The guy at this blog created the following pics to show what it would look like if superhero artists “objectified” the gents like they did the ladies.

Hey Craig,
Best day yet was Thursday’s Jerry Beck interview. Great questions. Keep up the good work.

Any chance for something rare you might have from Jesse Marsh (Tarzan) that you could show off

A Tarzan cover by Jesse Marsh.

one day? My dad is a big fan (prefers Marsh over every other Tarzan artist, even Hogarth) and he would get a kick out of it.

Aaron Lea

Yo, Aaron!

I totally agree with your old man that Marsh was some kind of genius! Hogarth sucked ass, actually. Gotta love J. Allen St. John. I have an initial cap by him in Arf Museum leading off the “Get Your Hands Off of Me You Big Ape” chapter. Foster was sublime. Krenkle was way cool. What’s not to like about Frazetta? But, as to your request, here’s a Jesse Marsh rarity, the original art from my collection to a character study for a feature in the back of an old Dell Tarzan funny book. Let me know what your Pappy thinks, will you?

Awwwwww!

What’s worthy to follow Picasso?-my doodles of course! ;o) When I started the Arf Lovers Blog I always planned on regularly posting my doodles for shits and giggles, but really haven’t got around to it. These are from a little pocket-size sketchbook I filled while visiting my in-laws in Rome at Christmas. Have a Merry and click below for mo’ Yoe.

(click for a slide show)

I found lots of great Picasso cartoon sketches that I didn’t have room for in the chapter on his cartooning in the upcoming Arf Museum. So what follows is what we call in the biz a “Web Exclusive”! Click below for the slide show, Arf Lover!

(click for a slideshow of Picasso’s comics)

I wanted a piece of comic art to respectfully honor Cinco de Mayo, today’s holiday that speaks to the brave Mexicans that defeated the French army. So what better than a Tijuana (Mexico) Bible that features Barney Google “defeating” the French girl Fifi. The art isn’t by the original Google artist, Billy DeBeck (as is the Barney Google art in my just about to be released book Arf Museum), but you’ll find the story will definitely make you Googley-eyed. So, if you’re 18 or over click away! And…Viva Barney!

(click to read this comic)

I showed the painting Ward Kimball did for me for my book The Art of Mickey Mouse a few days ago. I thought I’d show you my own painting that appeared in that tome. When I first showed the painting to the Disney executive that was assigned to the project I purposely didn’t tell him I had done it as I wanted his honest reaction. . He said, “Yuck, that can’t be in the book, it looks like bad plumbing!” I then told him I was the artist. He then said, “Well, I guess it has to be in there”. And it was. Don’t forget to flush!

I will be speaking at Disney World in Orlando next week on creativity and brainstorming. Hoping to hook up with some Arf Lovers from that area while I’m there.

My pal Jerry Beck is one of the world’s foremost animation historians, the author of many books on cartoons and the co-founder (with Amid Amidi) of the indispensable animation blog cartoonbrew.

Caricature by Pixar designer Teddy Newton

1. As an animation historian what do you think is the most interesting thing you’ve turned up in the years of your research?

Cool new things turn up all the time. I’m endlessly fascinated in how other “Hollywood” cartoon studios (other than Disney, that is) marketed their cartoons. Publicity photos from the cartoons (and of their creators), movie posters, pressbooks, trade publications, internal business memos, exposure sheets and the like are my favorite pieces of “research”, not cels, pencil art or background paintings. Reading issues of Fleischer’s or Schlesinger’s in-house employee publications or the Cartoonists Union newsletters, are my favorite finds. Not that I don’t appreciate production art, Craig, I very much do.

Fleischer’s Animated News cover, a Fleischer company newsletter.
(click for a closer look)

2. Do you have a favorite unsung aspect of animation history?

I’m a nut for seeing classic cartoons restored with their original title graphics. Original titles were often replaced for theatrical re-issue or by TV syndicators in the 1950s. Most times some incredible images, lettering and credits are lost due to this practice. The cartoons actually play better if you see them the way they were originally presented.

Original Terrytoon title card, now lost due to TV re-titlement
(click for a closer look)

3. What good aspects from the past animation have been lost and should be reinstated in current cartoon offerings?

We’ve lost the personality of the indivdual animator. In drawn animation (and more so in Computer graphics), with much work being shipped overseas, cartoon characters are considered “merchandise” and their appearance (i.e drawing) must conform to a strict model chart. In the old days, the best scenes in cartoons would attain an appealing indivdual personality due to the varied skills of animators like Rod Scribner, Jim Tyer, Bill Tytla, Ward Kimball, Ken Harris, Ben Washam, Gerry Chiniquy, Fred Moore, etc. This is one major reason (among several) that today’s cartoons can’t equal the work from the “golden age”

Fred Moore
(click for a closer look)

Jim Tyer
(click for a closer look)

Ward Kimball did this drawing for my book The Art of Mickey Mouse. -CY
(click for a closer look)

4. Jerry, tell the Arf Lovers about recent and future books by yourself, please.

Sure! My most recent book is The Animated Movie Guide, which is a complete listing of every animated feature released to movie theatres in the U.S. since 1926. I also did two books for D.K. Publishing which Arf Lovers will like: Pink Panther: the Ultimate Guide and Loony Tunes: the Ultimate Visual Guide.

5. Jerry, do you dream in cartoons?

Sadly, no. But I wake up everyday to a world gone Looney Tunes. You can interpret that anyway you wish.

Pastrytown wedding (Van Beuren Studios, 1934)

God bless America!

Dr. Frederic Wertham said “there are pictures within pictures for those who know how to look”. Wertham showed us in his famous 1950s book Seduction of the Innocent examples of dirty pics you could find in children’s comic books. Here’s one the good Doctor found below reprinted from my book “Weird But True Toon Factoids”.

(click for a closer look)

Wertham’s crusade against comics motivated comic book companies to avoid outside censorship and start the “Comics Magazine Association of America” to police themselves with the “Comics Code”.

In a 1971 booklet about the Association we’re educated about how modern comics have been cleaned up and also shown how comics are created in the comic below.

(click for a closer look”

(click for a closer look)

Amazingly I found some very dirty pics hidden in the art—for dirty minded bloggers that know how to look!

(click for a closer look)

(click for a closer look)