I was thrilled to read that my favorite Famous Studios series is getting its own DVD release, but I thought the cover art was a little bland, classic Harvey Comics cover it may be. I did some asking around, and I not only managed to get the real cover art, but the back cover too! Contents are subject to change, but I sure hope not, this sounds like the release of a lifetime as is.
Filed under classic animation, crap
I’ve written about what makes Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse sublime and unquestionably superior to the animated counterpart several times in the past, so I won’t repeat myself. But it bears constant reiteration that Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse: “Race to Death Valley” (Vol. 1) by Fantagraphics, a collection people have been waiting decades for, is a must for your comics/animation library.
This is the start of the reprinting of Gottfredson’s entire run of the Mickey Mouse daily strips, something comic fans thought they’d never live to see. The restoration of the Walt Disney-Gottfredson written story, Death Valley, has been something of a project of David Gerstein’s for at least half the time I’ve known him, and it’s easily the best version you’ll ever see of this historic story, not to mention every single other strip presented. (For completeness’s sake, the Disney/Ub Iwerks/Win Smith collaboration and first Mouse serial Lost on a Desert Island is also featured.)
Gottfredson hadn’t quite come into his own in the period covered in this tome (April 1930-January 1932), but you can see the art evolve from slightly crude beginnings to something that isn’t quite the classic Gottfredson Mickey look. By the end of the book, colorful costars like Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar (rarely ever more than just incidentals in the animated cartoons) are just as refined and well-developed as the main mouse is.
My hat’s off to David and his chums at Fantagraphics. I’d pre-order Vol. 2, due out in October, had I not bought this at full price today (worth every cent though). That second volume should feature stories like Treasure Island and Blaggard Castle, where Gottfredson begins his period as the single most accomplished comic strip storyteller. And still, the best is yet to come.
(Incidentally, I see I am thanked in the book by David for support and inspiration. Making all those jokes about Walt Disney’s Sylvester Shyster the Crooked Jew has finally paid off.)
Filed under comics, floyd gottfredson
In his posting of John Stanley’s comics with the Famous Studios characters, Frank lamented that Cilly Goose, one of the studio’s “most accomplished and atmospheric one-shot” cartoons, isn’t available online anymore. So I’m reposting it.
This was one of the last Famous cartoons done in Miami, the credit for Abner Kneitel being indicative of this, since he didn’t return to New York. (I believe some of Kneitel’s animation can be seen when Cilly is showing her egg to the sow, and when she’s being tortured by the mob. The style is very similar to the animation Bob Jaques identified as Kneitel’s in the Jim Tyer-directed Popeye classic Too Weak to Work.) Though it’s obvious the boys were prepping for the move back, with the riff on NYC’s luxurious mayoral tours.
Cilly Goose is a cartoon that tries a lot of different stylistic approaches at once. The Fleischer studio perfected the idea of “appropriate length” with their Popeye two-reelers, in which they learned how long the characters and stories could be before the audience became disengaged. (Rank heresy it may be to say, the list of animated cartoons that warrant a length greater than thirty minutes is miniscule.) That quality is also present in this short. It’s certainly not worthy of a true two-reeler length, but it’s still material that can go on a bit longer than the average six minutes.
The Fleischer drawing style still hadn’t been discarded at this point, the bunny who looks like he stepped out of a 1930 Talkartoon being the prime example. There’s also a Chuck Jones influence here, with an emphasis on pantomime and strong, held character poses for acting. The staging and set-up is especially brilliant when Cilly enters the Square Garden to meet her fate, where she becomes a living, breathing being with her dreams about to be shattered and her fears realized. Ditto for the angry mob at the end, a nightmarish depiction of human greed and the shameless exploitation of animals.
The result is a cartoon that is as good as anybody’s, but it ended up swept under the rug due to years of guilt-by-association and garbage film prints.
Filed under classic animation
There’s a nice two-part interview with animation layout giant Bob Givens at the TAG Blog. Click here and here.
I’ve been meaning to post some of my own various conversations with New York animation superstar Howard Beckerman, but it’ll take some time to make them audible (due mainly to recording ineptness). If there’s any immediate interest, let me know.
Filed under classic animation, people
