Heinrich Kley: Cartoon Master

Today I'm getting a little fancier and a bit more , dare I say, sophisticated. Today we're looking at the work of Heinrich Kley, German cartoonist extraordinaire.

Heinrich Kley was born in Karlsruhe, Germany on April 15, 1863. He studied in both Karlsruhe and Munich and by the 1880s was known for his paintings. In 1908, he settled in Munich, where he began submitting cartoons to Jugend and Simplicissimus. These two magazines were satirical publications, in the same vein as Britain's Punch.

Kley was one of the most popular contributors to these magazines. His work was very influential, particularly on the Disney studios surprisingly. His satirical renderings of animals such as elephants were very influential in the designs of the characters in The Dance of the Hours from FANTASIA, as well as the elephants of DUMBO. John Canemaker makes a point of this in his commentary on the DUMBO DVD.

He died in Munich on February 8, 1945.

I will be translating from the original German.

From God's Marionette Theater

"All right, you can pack away the king, too, for the time being. At the moment, he isn't bringing in any customers."

Tourist Season

Tango

Turn in Your Gold to the National Bank

Secondhand Shop

At the Border

The Dance Floor

I hope you enjoyed this. There will be more German cartoon treats.

Auf Wiedersehen!

More Frazetta For Your Blog!!

Hello folks. Sorry I haven't updated for awhile. I've been trying to write something inspiring, but it's not coming to me. So here are more luscious works of art for you to salivate over, straight from the Lord himself. Enjoy.

Until Next Time

Frank Frazetta For The Win!!!

Today, I bring you the mastery of the late, great artist Frank Frazetta.

Today's sampler features his pen and ink illustrations. There are various illustration for the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs and one made for The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Now let us bask in his greatness and watch as I weep at my putrid draftsmanship in the corner.








Until Next Time
Happy Trails

Jack Davis: World's Greatest Cartoonist

Jack Davis is a fantastic cartoonist who is an inspiration to all cartoonists who have come after him, especially those who work at MAD Magazine. His influence can be seen in the above illustration is done by Tom Richmond, a caricaturist in the same vein as Davis and Mort Drucker. The use of thick lines to define form and cross-hatching to define mass and shadow is definitely a Jack Davis trait. If used correctly, it is absolutely stunning to look at. You can also see his influence on R. Crumb, with his caricatured looking people with cross-hatched shadows.

A big part of what I love about his work is that it's full of personality and life. The drawings suggest constant movement and emotion. The exaggeration of movement and expression gives the stories he draws an extra dimension of appeal. Al Feldstein is quoted as saying, "He gave a lighter touch to some pretty grisly stories."

His drawing style could be very well adapted for animated cartoons, whether it'd be for a more dramatic feature or a wild, laugh-out comedy.


Last, but not least, is his mastery of watercolors. All of the colors in the above image are so well blended, and no primary or secondary colors. If only modern designers could recognize the use of these type of colors. I hope to find these comic books so I can study his work and improve my own. Jack Davis, thank you for all of the wonderful things you've drawn. We are much obliged.

See You Later

Ralph Bakshi: King of Adult Cartoons

I have nothing but respect for Ralph Bakshi ("The Man " as he is called on his website) and the work that he has done. I think that he has made some wonderful films, but none of them are perfect. However, perfection is an illusion and an unattainable ideal, so we must take them as they are. I'm not going to cover any of his live-action films (mostly because I haven't seen any of his live-action works).

His animated films have to me always felt honest and that they were a part of him (except Cool World, but that's a different story). However, with that honesty comes a sense of incoherent storytelling (some call it stream of consciousness). You can definitely see this in Heavy Traffic, where some events seem to happen for no reason.

However, I love the animation in his films. He had great stuff from Irv Spence, Brenda Banks, Virgil Ross, John Gentilella, and others.

My list of best to worst of his films are:

1. Hey Good Lookin'

2. Wizards

3. Coonskin

4. Heavy Traffic

5. American Pop

6. Fritz the Cat

7. Fire & Ice

8. Cool World

9. The Lord of the Rings

All of these films have fantastic artwork by great artists like Johnny Vita, Barry Jackson, Louise Zingarelli (she's one of the best artists I've ever seen) and Milton Knight. He always took great advantage of the artists he had. He didn't let their work go to waste.

I will cover his TV work in another post, and later will do a review for each of his animated films.

See you next time,

Same Weirdo Time

Same Weirdo Blog