Uncle Jeffy's Sketchbook v. 1.1

As mentioned in the last sketchbook post, I'm toying with the idea of an Adventure-Western-Science Fiction-Superhero-Musical-Action serial a la Republic Pictures circa 1930's-1950's, titled "The Adventures of Congo Jeffy and Action Frank".

This past weekend "The Brain Trust" got together...

...and using the tools at our disposal...

...did some preliminary work.

Sketch One: Congo Jeffy -

Congo Jeffy is in reality young-gadabout-philanthropist-handsome-wealthy-industrialist-scientist-playboy Geoffrey Von Oberdorfer IV. Heir to the vast Oberdorfer Lederhosen Empire, no one can estimate his monetary worth as it grows so fast, but at last estimate it was approaching a gazillion dollars.

That's gazillion with a "G", people!!!

However as a young lad, he cast his fortune aside to run away and join the circus and see the world. While traveling with the sideshow he befriended and learned from the traveling freaks.

Mysticism from the swami, physical limberness and strength from the Indian rubber man and circus strongman, the power to cloud men's minds from the belly dancers and bull-shitting techniques from the carnival barkers. All talents he would one day use as an adventurer.

While wintering with the circus in French Morocco, he happened into a cut-throat game of Euchre with some locals and while collecting his winnings, was offered as partial payment..."The Utility Fez of Doom"! More on this as the story develops, but among it's tesseract hidden articles are a "Fex-a-rang", "Fez-CSI-kit" and "Fez-Shark-Repellent". It also has VTOL (vertical take off and landing) abilities as it doubles as a "Fez-Copter".

A habit learned by young Geoffrey during his time living out of a bindle on the road, was to keep a bit of civility in his day to day life. Like the British with their "tea time", Geoffrey established "toddy time" which he holds strict adherence to every day at 3 p.m. sharp. His "toddy" of choice is the classic gin and tonic, which also serves as part of his daily health maintenance regimen.

You see, the vitamin C in the lime helps stave away scurvy, the quinine in the tonic water fights malaria and the gin...well that's for everything else.

Armed with the skills learned in a globe-trotting circus side-show, a gazillionaires free time and resources, "The Utility Fez of Doom!" and a portable wet bar, Congo Jeffy travels the world fighting tyranny, injustice and sobriety wherever he finds it!

Look for his adventures at a blogging post near you.

Crockett and Barnaby and Harold, oh my!

Born in 1906, Crockett Johnson would have been 103 years old today.


Crockett (born David Johnson Leisk) first came to prominence as the artist/writer of a quirky, ahead-of-it's-time, very post-modern comic strip called "Barnaby" in 1942. Barnaby began running in PM magazine, but was quickly snatched up by newspaper syndicate and was soon in 64 American newspapers with a readership of 5.5 million.

The cast of Barnaby was as seemingly simple, yet deep and complex as his drawings.

The strip involved a 5 year old boy named Barnaby...

And his "Fairy Godfather" Mr. O'Malley (seen here with his magic wand/cigar)...

...who no one else believed existed. Even after Mr. O'Malley sought and won election to their U.S. Congressional districts seat.

Barnaby's disbelieving parents even took Barnaby to a psychiatrist to shake the boy of his seemingly imaginary friend...

There were also other regular characters like Gorgon, a dog given to Barnaby's father but who befriends the young boy. He was of course a talking dog, but one who didn't know he could talk until one day speaking to Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley. He noted that apparently he never had anything to say until then.

Gus. He was a ghost writer from a haunted house in Barnaby's neighborhood.

Around 1952 or maybe a little earlier, Crockett's attentions drifted away from the daily strip of Barnaby. Leaving the strip to other artists and writers, he began a new career illustrating children's books.

Here's the 1966 edition of his first...the one that I got in 1st grade from the school book sale, and my first introduction to Crockett Johnson and a boy named Harold with a purple crayon.

Harold could do anything and go anywhere with his purple crayon, just like I could with my drawing pen (I believe I preferred Flair Pens in those days) and it seemed like pure magic and true edification to me.

Of course the tiny-minded grown ups soon brought me back into the real world (sigh), but Harold raged on.

Here's a few animated examples of Harold and his crayon from the late 60's-early 70's.

The sophistication of Crockett's comic strip writing and the magical work he put into children's books teaching kids the magic of an ordinary object. The surrealism of Barnaby and the fantasy of Harold.

All good stuff!

Thanks Crockett!

p.s. to the tiny-minds: I still have my purple crayon and a bunch of you are dead now. I win.

Uncle Jeffy Sketchbook v. 1.0

Preamble Ramble:
Pardon me, dear gentle readers, for the frequency lapses over the last 10 days so of my humble blog. There have been a few days past with no new post.

This has bothered me, surely more than it has affected your daily lives, but the main point of my beginning this rambling was to force myself into picking up and using my satchel of creative tools. If nothing else to see what may evolve out of the daily effort. There are several other reasons too, which I'll get into another time.

Not to mention that this thing is called "Inside Jeff Overturf's Head". If there's no post, doesn't this imply that there's nothing in there? That's just a sign of a lot of bad things.

Over the course of the first few months of my doing this, I was pleased to see how easily I could produce content day to day. I guess over that time my subconscious began to shovel it into a particular direction, and now as I come up with things to say I find myself deciding that those things don't fit the parameters of this blog.

Poppycock! is my reaction to that thought. This is WHATEVER may be passing through...if the shine isn't on the pear yet, it's still probably good enough to eat.

Today I bring you the first view into what I'll call "Uncle Jeffy's Sketchbook". That's ideas I am playing with, that haven't reached full fruition yet.

It will be nice for me to have a record of how my ideas develop, and I hope still fun for you to see. I guess I've already done this type of post before, as can be witnessed by the post found here.

Also, don't let the term "Sketchbook" throw you. Some will be sketches drawn, others will take other forms. That's what multi-media's all about.

Now, on with the post:

A couple of years ago, I was sitting in my living room (minding my own business as I always do) and watching a few old movie serials. I was deeply immersed in the rollicking exploits of Flash Gordon or Captain Marvel or Dick Tracy or Tailspin Tommy or whoever, and Frank "The Douche" Terando was perched next to me pretending to watch, but mainly just chirping on about shit he didn't know anything about and annoying me.

At some point he made a semi-coherent, partially-relevant statement (a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters will eventually type all the works of Shakespeare). He mentioned that it would be fun to make our own version of one of these Saturday matinee staples of the 1930's-1950's. He then jabbered on about some nonsense or other (the monkeys don't type MacBeth all at once you know, there's allot of "afhdoiagh" and "vdaiqthqho" in between the real words) and I went to the drawing board.

See below my concept sketch of "The Douche"-named characters, Congo Jeffy and Action Frank.


Further discussion went out the window as I got to my "Douche" saturation point and had to start drinking to dull the sound of his chirping (I think the primates in the aforementioned analogy might have been howler monkeys), and no further work was made on this idea.

Frank's (you know..."The Douche"?) concept wasn't to actually film it or to draw it out, but to take still pictures of us and photo shop the bejesus out of them to create our jungle-science fiction-fantasy-western-adventure story. He then promised to bring over the above pictured hats so we could try them on.

Two years or so passed (monkey's get distracted you know...there were female howler monkeys to draw his attention and I'm sure there was more than one "poo-flinging" altercation that was gotten into) and he finally brought them over last weekend.

Surprise, the fez actually fit my ginormous head.

Seeing as my roommate Mike was now back in the picture, "The Douche" ("Le Douche" in proper society, "Oook-OOk-grAWK!" in howler monkey talk) brought by a hat for him to.

The following video of this fine brain-trust even captures us coming up with Mike's character name. Like catching lightning it's preserved digitally for all time. It even closes with proof that maybe this should have some old 3-D movie elements attached.



There you have it. The earliest stages in the first adventures of Congo Jeffy, Action Frank and "Ace" Hole.

Did you like my keen "Copter-Fez" effect?

The Pre-Dawn of the Superman

Born this day in 1914, Jerry Siegel would have been 95 years old today.

The writer half of the team, along with Joe Shuster, that created Superman in 1938, Jerry and Joe had known each other for years before. In high school back in Cleveland, Jerry and Joe used their talents to create a science fiction fanzine. Writing and illustrating their own sci-fi stories and selling mimeographed copies to their friends and neighbors.

I guess this is what you had to do in the days before blogging. :)

I've already told a bit of their story in this post on Joe Shuster's birthday and therein posted the very first published Superman story from Action Comics issue one. Here for Jerry I post a few pages of the fanzine I mentioned.

An issue printed in 1933, 5 years before the Superman we know hit newsstands and electrified a nation, a story written by Siegel and illustrated by Shuster. "The Reign of the Superman". In this story you'll note, Superman is actually a bald mad scientist.

Luthor before Superman and with Superman's name.

I'm not posting every page here, just the pages with illustrations. If you'd like to see the rest, just let me know.

Cool shit!

Thanks Jerry, for sparking our imaginations with your own.

Walt and Roy start a company

Today in 1923, 86 years ago, Walt and Roy Disney founded the Disney Brothers Studio, later the Walt Disney Company. Today the company is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world, but that's not why I'm talking about it.

People are sometimes confused when I speak of my admiration for Walt Disney, assuming I mean the corporation which bears his name. I speak of the man himself. One of the most imaginative and diligent people of all time who parlayed his natural sense of storytelling and his innate ability to find and organize and lead talent into a living. It was not an easy task as so many idiots think today.

Here's a simple breakdown which can show the common thread of Walt's career.

1923:

Walt: "I'm going to take all my money and put it into making short subject cartoons to sell to theatres."

Everyone Else: "You're dumb to do that. Felix the Cat and Koko the Clown are already making what little can be made doing that. Give up."

The Result: Walt loses everything making "Laugh-O-Grams". Creates the "Alice in Cartoonland" shorts and invests their profits into making them better and moving production from Kansas City to Hollywood. Looses again. Walt creates "Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit" for Universal Studios. Universal steals the character and all but one of Walt's animators away and leaves Walt with nothing again. Walt and his remaining patriot Ub Iwerks create "Mickey Mouse".

1928:

Walt: "This little mouse is pretty good, but I think we can make him better by adding sound."

Everyone Else: "You're dumb to do that. Sound in motion pictures is a fad. Its expensive and theatre owners are never going to convert their equipment over to it. People have been going to see silent pictures for almost 20 years now and liking it. The mouse is good enough, it's just a cartoon."

The Result: Walt and Roy put everything into hock to produce "Mickey Mouse' sound cartoons. "Mickey Mouse" becomes the biggest box office success of the new "Talking Pictures" era. The "fad" of sound movies continues to present day.

1932:

Walt: "This little guy just showed me his invention of a three strip full color process for film. These cartoons are pretty good, but I think they'd be better in color."

Everyone Else: "You're dumb to do that. Color's too expensive, people like black and white just fine. It's just a cartoon.

The Result: Walt hocks it all again and signs a contract with Technicolor to be the only person allowed to use it for the next 2 years. "Flowers and Trees" is released as the first full color cartoon and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences creates a new award for "Best Animated Short Subject" just so it can honor the film.

Sometime in the 1930's:

The Board of Directors for Bank of America: "We have to get our money back from this guy. He is dumb to act like he does. He creates something that makes money, borrows funds from us to finance it, then buries his profits into doing something new! He never holds on to his profits, just invests them int he next project."

Roy Disney (to Walt): "We're in big trouble...they say they want a payment of $20,000. We're ruined!"

Walt (to Roy): "(laughing) $20,000? Remember when they wouldn't let us borrow $500?"

Amadea Giannini (founder and chair of B of A): "You guys ever seen a Mickey Mouse cartoon? I have. Let him have more money if he wants it."

The Result: Walt continues to invest in developing his studios talents. Art classes for the animators, story meetings to develop stronger character development, camera and film equipment for technical development. The studio grows in size and talent.

1938

Walt: "I think that we can push this envelope a little farther. This is a viable art form. Instead of just short subjects, I want to make an animated feature film."

Everyone Else: "You're dumb to do that. No one is going to sit still for a cartoon that's over 8 minutes long. You can never hold their interest or tell a story that long with just cartoons."

The Result: Walt releases "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" to huge critical and commercial acclaim. Takes the profits and continues to invest them with improving his studios abilities and talents.

Investing NOT in the financial world's definition, but in the quality of product. Which much to every one's surprise (which constantly surprises me) always results in the financial world's definition of investment.

That's right people, doing quality work results in success. Always.

When you hear me praise the work of Walt Disney I mean just that, not the work of the Disney Corporation. Walt Disney died in 1966, and that's when my praise ends and the work of the corporate schlockmeister's kicks in.

Walt Disney was a "human being". His just being who he was got important things done.

The Disney Corp is full of "human doings". "Oliver & Co.", "The Disney Channel", "Treasure Planet", "Hannah Montana", etc., are the result. Huge piles of dung all.

Luckily the folks at Pixar (Steve Jobs, John Lasseter and the rest of the "human beings" there) are doing things the Walt Disney way and just using the Disney Corp's money to get it done. :)

Anyway...enough of my babble. Here a sweet piece of shameless self-promotion from the man himself:



The world needs more Walts.