"Turf Log #1" in Living Color - part three and complete

Here's the last of the colorized "Turf Log" #1. PhotoShop and I are not friendly, but we are on speaking terms.

An interesting coincidence in this post, which only speaks to how my blog works. Just the other day I did a post about George Herriman's birthday (the creator of Krazy Kat) and you can see his influence on me in the first panel and first stanza of this feature...15 years ago!

People ask me sometimes how much research I do when I spotlight a famous persons birthday on here. The answer is always "46 years". All my topics/subjects here are what's already in my head...hence the title "Inside Jeff Overturf's Head"...stuff I'm already thinking about, I'm just writing it down.

To see the original post of this section along with some explanation why I would put a song in a comic, click here.

For part one of this book, click here, and for part two click here.

For even MORE "Turf Log" in living color, here's #2 already posted in color, and it's supplement here.

Thanks for reading. As much as I enjoyed learning this process, it feels good to have it completed on this 15 year old story so now I can move ahead to new things.

I can't wait to see what I come up with...I hope you keep reading along. You're a good listener...I like telling you stories.

"Turf Log #1" in Living Color - part two

Here's part two in my posting of my colored version of issue 1 of "Turf Log". Sunday's a good day for reading color comics. Have some coffee and enjoy!

Part one (the prologue) can be found here.

I'll post the third and last part (supplimental feature) tomorrow.

Have a great Sunday!

The Kartoonist Kreator of the Krazy Kat from Kokonino Kounty

George Herriman was born this day in 1880, he would have been 129 years old today.

A lot of times when creative people are discussed, the word "genius" gets thrown in to the adjectives. Too often. To the point of losing it's meaning and power. I try not to do that.

I admire a lot of cartoonists and when reviewing their life's work I am impressed with their individuality, their creativity, their artistic style, their storytelling, etc., but the only one that I can without a doubt and without fear of needing to prove my point, call a genius...is George Herriman.

Herriman was born in 1880 in Louisiana and moved to Los Angeles at a young age. He got a job as a spot illustrator and engraver at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and was soon starting comic strips of his own. He did a number of them, but one worth noting is "The Dingbat Family" or "The Family Upstairs". This was a simple and straight-forward domestic comedy strip, but what set it apart was, along the bottom of each panel, either below the main characters' feet or even under the floorboards, was a completely different storyline going on between the family cat and a mouse. This cat and mouse were spun off into their own strip in 1913 called "Krazy Kat and Ignatz", then just "Krazy Kat" and the rest is history.

Pictured below are the main characters, Krazy Kat, Ignatz Mouse and Offisa Pup.

Pictured below is the main thrust (only apparently) of the strip. Ignatz beans Krazy with a brick as Krazy dreams of his "Lil' Anjil", Ignatz.

Offisa Pup loved Krazy Kat, Krazy Kat Loved Ignatz Mouse, Ignatz Mouse loved to throw bricks at Krazy Kat, Offisa Pup would throw Ignatz Mouse in jail...and the cycle continued. A love triangle with non-gender specific protagonists.

It wasn't the story that was told that made it great, it was the WAY the story was told that Herriman's genius went to work on.

Set in Coconino County, AZ., the sets that all this action took place in were a joy to the eye. Done in the time when a Sunday comic strip took up the entire page of the newspaper, these scenes are a joy to behold. Herriman's stylist page layouts combined with this beautiful surreal desert to create a different world. Cacti and trees grew, not from the desert sands, but from terracotta pottery scattered over the desert floor, decorated in Navajo designs. Art deco mesas loomed in the distance and even the shadowed phases of the moon were three dimensional cutaways of a chunk in the sky.

The language was as poetic as the visuals. The characters speak phonetically making what they're saying appear child-like, but the turn of phrases even turn of concepts is true poetry on the highest order.

I do an injustice to Herriman's work trying to analyze something that was so organic to him. Check out these few examples of his work.

The strip was adored by the art elite and intellectuals of the day, but the general public (the "mooks du jour") didn't understand it and wrote letters to the papers saying so, a sure coffin closer for any feature. Except for one thing...or one man I should say. One of it's admirers was William Randolph Hearst. He owned the newspaper syndicate. The strip ran from 1913 until Herriman's death in 1944. 33 years. All you need is the right champion, and something worthwhile can actually succeed. :)

In 1999 The Comics Journal had a poll for the top 100 comics of the 20th century. This included both comic strips and comic books. Krazy Kat was number 1.

When Herriman died, the common practice of the day was to replace the artist with another to continue on the feature, after all most comic strips are owned by the syndicate, not the artist. But Hearst said no in this case. No one could replace George Herriman. Krazy Kat was too personal a project. A sure sign of genius.

Herriman's ashes were scattered from an airplane over Monument Valley, Arizona. Coconino County will always be his home.

Thanks George!

"I'll Git You, Yuh Long Eared Galloot"

Born in 1906, Isadore "Friz" Freleng would have been 103 years old today.


Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Friz grew up with a penchant for drawing. One day in the mid-1920's he answered an ad for an errand boy/guy Friday in a beginning cartoon studio downtown. Errand boy meant they wanted cheap artists, and Friz knew it. That studio was "Laugh-O-Grams", Walt Disney's new company.


Friz got there not long before the studio picked up and moved itself to Hollywood. Fellow animators Ub Iwerks, Rudoph Ising and Hugh Harman coaxed Friz to go along, but he thought he'd wait it out close to home until he saw how it panned out. It panned out pretty good, the studio was producing it's "Alice in Cartoonland" shorts and Friz eventually moved west and joined up.

Pictured above are (left to right) Friz Freleng, Walker Harman, Walt Disney, Lois Hardwick (the last of 4 girls to play "Alice"), Rudolph Ising, Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman and Roy Disney.


At one point a lot of Walt's artists defected. There were lots of different reasons, we won't go into them all here. Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising borrowed some money to make a pilot film for their own series of cartoons, Friz came along to help. That pilot was "Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid", and when it was completed Harman and Ising shopped it around to producers and a film contract. It was eventually sold to Warner Brothers and proposed as the character to launch it's animated short subject department. A new film was made, once again Friz on board, and "Looney Tunes" was born.

Above is a still from the very first "Looney Tune", "Sinking in the Bathtub".


Friz stayed on as an animator at Warner's for a couple years, then accepted a raise in pay at a position at MGM as Fred Quimby started up their animation division. His time at MGM was an unhappy one though, and he was coaxed back to Warner's as Harman & Ising were let go over financial differences and Leon Schlesinger took over production of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. He was asked to finish and fix an unfinished cartoon left behind and proved so good, he was promoted to director. And there he stayed for 30 more years.


He (along with Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and Bob Clampett) was one of the directors to develop the character of Bugs Bunny, as well as Daffy Duck and Porky Pig.

Friz had a musical background and even timed his cartoons on music sheets using the bars to time out the gags in his cartoons, instead of the standard filmmakers exposure sheets. Watch a Friz cartoon and every action, reaction, pause, expression, etc., works in rhythmic sync with Carl Stallings orchestrations.


He also was the one to team up Tweety Pie and Sylvester for the first time. Both were existing characters who had appeared solo, and Friz saw the magic of pairing the two.


Friz didn't much care for the character of Elmer Fudd. He saw this dim bulb as no match against the quick wit of Bugs, so he created Yosemite Sam. In my opinion, one of the great cartoon characters of all time. He also bears a slight resemblance to Friz himself, with his short stature and red hair...and from folks who knew him, the temper was about the same as Friz's too.

Friz in later years, paired Sylvester with Speedy Gonzales, and even created Speedy's cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez.


After Warners closed their cartoon studio in 1963, producer David Depatie partnered up with Friz to form Depatie-Freleng. One of their first commissions was to create an opening animation sequence for a Peter Sellers movie coming out.



Friz won an academy award for the opening. One of four won throughout his career.

Thanks Friz. We wish that wasn't all folks.

"Turf Log #1" in Living Color - part one.

For you newer readers, "Turf Log" is a comic book about me. I posted issue one (written and drawn in 1994) on this blog before, since then I've been experimenting with coloring my work. At the time I was doing this as a comic, color was financially prohibitive, so the original was done (and posted here) in glorious black and white.

As a learning tool, I have begun coloring it. I was hoping to have it finished by now, but that stupid, dumb old, real world keeps getting in the way. So here's the first 6 (of 24) pages for you to hopefully enjoy until the rest is ready.

Go ahead, read it at work, your boss won't mind.

See you all tomorrow.