Saturday Morning Cartoons! - Black, White and Silent!

I feel it's cheating on Saturday when all I'm doing here really is linking to other folks' posted videos.  I'm basically just pointing out what you kind blog readers could find yourselves.

Then, I thought, what if they don't go and find them?  Then my readers would miss out on taking a 20-30 minute break once a day to watch some cartoons.

A crime, I replied...so here they are!

Since my sketchbook posts have included some very early animation characters, thought I'd focus on those this week.  Enjoy the hell out of these seldom watched classics...I do on a regular basis.

Here's a bonus...an old blog post with your old Unca Jeffy, watching a Felix cartoon.  One of 3 in a series I did like this way back in the early days of this blog, and maybe one of my oddest ideas...still strangely intrigueing and I'mm wondering if I should do more some day.

Talk to you soon.

Uncle Jeffy's Sketchbook! - 8-3-12

Last peek at my sketchbook for the week.  I flipped back to the beginning (from before I put it away, not getting how sketchbooks work, probably back in 2008-9)

I think my concept here on page 1, was to make the sketchbook an anthropological notebook written in the 1920's and 30's by the worlds dumbest explorer.  See here the hilarity as he discovers an elephant (not knowing that they'd already been discovered) and miscategorizes it as an insect.  Hilarity ensues?

Then I think I got the concept of doing a strip featuring EVERY comic and cartoon character EVER created.  Not thinking about the logistical nightmare of telling an understandable story with 8 million characters, I just thought it would be cool to see.  I kind of did that any way (and will again) with my "A 'Slight' History of Golden Age Comic Book Super Heroes" thingy I do here from time to time.

Here's me attempting (and liking) my take on the Duck's (Donald and Daffy) and then being thwarted by that dang hard-to-draw-for-me-anyway, Mickey Mouse.

My horrible Mickey meeting Daffy Duck, Superman and Ko-Ko the Clown at what ever event I imagined them all meeting at.  Batman and The Yellow Kid look on.

You see, I'd never really drawn other peoples characters before.  I have always (from a very young age) known that it's the cartoonists style that makes the feature cool, the character comes second.  Jack Cole's Plastic Man is awesome.  Joe Staton (who is extremely talented in his own rigth) doing Plastic Man was a bad take on a character and missed the point.  So at 45-6 years old, I was trying to see if I could even draw them, and have them be recognized.

Here's a sketch of me looking bad-ass with my posse:  Goofy, Donald, Mickey, A horrible Bugs Bunny, the Golden Age Green Lantern and being evesdropped on by a very Bob Clampett-y Tweety Pie and a sloppy Sylvester.  Over all a decent Mickey there.

Which brings us back to the present as I doodle myself some more.

Sketching trying to find a new avatar for facebook and Twitter and the like.

Not the way Van Gogh spent his time...but I am a cartoonist...and that's a wonderful thing.

Thanks for sifting through this with me this week.

Talk to you soon.

Uncle Jeffy's Sketchbook! - 8-2-12

Playing with a fat black pen on bright white paper drew me to doodling (I mean that in the most polite way possible) a few black and white era animated cartoon characters.  And if I was going to start there, I might as well delve straight back to the silent era - thought me to myself.

Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat.  Long before that new fangled Felix the Cat in the 1960's with his bag-o-tricks, Paramount produced the biggest cartoon star for the next decade Felix...

...and here's my sketch of him...my style?  When it comes to animated characters in particular, I have an extra block against getting loose with them and still keeping them recognizable.  Something keeps wanting me to try, though.

Meanwhile, Max Fleischer was doing his own "Out of the Inkwell" series and doing a lot of innovations, such as combining live action and animation and even sound.

Here's his first big star, "Ko-Ko the Clown".  Often rotoscope over brother/director Dave Fleischer. 

I have never ever ever gotten the knack for drawing Mickey Mouse...it simply eludes me.  Turns out I do the same "fall-short" job when attempting Walt Disney's earlier star, "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit". 

I like the one on the bottom, but it doesn't look much like Disney's character.  Or Walter Lantz' later version either.  But I do still kind of like it.  The top one looks like an "Animaniac".

After 1928, when Mickey Mouse did his sound gig in "Steamboat Willie", suddenly all the studios wanted their own little black and white cartoon-y star.

Here's Van Beuren's "Cubby Bear" and Harman & Ising's "Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid", the very first Looney Tune.

Ub Ising's "Flip the Frog" and Fleischer's "Bimbo".

The 8 major studios each started off the 30's with a diminutive black and white anthropomorphic cartoon star.

Except Paul Terry.  "Farmer Al Falfa".  Is there a sketchbook story in there?

Hurrrmmmmmmmmm.

Talk to you soon.