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Tuesday, November 15th, 2022

Animation: Bugs Bunny in Coronet Magazine

Animation Resources supporter, Rich Borowy stopped by to digitize some classic Stan Freberg radio shows for the archive database yesterday. Under his arm was a box of old Coronet and Omnibook magazines. Rich said that he was given the box at a garage sale that was closing down. I’ve never looked at these particular magazines, but they have wonderful illustrations and features. Here are highlights from the December, 1945 issue. Check it out. There’s a big surprise at the end. Thanks for bringing these in, Rich!

Each issue opens with an inspirational message and illustration. This one is by illustrator, Vera Bock. Many issues contain the work of Arthur Szyk, whose book “The New Order” we featured last year. I’ll be doing a whole post of Szyk illustrations from Coronet soon.

Next up is a retelling of "The Night Before Christmas" by Golden Book illustrator, Sheilah Beckett. Will Finn recently posted about her book on Gilbert & Sullivan Operettas. These pages strongly resemble the back of Little Golden Books. Do you think Sheilah Beckett designed that?

Here’s a feature on the artists who created the Famous Artists Course… Stevan Dohanos, along with his illustrator friends Albert Dorne, Ben Stahl, Hardie Gramatky, Fred Ludekens and Dean Cornwall donated their services to decorate casts in the Halloran Army Hospital in New York.

And here’s a feature on exotic superstitions and religious beliefs by Stevan Dohanos…

Here’s a real surprise- The autobiography of Bugs Bunny! "A Hare Grows In Manhattan"…

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of a series of articles comprising an online exhibit spotlighting Illustration.

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

Posted in bugs bunny, coronet, dohanos, famous artists, illustration | Comments Off on Animation: Bugs Bunny in Coronet Magazine

Thursday, June 9th, 2022

Instruction: Willard Mullin on Animals

FA Binders A couple of months ago, we posted a section of the Famous Artists Illustration Course… Chad’s Design For Television. Today, we are bringing you another Famous Artists article, this time from the Cartooning Course… Willard Mullin on Animals.

Willard Mullin was a type of cartoonist that doesn’t exist any more… a newspaper sports page cartoonist. In the days before high speed film and well lit night games, newspapers relied on cartoonists to illustrate the sports stories that photographers were unable to shoot. They did this by caricaturing the players and utilizing team mascots to represent who was on top and who was in the doghouse.

Mullin was not only the greatest sports cartoonist of his day, he was also one of the most talented artists ever to work in newspaper comics. His drawings are dynamic and full of energy and life. His lines flow beautifully, while still defining the solid forms that underly his drawings. When it came to drawing animals, he was unmatched. I hope you find this useful in your own work.

These pages provide just a small sample of Mullin’s work. If you can, find a copy of his book, "A Hand In Sports". It’s packed with wonderful sketches by this underappreciated cartoonist.

The Famous Artists school is still in operation. Visit their website at www.famous-artists-school.com.

As an added treat, here is an early Mullin piece celebrating the victory of the horse, Omaha in the 1935 Kentucky Derby. Archive supporter, Ted Watts found this treasure in a thrift store and generously allowed us to scan it for the archive. Amazing stuff!

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

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

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

Posted in animal, drawing, education, famous artists, instruction, willard mullin | Comments Off on Instruction: Willard Mullin on Animals

Wednesday, June 1st, 2022

Instruction: Chad’s Design For Television

Remember those matchbooks that said “Draw Me!” on the front? They advertised a correspondence course called “Famous Artists”. Everyone made fun of “draw Binky the Skunk any size but the same size”; but the truth of the matter was that the Famous Artists Course was no laughing matter- it was one of the best art instructional courses ever created.

Founded by Albert Dorne and Norman Rockwell in the early 1950s, Famous Artists had three courses… Painting, Illustration/Design and Cartooning. Each course consisted of 24 lessons in three oversized binders covering a wide variety of subjects. Each month, a new lesson would arrive in the mail. The student would read the program material, complete the assignment, and mail it back to the school, where a professional artist would critique it and offer suggestions.

To design the courses, Dorne brought together the top artists of the day… Stevan Dohanos, Rube Goldberg, Milton Caniff, Al Capp, Willard Mullen, Virgil Partch, and Whitney Darrow Jr, among others. The result was a correspondence course that puts many current university programs to shame.

There were two editions of the Famous Artists Courses. The first was published in the early fifties, and the second was published almost 10 years later. There were differences between the two, especially in the Design/Illustration course. A concluding chapter written by the cartoonist known simply as “Chad” was added in the second edition. It deals with design for television.

Chad (last name Grothkopf) was eminently qualified to write this chapter. After leaving the Disney Studios in 1938, he was hired by NBC to create the very first commercials for television. At this time, there were approximately fifty television sets in the entire country! Chad also worked in comic books, most notably in Fawcett’s Funny Animals series, for which he created the character “Hoppy the Marvel Bunny”, a rabbit superhero. He passed away in January of 2005 at the age of 89.

Animation Resources is fortunate to have a complete set of the Famous Artists courses, and we began digitizing them for inclusion in the database today. The first article we scanned was Chad’s introduction to the TV design chapter, and his discussion of the storyboard. These scans are quite large, but the size was necessary to clearly reproduce the text and details in this fascinating article. I hope you find them useful.

"In this ever-growing field of television, the visual language is supreme, and the artist is the king. So far, there are no famous artists in this young medium. Maybe you will be one of them." –Chad (1960)

The Famous Artists school is still in operation. Visit their website at www.famous-artists-school.com.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

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