Here's another one from the Benny Collection, and another reason I stopped doing these things. Every time one of these things came out I'd see it and think "The guy who wrote that thing sounds like some idiot screaming at the White House!" I've always been a bigfoot cartoonist and I always will be. Thirteen years from now I'll see this blog entry archived somewhere - perhaps written in gold in St. Peter's Giant Book of Everything at the Pearly Gates - and I'll think to myself "The guy who wrote that thing sounds like a peckerhead!"
Now why the heck is Firefox or Blogger (I'm not sure which one) spellchecking me and drawing a red line under "BIGFOOT"? And "PECKERHEAD"??? It's not like I'm misspelling! These are common words! GET OFF MY BACK, SPELLCHECK!
23 comments:
My personal favorite "Easter Egg", upon reviewing the cartoon, was the mention of LARD DOG, who, incidentally, is producer of a hot new blues artist, James Hunter.
Many won't know that LARD DOG is the multi-facteted, multi-layered Steve Erdman, an old "running mate" of Pumpie's from NYC.
What's a bigfoot cartoonist?
Un-nuanced. No gravitas. Like C.C. Beck, as opposed to Frank Miller (that is, the accepted definition of a C.C. Beck comic or a Frank Miller comic).
I just oughta stay out of "issues" and stuff, because I always hate what I wrote a year later. NEARLY EVERYBODY oughta stay outa issues and stuff, because they all sound like a buncha screaming children. Very few people can write about politics without making a fool of themselves.
Quite possibly the most pedantic, heavy-handed thing I've ever seen you do. Not only that--but it seems as though you've attempted here to adopt that annoying political cartoonist "style" ala Oliphant and his ilk. Good you gave up the ghost.
You know, I think I possitively hate all political cartoons that aren't done by Thomas Nast and Windsor McCay.
As for issues and stuff: as long as its on a strictly amateur basis, I don't mind sounding like a buncha screaming children. I kinda get off on it. But yes, it certainly is the surest way to embarass yourself and get on people's grumpy side. I can't defend the practice.
Mmm, Bigfoot style? Putting CC Beck in that category is an interesting thought. I always thought Wolverton, Crumb, Carl Barks and E.C. Segar better fit the bill, but catching such a broad net, Miller might fit in just as well as CC Beck. Some of those panels in Dark Knight Returns look possitively Kurtzmanesque! I'd say C.C. Beck would be just on the borderline. Not to be nit picky, but for the sake of clarification, and to initiate the unitiated, those folks might be better representative examples of "bigfootism" which I think is also a kind of fungus.
I thought you meant you were the kind of cartoonist that is rarely seen, and that most people agree doesn't even exist.
c.c. beck was not a "bigfoot" cartoonist.
i agree with jed that Wolverton, Crumb, and E.C. Segar are bigfoot cartoonists,
but not carl barks.
I think by "bigfoot", "they", (you know, THEM) tend to mean, often literally, big feet, bulbous noses, googly eyes, with action oft times characterized by such things as the falling-out-of-panel-with-feet-in-the-air take, and the eyes-jumping-out-of-face-aghast take.
Yes eeteed, funny animal comics aren't strictly considered "big foot", but then the two share common antecedents. Krazy Kat and Ignatz are certainly "big foot"-like in character and behavior, (see early pre-Krazy Herriman, and also, Krazy's nose. Krazy could be considered a kind of bigfeetus to the later Mr. Natural, Flakey Foont style) and when Barks and the other funny animal folks draw human beans they tend to veer towards the bigfoot side of the spectrum.
Just to clarify.
Actually, I was/am talking about bigfoot WRITING, more than the artwork. In that case, I'd say C.C. Beck is bigfoot, just big klunky goofy fun. Frank Miller Miller is all serious and shit. Crumb's Forky O'Donnell is bigfoot, but Whiteman is one of the best novels I have ever read. Did I get that title right? "Whiteman"? I'm talking about the book where the guy drops out of society and falls in love with the bigfoot girl. But it's not a bigfoot comic. It's just a good comic with a bigfoot in it.
Actually, when bonzogal asked the question I says to myself "yeah, what exactly IS a bigfoot cartoonist? I know what I mean when I say it, but what does GOOGLE say?" That led me to this article where Roy Thomas declares C.C. Beck a bigfoot. As we all know, Roy Thomas wrote Marvel superhero comics so he is not qualified to declare anything to me. But I just happen to agree that C.C. is pretty bigfoot. Although he is not the artist that would immediately come to mind. I think the first cartoonist that sprang to my mind was that guy who was a nobody all his life and then posthumously became a bit of a cult figure for his work in Jingle Jangle and other such comics. But I can't remember his name. I'll go try to google it up right now...
GEORGE CARLSON! Good old google...
Oh, here's that Roy Thomas article if anybody wants to read the musings of a Marvel superhero writer:
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=96291
1) c.c. beck did very little writing. he was an artist. the captain marvel stories were not written by c.c. beck. otto binder was the main writer on the captain marvel series, but he did not create the character and many other writers were involved.
2) bigfoot cartooning and bigfoot humor refers to a style of writing and art that are crude, simple, and untrained. e c segar is definitely the best example of a “bigfoot” artist. bigfoot cartooning could be likened to folk art or folk music. if reed crandall’s finely illustrated cartoons could be likened to mozart’s finely composed classical music, then ec segar’s earthy bigfoot style of cartooning could be likened to the earthy folk music of the carter family.
3) the reason that carl barks does not fit into the category of bigfoot artist is because his art and stories are too sophisticated to be classified as bigfoot. while it is true that he was a self-taught artist, his years at disney studios gave him and his work refinement and sophistication that remove him from the bigfoot school of art.
ec segar, george herriman, billy debeck, f b opper, and sidney smith are some examples of artists whose work falls into the bigfoot category.
What-EV-ERRRRR. Hell, I can't even remember George Carlson's name or the title of that Crumb Sasquatch "graphic novel". What do I know who wrote Captain Marvel? SHAZAM!!!
Well, I love political cartoons and help create one for three of the four newspapers I edit each and every week. It is a pleasure to work with artist Marty Riskin as he is a twisted soul mate to me.
A good political cartoon is like a haiku...it carries a message in a compact immediate way.
Take the rest of this post with a grain of salt as I write about local and state politics almost every week:
The expression of political thought is vital to the health of our republic. The problem is too many people just want to talk and all they want to talk about is national politics. If you want to change something you need to address an issue on a realistic scale.
Calling a radio call in show isn't enough nor is writing a letter to the editor and having a blog where you just repeat links to other blogs. If you want to have an impact you have to do more.
Granted some people do sound like screaming children, but others don't.
I like good debate, but recognize that for many people politics is a faith that can't be discussed...and that's on both the left and the right.
fkgWell, I love political cartoons and help create one for three of the four newspapers I edit each and every week. It is a pleasure to work with artist Marty Riskin as he is a twisted soul mate to me.
A good political cartoon is like a haiku...it carries a message in a compact immediate way.
Take the rest of this post with a grain of salt as I write about local and state politics almost every week:
The expression of political thought is vital to the health of our republic. The problem is too many people just want to talk and all they want to talk about is national politics. If you want to change something you need to address an issue on a realistic scale.
Calling a radio call in show isn't enough nor is writing a letter to the editor and having a blog where you just repeat links to other blogs. If you want to have an impact you have to do more.
Granted some people do sound like screaming children, but others don't.
I like good debate, but recognize that for many people politics is a faith that can't be discussed...and that's on both the left and the right.
Mikey is one of the very few people can write about politics without making a fool of themselves.
"Crude", "untrained"? We're talking the same E.C. Segar here, right? And you include Crumb in there too? Are you high?
Reed Crandall, I wouldn't even consider a cartoonist. He was an illustrator who happened to make comics.
But, you know, semantics shmantics. I've never heard of half the names you rattled off there, so I'll have to consider you an expert.
They reprinted a few of those Jingle Jangles in a recent issue of The Comics Journal, and boy did they rock! Gorgeous stuff.
And, not to say that political cartoons suck, or that all political cartoons are bad--its just a matter of personal taste, and my personal taste just isn't into them.
And I should get some points here, I feel, for coining the word, "bigfeetus".
"Crude", "untrained"? We're talking the same E.C. Segar here, right? And you include Crumb in there too? Are you high?
Reed Crandall, I wouldn't even consider a cartoonist. He was an illustrator who happened to make comics.
But, you know, semantics shmantics. I've never heard of half the names you rattled off there, so I'll have to consider you an expert.
They reprinted a few of those Jingle Jangles in a recent issue of The Comics Journal, and boy did they rock! Gorgeous stuff.
And, not to say that political cartoons suck, or that all political cartoons are bad--its just a matter of personal taste, and my personal taste just isn't into them.
And I should get some points here, I feel, for coining the word, "bigfeetus".
The haiku's compact, immediate message-carrying manner is what led me to choose it over FedEx and UPS.
no. i am not high. as i see it, the problem seems to be that we define words in very different ways. you took the words “crude” and “unrefined” in a negative way. i did not mean them to be.
from dictionary.com:
crude- “...unrefined or natural...”
untrained “...Not trained...”
both these words define ec segar’s work. other than a $20 correspondence course, mr. segar was an untrained artist. by this i mean he had no formal education in art. the lack of a formal education gave his work a crude, unrefined quality. look at his work and you will see a lack of knowledge of perspective, human anatomy, proportions, composition and layout, etc. he expressed his ideas in his own unique way.
i am in no way an expert... not on any subject... but for the record...
billy debeck- barney google and snuffy smith
f b opper- happy hooligan
stanley smith- the gumps
...and while we are talking about bigfoot cartooning, let’s not forget the screwball comedy of bill holman and his creation smokey stover.
i have no comments to make concerning robert crumb and his work.
as for reed crandall, he was one of the greatest comic book artists ever. he was one of the founding fathers of comic books, and his work has never been equaled. he helped set groundwork in the field of comic books that many have followed, but none have equaled.
the comic book industry chose to reward reed crandall for all his priceless, timeless work by letting him spend the last ten years of his life working as a janitor at a pizza hut.
I luuuuurrrrrrve political cartoons, even the ones with which I don't agree, as long as the art is good and the joke is clever-ish. I'd rather see someone try to show their POV with words and art than just call names or go on the air as screamy pundits. I have a couple of old political cartoons done by Bill Watterson, and they're swell.
As for this particular cartoon on this particular blog- I love that scary face on the creepy old "red-ink" feller! The lines joining the top of his mouth with the bottom- hilarious and nightmarish!
Notary Sojac!
Reed Crandall rocked. I like his EC stuff particularly.
But that doesn't make him a cartoonist. He drew comic books ie was a "comic book artist". Drawing comics does not a cartoonist make. So we're not really in disagreement there--Crandall DID draw comic books. Did he contribute to the language of what comics are? Just about everybody back then was flying on the seat of their pants when it came to trying to figure out what a comic book should look like, so I'd say, yeah, definitely. The medium was less than a decade old when Crandall started, but he wasn't formally inventive in the way that Toth and Krigstein were. His stuff was more from the Fawcett school of straight-up illustration. Beautiful illustration too. He was more in that Wally Wood vein. I'm sorry to hear that he ended his life as a janitor though. That's just a serious shame.
And do you know the coorespondence course that Segar took? Was it the Famous Artist's Course? I have the three weighty volumes that comprise the 24 lessons provided by the famous artist's course, and that's some serious formal training there. There's a lot of stuff in there they didn't bother to teach me in art school.
And you can know the rules and still choose to break them. I don't know that Segar's work shows an ignorance of those things so much as the fact that proper human preportions and correct anatomy were pretty irrelevant to what he did. And if you think he lacked a knowledge or facility with layout and composition--why you sir, once again, are high. I would definitely look to Segar if you want to see how to layout a beautiful page.
according to wikipedia the famous artists correspondence course started in 1948, and the cartooning course was added later. e c segar had his first cartoon published in 1916, so that was not the course he took.
my views of segar and his work are quite different from yours, but that does not mean that i am high, nor do i see the need to cast aspersions.
Ok. You're not high. No aspersion meant. I was more responding to your thesis there, than to you personally as a human being, and I'm sure you're a lovely human being, but that thesis is high.
It just seems so irrelevant how good a draftsman E.C. Segar is, when you look at what his aims were. Ivan Brunetti's a pretty good draftsman, so's Charles Schultz, but you wouldn't know it one way or another from looking at their work (or at least, Brunetti's recent work). And I'm talking, beyond whether or not he's a "bigfoot" artist, or who cares, this business about proportion and anatomy, I mean--what are we even talking about here? By this reasoning, Charlie Schultz obviously didn't know the correct size of a human head, right? Where are you going with this? Is this argument about knowledge, or implimentation? Huckleberry Finn had some pretty shitty grammar too.
As for composition: whether it was naive, intuitive, or studied, E.C. Segar had a fantastic sense of composition. Simple does not equal bad. Sometimes it's just as important to know what to leave out as it is, to know what to leave in. Good cartooning necessitates an excellent sense of space and composition. I'm talking, cartooning that engages the reader beyond a simple illustration of the action. It's why Cathy and Dilbert are mediocre cartooning, and why Thimble Theatre/Popeye is good cartooning, and why Peanuts is frigg'in brilliant cartooning.
tell ya what... i privately sent m m a link to a piece of segar art, and i gave him my personal opinions on the “beautiful layout” of this work.
in my personal collection i recently acquired a little audrey comic strip that was done by steve mufatti.
i’ll scan the mufatti work, and we can ask m m to post both examples here, or i can ask him to privately e-mail you the work. i’ll also send you my brief opinions on each work, and you can give yours.
it would be nice if m m would post them here so all the “bloggers” can also chime in.
Post a Comment