Excerpts from Ward Kimball’s introduction in the Eclipse Books reprints:

“It was lucky for me that I happened to see a little advertisement in Popular Mechanics magazine that announced “WALT DISNEY WANTS ARTISTS. WALT DISNEY, CREATOR OF MICKEY MOUSE AND SILLY SYMPHONIES, OFFERS EXCEPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES TO TRAINED MALE (sic) ARTISTS. WRITE FOR PARTICULARS, GIVING AGE AND OCCUPATION…” I had seen some of Disney’s cartoons and was impressed enough to postpone my trip to New York and to apply for work at the old Disney Hyperion Avenue studio in Hollywood.

“Kelly began his short four-year career at the “Mouse Factory” as a story sketch artist in the expanding story department.
“I had just finished restoring a 1914 Model “T” Ford touring car, and on a nice summer day in 1938, I drove it ten miles to work and parked it in the Disney lot.
“This event caused a small state of pandemonium, with dozens of Disney’s artists clustered around my freshly painted Ford throughout the day. Sometime after lunch, Kelly appeared at my room with a quick sketch impression he had rendered of the curious crowd of people crawling all over, in, and under the “Tin Lizzy,” with a caricature of an irate Kimball ordering all the moon-faced Disneyites to get the hell off my pride and joy.

“We were all very young upstarts in our twenties, and spent a lot of Disney’s time laughing and goofing off.
“Kelly drew very rapidly and effortlessly. It seemed as though only a matter of minutes after something off-beat had happened he would appear with a scratchy charcoal pencil gag sketch of the event with all his embellishing exaggerations.”

Jeff

Domo is the official mascot of NHK also known as the Japan Broadcasting Corporation.

If you like Domo you should check out Tsuneo Gōda’s other project, Komaneko: The Curious Cat!

B. Stone

Here are a few clips from the Phoenix cartoon. I’ve not seen it but it looks pretty good. Unlike the Americanized Astro Boy movie this one is drawn with respect paid to Tezuka’s style. Most of this clip looks like it comies from the story Karma.

B. Stone

From Phoenix, Volume 7: Civil War (part one):

From Tezuka in English . com:

“…Among the 12 volumes (of Phoenix) are some of Tezuka’s most inspired, most experimental and most intimate stories. Each story is complete in itself, all taking place at different time periods. The settings alternate, beginning in the ancient past, with vol. 2 taking place in the distant future, vol. 3 in the less ancient past, vol. 4 in the less distant future, drawing ever closer to the present….”

For more about Tezuka’s Phoenix click here.

Scanlations are great for manga that’s not yet available in English but for a work like Phoenix please try to find the books, it makes for a better reading experience and it assures the future of quality print translations. The Phoenix books were translated and published by Viz. Visit their site by clicking here. It’s O.K. to spend your money on comics, they’re worth it!

B. Stone

Start the grand finale shall we?

Betty Boop’s da bomb!!

Let’s get them talking..(Smile Darn Ya Smile song originally from the Merry Melodies cartoon of the same name, posted a few pages back by Bryan)

I’ll end with this statement and it’s shining truth: Mario Bros. bullets make the most satisfying sound..

Tip o’ the grenade pin to Uncle John’s Crazy Town blog for the Betty Boop, check out some great essays, screenshots and embedded video: http://journeytojohnsbrain.blogspot.com/

Jeff

In the above clip and, as far as I know, in all the cartoons Sonic is voiced by Jaleel “Don’t call me Urkel” White.

B. Stone

I scanned the following illustrations by Richard Floethe from a 1937 “Heritage Illustrated Bookshelf” edition of Pinocchio. It’s a beautiful clothbound, slightly oversize, book that I found at a book sale.

The ghost image you see here is from the illustration on the page facing the text. I got it by messing with the levels in Photoshop.

From the artist’s website:

Richard Floethe — (1901 – 1988) was a prolific artist of considerable stature. He was born in Essen, Germany and received his art training at the Munich State School, the Dartmund Art School, and at the Bauhaus in Weimar. While at the Bauhaus, he studied design with Paul Klee and color theory and composition with Wassily Kandinsky. He came to the United States in 1928.

Click the Girl in Red to visit Floethe’s site. There are several galleries spanning his career which lasted almost until his death in 1988.

B. Stone

From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1907:

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream: With Illustrations by Arthur Rackham, William Shakespeare, 1908

From Aesop’s Fables, William Heineman, Ltd., 1912

From Mother Goose: The Old Nursery Rhymes, Arthur Rackham, 1913

From The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame, 1940

B.Stone

America’s rich funny aminal past is primarily visual, of course, but recently I discovered something that isn’t. There is a 1937 radio show called “Cinnamon Bear” that provides all of the wonder and magic of 1930s America that you could ever want or need. I recommend listening to as much of it as possible. It is several episodes long, and it is a complete story. It is very satisfying to draw comics and have this amazing, hypnotic dream playing in your brain at the same time. It has a wonderful cheap, frightening feel mixed with a forced, overbearing, candy-dipped whimsy that feels really good to hear. I have only listened to a couple of episodes so far, but each second of each one was enjoyable and wondrous. It is like drinking the sweetest, most intolerable but amazing mountain water sody pop there is. It gets my highest recommendation. Long live Cinnamon Bear!

You can listen to many episodes from the series here.

These modern drawings of Cinnamon Bear are extremely grotesque and awful, and somehow add to the gritty, teeth-shattering feeling of mixed sunshine and shadows that the show gives me. It makes me want to delve into the world of children’s radio but I can’t imagine it would improve my quality of life.

Dane Martin

The early Uncle Wiggily books were illustrated by Louis Wisa but this one, from 1939, is illustrated, as far as I can tell, by August Lennox. If anyone has contrary info please let me know, the illustrator isn’t credited anywhere in the book. Anyway, I got this book for 1.50 at a book sale! If you ever see any Uncle Wiggily books around they’re totally worth picking up. Thanks to Daney Martin for turning me on to the wonders of Wiggily!

Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the kind muskrat lady, who lived with Uncle Wiggily Longears, was in the kitchen clattering away with the pots and pans and kettles. All the while she was singing away like this:

“Merrily today I bake,
Perhaps ’twill be a chocolate cake,
Or E’en a pudding – who can tell?
Uncle Wiggily likes them well,
Puddings, pies – I both can bake;
Now, lets see; what shall I make?”

B. Stone