MAGOO & RETRO

Darrell Van Citters' definitive book on MAGOO'S CHRISTMAS CAROL is now available and can be ordered thru the book's website and also at ComiCon in San Diego coming up soon.

By all accounts this book is a dream come true for fans of the show, which was the first original prime time animated Christmas special, and features original songs by Jule Styne and was directed by Abe Levitow, one of Chuck Jones' lead animators. Magoo portrays himself, playing Scrooge in a Broadway stage version of Dicken's classic, populated by original characters from the story and featuring voices by Morey Amsterdam and the always wonderful Paul Frees. The illustrations I have seen from the book are first rate, depicting behind the scenes photos and production artwork. Notably, the color of the film stills and artwork does justice to the piece that no currently available home-video release does. Copies autographed by various surviving participants are available in limited quantities, so if you love this film you will want to snap this up.

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I recently renewed my subscription to Shane Glines' CARTOON RETRO, something I have happily done for 5 years running now. Updated every weekday, CR is a mandatory blast of inspiration and well worth the annual $50 expense, even in these challenging times. The site is a treasure trove of brilliant imagery past and present, original and printed, featuring art well known and lesser well known (to me anyway) by cartoon and illustration virtuosos around the world and over the century. The exclusive extras include Shane's own original sketches and paintings, as well as a blog of additional goodies. If you can put the 50 fish together and haven't signed up yet, what are you waiting for? You won't be sorry!

LUPINESQUE III

Last of the "Monkey Punch" inspired doodles.
I actually haven't looked at any of the actual comics in a long time, I just sort of drew on my general memories of them to do all these drawings. Obviously, none of these characters are in the comics. There are other influences in these drawings too, but for the sake of simplicity, Lupin III was mainly what I was thinking about.Reference usually just intimidates me. Same tends to be true for live models, I love to do a quick gesture and then re draw it later from memory.I lose cohesion when I look too long and too hard at anything. It's good to do analysis of things you are drawing (or are going to draw) but for me I can't analyze and draw at the same time very well. Too much left brain kicks in.That's author/activisit Howard Zinn up on the left top. I was watching a documentary on him while I did these and he stuck in there somehow. I did a number of drawings of him, a few hits and a great many misses. This was one of the misses.

LUPINESQUE II

Here's a few more in the same vein.

Lupinesque

A few years ago, my friend Tom Owens turned me on to Monkey Punch's original LUPIN III comics, done in the late sixties. I had seen some of the LUPIN anime, (s'okay but not up my alley), but the comics blew my mind--admittedly influenced by Sergio Aaragones and (my deduction) Mort Drucker, the artwork is loose, dynamic, wildly expressive and the stories are crazy tales of disguises, near misses, bloody assassinations and sex. These comics are really something out of the ordinary.

These two very tame drawings show me trying to channel some of that style, but mainly in proportions only. You have to see Monkey Punch to believe him.

Recent doodles

I'm not the walrus, but he is...

Space, man.

Where in the World is WTF Duck?

Has it been two years already?

Girls of Summer Solstice

I've been working on an assignment that involves drawing

a lot of girl characters, which is unusual for me. On my own

time, I have been using various styles and techniques

to trick myself into finding a way to draw female figures.

On close inspection, my anatomy probably doesn't

quite hold up.

Though I've never been a big anime fan, I

have played around with what I call "anime avatar"

proportions, which are more compact. It's tricky, but

it's also a kind of short hand for blocking things in.

There's also an old 1940's comic called SILLY MILLY,

which has a kind of Art Deco stylization, with very

cute proportions on a young woman protagonist.

The artist was named Stan MacGovern.

I'm not sure who this little butt kicker is, but I like her.

These are all still more formulaic than I'd like them to be, but I am gradually getting a kind of handle on how to balance the figures properly, even in a cartoony but sensible manner. I don't think I'm going to give Shane Glines anything to lose sleep over though.