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Thursday, September 7th, 2023

Education: W L Evans Cartooning Course

In the teens and twenties, cartooning was a burgeoning field. Every newspaper and magazine employed a crew of artists to fill their pages with topical one panel cartoons and comic strips. Schools were not yet teaching the trade, so several artists took it upon themselves to create mail order cartooning courses.

Here a promotional brochure advertising the W. L. Evans Course in Caricature and Cartooning. Shaped like a miniature artist’s portfolio, and packed with great vintage cartoons and sales information, this brochure outlines why students should take up the noble art of cartooning.

THE W. L. EVANS COURSE (1913)
Promotional Brochure

A cartoonist is a power. His audience is the boundless public. He is talked about. His work is admired in society. He meets the most prominent people, and becomes personally acquainted with them. He is a critic of the world’s happenings.

And he receives a large salary for his work.

In 1913, Elzie Segar, aged 18 began a correspondence course headed up by the Cleveland Leader cartoonist, W. L. Evans. The course cost a dollar per lesson and it took Segar a year and a half to complete the 20 lessons. By 1917, he had landed a job penning the "Charlie Chaplin Comic Capers" and "Looping the Loop" strips. In the ad above, Segar is quoted as saying, "I’m getting along fine, and it’s all your fault."

W L Evans Cartooning Course Decades later, Segar made mention of his early education in his strip, Thimble Theater. In 1934, his character, Sappo took the W. L. Evans Cartooning Course and delighted readers with cartoon drawings made from letters of the alphabet. Segar wasn’t the only cartoonist who got his start with this course. Chester Gould of Dick Tracy fame was a graduate of the W. L. Evans course, as was Dennis the Menace creator, Hank Ketcham.

Here are the first two lessons that got these great cartoonists started on their career path. If there is interest, I will post more of this landmark course.

THE PLATES

THE W. L. EVANS COURSE (1916)
Lesson Two

STUDENTS: Print this stuff out and USE IT!

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of an online series of articles dealing with Instruction.

Fall is time to save when you join Animation Resources as a student member! For the month of October our Student Membership will be discounted to only $50/year! Best of all, you will continue to get that savings every year you renew as a student for up to three years! Yes, this applies to full time educators too! Why should you join? Each week we’ll be highlighting more reasons why you should be a member of Animation Resources!

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Posted in cartooning, cartoonist, correspondence, course, education, w l evans | Comments Off on Education: W L Evans Cartooning Course

Monday, May 18th, 2015

Exhibit: The Zim Course in Cartooning, Comic Art and Caricature Vol 2

Every other month, members of Animation Resources are given access to an exclusive Members Only Reference Pack. In May 2016, they were able to download Volume 2 of the classic Zim Cartooning Course. Our Reference Packs change every two months, so if you weren’t a member back then, you missed out on it. But you can still buy a copy of this great e-book in our E-Book and Video Store. Our downloadable PDF files are packed with high resolution images on a variety of educational subjects, and we also offer rare animated cartoons from the collection of Animation Resources as downloadable DVD quality video files. If you aren’t a member yet, please consider JOINING ANIMATION RESOURCES. It’s well worth it.

CLICK to Buy This E-Book

Animation Resources is proud to present exclusively to our membership the first of four volumes of Eugene Zimmerman’s landmark correspondence course in cartooning as a 200 page high resolution e-book. Members, to download a copy, login to the Members Only Download Page. This download will only be available during the months of May and June 2015 and might never be available again.

If you have not joined Animation Resources yet, see the Membership Signup Page. Over the next year, Animation Resources members will be receiving the entire Zim course, consisting of four volumes and nearly 1000 pages packed with incredible drawings and creative advice!

A couple of years ago ago, I stumbled across a "how to" book on cartooning by Eugene “Zim” Zimmerman. It was titled Zim’s Cartoons & Caricatures, Or Making The World Laugh. I happened to be speaking on the phone to Ralph Bakshi, and I mentioned the book. "Ooooohh! So you’ve discovered ZIM now! He’s one of my secrets…"

In 1967, right after he had resigned as the head of the Paramount cartoon studio, Ralph and his wife Liz were walking through Brooklyn when they saw a sign on an old house advertising an estate sale. They went inside, but it was late in the day and there wasn’t much left. Ralph glanced up at a tall bookcase and saw a pile of pamphlets stacked up on a high shelf. It was too high to reach, so he didn’t bother to look at them. As they were walking out the door, he got the feeling that he needed to go back and look at the pamphlets. It was a good hunch. The stack contained a nearly complete set of Zim’s correspondence course in cartooning. He asked the estate agent how much they cost, and was told $50. That was more than he and his wife had in their pockets, so Liz volunteered to run home and get the money. The Zim books were on his desk every day throughout the production of Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic and especially Coonskin. This set is Ralph’s most prized possession, and now he is sharing them with Animation Resources.

Zim’s correspondence course was the most highly regarded cartooning course of its day. Spanning 20 volumes, it covered a wide range of subjects, from practical homespun advice to lofty philosophy. Here are some examples of Zim’s genius from the pages of the four volumes we completed digitizing today…

The course was published in two different editions… 1914 and 1920. We have been able to find an earlier edition of the course to supplement and complete Ralph Bakshi’s set. There are no chapters or specific assignments. The books consist of page after page of individual nuggets of wisdom. Each book and each page stands on its own.

Ralph also helped Animation Resources obtain vintage copies of the magazine Judge’s Library containing dozens of full page color examples of Zim’s work. These have been included in our exclusive online e-books.

Zim’s course is much more than just a "how to draw" course. In short anecdotal paragraphs, Zim succeeds in conveying what it means to be a cartoonist… the history behind the artform… how to deal with everyday problems and setbacks… and how to live the life of an artist.

Zim was the founder of the "grotesque" school of caricature, which formed the basis of what we now call "cartoony drawing". He provides lots of examples of caricatures drawn from life, with photos of his subjects alongside his caricature of the person.

CLICK to Buy This E-Book

There’s plenty of traditional drawing lessons too. Zim’s masterful expressive line fills every page with perfect examples of the principles he is discussing.

The book is full of amusing observation. Just look at the shoes and the way the clothing hangs on these bums. Zim is able to pack personality into every detail of the character.

If you aren’t convinced yet that Zim is a drop dead genius, just click on this image!

The most impressive illustrations in the course are the examples of Zim’s rough sketches. He had an uncanny knack for being able to express every nuance of his subject with a free flowing and loose pencil technique.

He was capable of extreme exaggeration that captured the essence of the unique qualities of the personalities he chose to caricature.

But the most amazing thing about Zim’s artistry was his ability to draw the viewer into his world and make them feel the way the characters in the drawings feel. Wouldn’t you love to live in a cartoony world like this? You can, and Zim can teach you to THINK like a cartoonist.

CLICK to Buy This E-Book

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Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

JOIN TODAY To Access Members Only Content

This posting is part of a series of articles comprising an online exhibit devoted to Eugene “Zim” Zimmerman.

Posted in caricature, cartooning, correspondence, course, education, zim | Comments Off on Exhibit: The Zim Course in Cartooning, Comic Art and Caricature Vol 2

Monday, September 24th, 2012

Exhibit: Zim’s Cartoons and Caricatures

Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman was born in 1862 in Switzerland, and his family emigrated to the United States when he was seven. As a poor immigrant, Zim witnessed the “melting pot” of American culture first hand. His depictions of ethnic minorities were pointed, but honest and well observed. Although he is pretty much forgotten today, he was very well known in his time, and his humor captured the essence of turn-of-the-century America.

The Zim Book on Cartooning

Zim was the founder of the so-called "Grotesque" school of caricature, and was the first caricaturist to incorporate exaggerated cartooniness not only in the faces of his subjects, but in the bodies as well. Zim worked for Puck and Judge, the two top humor magazines of their day. Along with caricatures by George McManus and Frederick Burr Opper, Zim’s caricature of a moon faced grinning kid (an example of which appears on page 3 of this book) was said to be one of the earliest inspirations for Mad magazine’s mascot character, Alfred E. Neuman.

Zim was a prolific artist, with more than 40,000 illustrations published in his lifetime. He retired from Judge in 1897 and founded the American Association of Cartoonists and Caricaturists. He was also a writer and teacher. His columns ran in Cartoons magazine during the early years of the century, as did ads for his correspondence course in cartooning.

Animation Resources supporter Marc Schirmeister has been searching high and low for a copy of Zim’s early educational materials with no luck. But recently this 1910 book, packed with tips for the aspiring cartoonist, turned up in a used bookstore in Arizona…

Order The Zim Book on Cartooning

It’s worth noting that the price tag on the cover is an important clue to the value of these lessons to contemporary artists. According to the Consumer Price Index, $5 in 1910 is equivalent to $116 today. Five dollars represented a full day’s labor to many of the cartoonists who bought this book. Zim’s name in gold letters on the cover was the selling point that made so many aspiring cartoonists part with the “five plunks (in real Money)” as Zim so colorfully puts it in his introduction.

These 100 pages are packed with great cartoons, helpful drawing tips, technical information and business advice for the aspiring cartoonist. Most importantly, Zim passes along his unique philosophy of life, and offers a shining example of how an artistic career as a caricaturist can be incorporated into a person’s lifestyle. At the time this book was written, Zim had thirty years of experience under his belt, and had attained the highest level in his field.

Here are just a few choice snippets from this great book…