database.
John Ellis has been doing considerable research into Caniff and Steve Canyon. I asked him to write a few words about Caniff…
Milton Caniff has been referred to as "The Rembrandt of the Comic Strip", and oft by himself as "an Armchair Marco Polo", but in fact this whirlwind of a comic strip innovator and writer was essentially a sincerely nice man who loved to draw. Yes this gentleman born in Hillsboro Ohio in 1907 created and drew Terry and The Pirates from 1934 to 1946, which absolutely set the standard for the adventure comic strip. True, he raised the bar with Steve Canyon, which unlike Terry, he owned lock stock and barrel from the first daily strip in January 1947 through to June 1988, the final installment published shortly after his death. Absolutely he worked rain or shine, seven days/strips a week for 54 years, even from his hospital bed, the deadlines never ended.
Milton Caniff in his studio ca. 1947
(click for a larger view)
But beyond the art and dedication, what is true is that I’ve never heard an unkind word in his regard. His nephew Harry Guyton can’t even remember Milton ever losing his temper. My friend David Haft, who produced the NBC Steve Canyon primetime TV series in 1958, made a comment as we watched Milton on a vintage filmclip promoting the series recently. He said "Lovely, lovely man". Happy 100th birthday Milton.
John Ellis
Hollywood, 2007
Make sure to click on the images to see high resolution versions. Caniff’s amazing adventure strip from the late 40s has never looked better!
For info on the Steve Canyon TV show DVD, see… www.stevecanyondvd.blogspot.com
Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources
This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Comic Books.
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