December 6th, 2022
Here’s a week full of Looney Tunes fun courtesy of Animation Resources supporter, Mike Fontanelli. Check out these great placemat designs from the early 40s!
Thanks, Mike!
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.
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Posted by admin @ 12:59 pm
December 5th, 2022
"I think [Al Capp] had a lot of talent, no question. He was a good artist. He could capture the peak expression- what made something ultra-funny or ultra-nasty or ultra-cute. He was a very brilliant guy, although a little screwed up. But he was talented, no question. I think he was quite the artist." –Frank Frazetta, Comics Journal Feb. 1995
Al Capp had been the uncredited and underpaid ghost for Ham Fisher on Joe Palooka, an experience so unpleasant that he made it a point to value his own assistants. Some of them, like Andy Amato and Harvey Curtis, made whole careers with him. Capp’s key assistant staff received a generous incentive- ten percent of the profits the strip generated, on top of their regular salaries.
Beginning in 1954, a young Frank Frazetta was paid the then princely salary of $500 a week- primarily to pencil the Sunday sequences from Capp’s roughs. By his own account, Frazetta enjoyed a one-day work week for years, allowing him to play baseball the other four days! Capp eventually put a stop to Frazetta’s 8-hour work week by halving his salary. But Frazetta quit instead, in January of 1962.
Other artists, like Moe Leff and Bob Lubbers, who drew Long Sam, Capp’s alternate hillbilly comic strip (see above) were tapped to assist as well, especially on the extensive specialty, promotional and licensed commercial work. The Cream Of Wheat and Wildroot Cream Oil magazine ads alone numbered in the hundreds.
Frazetta expert David Winiewicz has described the everyday working mode of operation of Li’l Abner from its golden period:
"By the time Frazetta began working on the strip, the work of producing Li’l Abner was too much for one person. Capp had a group of assistants who he taught to reproduce his distinctive individual style, working under his direct supervision. Actual production of the strip began with a rough layout in pencil done by Al Capp, from Capp’s script or a co-authored script, and the page would pass to Andy Amato and Walter Johnson. Amato would ink the figures, then Johnson added backgrounds and any mechanical objects. Harvey Curtis was responsible for the lettering and also shared inking duties with Amato… In order to make sure that the work stayed true to his style, the final touches would be added by Capp himself. He enjoyed adding a distinctive glint to an eye or an idiosyncratic contortion to a character’s face. The finished strip was truly an ensemble effort, a skillful blending of talents."
Capp’s latter-day reputation for using assistants is ironic. Nearly every great comic strip artist (with the exception of Charles Schulz) utilized anonymous, behind-the-scenes assistants. But no other cartoonist engineered media coverage of them, complete with photographs, in a major national magazine piece. Capp did, in a November 1950 issue of Time magazine, when he insisted that the article also feature his colleagues Andy Amato and Walter Johnson. Publicizing one’s assistants was unheard of at the time, and is still considered highly irregular. As a direct result, Capp is often remembered today for not having worked on his own strip, a persistent myth that the assistant artists themselves refuted.
The evidence indicates that Capp had the leading hand in the creation of Li’l Abner. Original strips I’ve seen have often included Capp’s pencil doodles on the back. They show his thought process clearly, and are the origin of the material on the other side. Many of Capp’s exploratory sketches survive in just this way, to show that Capp designed the characters carefully and thoughtfully himself.
The only time Capp really gave an assistant a free hand visually was in an early (1954) Frazetta-penciled story. Capp was curious to see him bring a fresh look to the daily strip, especially in terms of more lavish and realistic Johnny Comet style inking. Frazetta was also allowed to design a lead villain- a self-caricature, even named "Frankie". (see below) When editors complained about the experimental stylistic departure, the Capp look was reinstated.
Capp orchestrated his assistant staff much like an animation director, according to their individual strengths. At the same time, he maintained creative control over every stage of production. Capp himself originated the stories, finalized the dialogue, designed the major characters, rough penciled the preliminary staging and action of each panel, oversaw the finished pencils, and inked the faces and hands of the characters- for 43 years. Yet to this day, Capp’s detractors still falsely claim that Capp "never touched the strip" in an inexplicable ongoing effort to discredit him.
Although a team effort production-wise, few comic strips were as uniquely personal a creation as Li’l Abner. The finished product reflected the singular personality of its creator- Al Capp. As any fool kin plainly see…
In these two sequences, Capp kids his fellow cartoonists- Mary Worth writer, Allen Saunders and longtime pal Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon) The pitch-perfect parody, Steve Cantor was scripted and laid out by Capp, penciled by Frazetta, probably inked by Amato and Johnson, and lettered by an actual assistant at the Caniff studio- probably Frank Engli– it all blends seamlessly to create a truly classic Sunday sequence from 1957…
Even in the later years, Capp would occasionally knock one out of the park. The following hilarious continuity appeared in 1967, long after the strip’s nominal heyday. The jaw-dropping Lips Of Marcia Perkins is no less than Capp’s covert, satirical commentary on venereal disease! It could only have gotten past the censors because they didn’t understand it…
Special thanks to my pal, Atlanta-based animator Joe Suggs, for some 9th inning pinch-hit assistance on this article. -Mike Fontanelli, 2008
Many thanks to Mike for this wonderful series of articles.
Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources
This posting is part of a series of articles comprising an online exhibit by Mike Fontanelli profiling the career of Al Capp.
This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Newspaper Comics.
by Posted by admin @ 11:30 am
December 2nd, 2022
LAST CALL! RefPack048 will be replaced by RefPack049 soon. Download the current one while you can.
If you aren’t a member of Animation Resources yet, you can join today and download the current Reference Pack, and have a new one to download next week. JOIN Today! >https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/
Every other month, Animation Resources shares a new Reference Pack with its members. They consist of e-books packed with high resolution scans video downloads of rare animated films set up for still frame study, as well as podcasts and documentaries— all designed to help you become a better artist. Make sure you download this Reference Pack before it’s updated. When it’s gone, it’s gone!
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The latest Animation Resources Reference Pack has been uploaded to the server. Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll find when you log in to the members only page…
PDF E-BOOK
Irv Spector’s Coogy
1951-1952
Irv Spector was an animation story and layout artist who also worked in newspaper comics and comic books. Spector’s newspaper comic, Coogy is little known today, largely because of its limited distribution. This is a shame, because Coogy is an excellent comic, with brilliant compositions and great character posing and acting.
HD VIDEO:
Two Cinemascope Cartoons
Grand Canyonscope 1954 / No Hunting 1955
Film makers often take aspect ratios for granted, because most films are made with standard formats— the Academy aspect (similar to old school television) or 1.85 1 (the current standard for HD TV and movies). However there have been exceptions to these standards over the years, and each aspect has its own pluses and minuses. In this RefPack, we talk about two rare cartoons filmed in Cinemascope.
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SD VIDEO:
Two Fischerkoesen Shorts
Hans Fischerkoesen: Weathered Melody 1943 / The Snowman 1944 (Germany)
Hans Fischerkoesen was often referred to as "the Walt Disney of Germany". During the Nazi years, Hitler and Goebels ordered him to produce films that were technically the equal of those of the Disney Studios. The orders were backed by ample funding, and Fischerkoesen went to work on three animated films that would introduce the German animation industry to the world. We are sharing two of them in this RefPack.
SD VIDEO:
Cipollino: The Onion Boy
Boris Dyozhkin / Soyuzmultfilm, Russia / 1961
The story of Cipollino, the Onion Boy began as a fairy tale in an Italian children’s magazine, and became well known in Russia, leading to an animated featurette and an opera. In the 1930s, Boris Dyozhkin broke with other Soviet artists who rejected the Western style, studying Fleischer and Disney films frame by frame to break down the techniques being used. His study led him to an unique understanding of the synchronization of rhythm between music and motion, which made him one of the most sought after timing directors at Soyuzmultfilm.
SD VIDEO:
Well, Just You Wait Ep.05
Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin / Soyuzmultfilm, Russia / 1972
We continue the Russian series Nu, Pogodi! (Well, Just You Wait!) with episode 05, “City Streets: Metro”. In a 2014 poll of audiences all over Russia, Well, Just You Wait! was voted the most popular cartoon series of all time by a landslide. Although the series resembles both Tom & Jerry and the Roadrunner and Coyote series, the director, Kotyonochkin claimed not to have ever seen any of these Hollywood cartoons until 1987 when his son got a video tape recorder and Western tapes began to be imported.
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SD VIDEO:
Six Maxi Cat Mini Cartoons
Zlatko Grgic / Zagreb Films, Croatia / 1971
Next up is a series of mini-cartoons from Zagreb. The animator and director of these mini-cartoons was Zlatko Grgic, a Croatian animator who later emigrated to Canada to join the Canadian Film Board. The cartoons are based on a simple premise or prop, and play off a simple sequence of gags building to a topper gag. There is no attempt at telling a story or conveying complex personality— just fun. They form a great model for students wanting to learn to animate.
SD VIDEO:
Cat And Mouse
Wladyslaw Nehrebecki / Bielsko Biala Studio, Poland / 1958
Now we shift from Croatia to Poland. Clearly influenced by the films of UPA, "Cat And Mouse" skillfully juggles three of the fundamental elements of artistic rendering— line, shape and form. There’s a lot of fourth dimensional gags where one dimensional lines move alongside two dimensional flat shapes of color in three dimensional ways. This combines to create the best kind of cartoon magic.
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SD VIDEO:
Hajime Ningen Gyatorz
Curated by JoJo Baptista
Ep.36 / Ep.44 (1975)
Animation Resources Board Member JoJo Baptista curates another pair of half hour episodes from Japan with First Human Giatrus, an anime series from 1974, based on the manga by Shunji Sonoyama. The series follows the misadventures of a cave dwelling family set in the stone age. The animation studio behind the anime (Tokyo Movie) did their best to keep his style intact. There’s a note in the style guide to not draw the characters volumetrically, but rather in Sonoyama’s flat style. Lots of funny designs are to be found in this series, along with some simple but effective staging as well.
SD VIDEO:
Two Billy Bevan Keystone Comedies
“She Sighs By The Seaside” 1921
“Lizzies Of The Field” 1924
Billy Bevan was a skilled pantomimist, and an integral part of the Mack Sennett troupe of silent comics. Even though Keystone introduced many comics that would go on to become famous, they generally didn’t reach their peak of fame at Keystone. This was due to Sennett’s focus on funny situations, rather than funny characters in his films. As you study these shorts, you’ll want to pay attention to the staging and timing rather than subtle acting or story construction. There are some brilliant action sequences here.
SD VIDEO:
Resistance
Curated By David Eisman
David Eisman shares some breakdown clips with us this time on the subject of resistance. Resistance, like weight, is a crucial technique in the animator’s toolkit. Knowledge of the different categories will allow the animator to craft poses and sequences that best create the effect that the audience will recognize as the correct type of resistance.
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BONUS DOWNLOADS:
Annual Member Bonus Archive
Available to Student and General Members
ANIMATION RESOURCES ANNUAL MEMBERS: Reference Pack 017 is now being rerun and is now available for download. It includes a PDF e-book of rare sports cartoons by Willard Mullin, two Cinemascope cartoons in their original aspect ratio (and high definition!) and a half hour of rare paper puppet films by Lotte Reiniger. These downloads will be available until December and after that, they will be deleted from the server. So download them now!
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Whew! That is an amazing collection of treasures! At Animation Resources, our Advisory Board includes great artists and animators like Ralph Bakshi, Will Finn, J.J. Sedelmaier and Sherm Cohen. They’ve let us know the things that they use in their own self study so we can share them with you. That’s experience you just can’t find anywhere else. The most important information isn’t what you already know… It’s the information you should know about, but don’t know yet. We bring that to you every other month.
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Animation Resources is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing self study material to the worldwide animation community. If you are a creative person working in animation, cartooning or illustration, you owe it to yourself to be a member of Animation Resources.
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Animation Resources is one of the best kept secrets in the world of cartooning. Every month, we sponsor a program of interest to artists, and every other month, we share a book and up to an hour of rare animation with our members. If you are a creative person interested in the fields of animation, cartooning or illustration, you should be a member of Animation Resources!
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by Posted by Stephen Worth @ 11:27 am
