Happy Birthday, R.

Found out that it was R. Crumb's birthday yesterday. I will now celebrate with a cool drink or three.

Carbon Alley #39

Ask Mr. Fox?

I found this on Sherm Cohen's blog and it comes right from the "I'll Be Damned" Department. Turns out the Tootsie Pop commercial we all know from our youth is the edited version. Who knew? Visit Sherm's site to watch it.

He's right, Mr. Fox is pretty cool.

He Named the Duck

SHIRLEY! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

EC Monday with Graham Ingels

This is a cover by the great, Ghastly Graham Ingels. Curiously, it doesn't quite reflect the usual skewed rendering of the denizens of his stories. Later tonight, if I have a moment, I'll scan some stuff and post an update. But he was definitely the proprietor of the grotesque, and for most of its run, he was the lead artist on The Haunt of Fear. He could really pull the nasty out of The Old Witch.

Homer and the Duck

I have to mention that Mark Trail was far beyond awesome last week. Completely, ridiculously, amazingly idiotic. You should go and catch up on all the fun. I've been reading it here.

Check out the first panels of these two. You'd think if they were going to regurgitate drawings they'd at least wait a few days in between.

Happy Walt Kelly Day!

Mark Evanier reminisces about Pogo.

Carbon Alley #38

Mr. and Mrs. Buzzard

Why, it's Scuzzo's dear old Ma and Pa! I believe this was taken at Carrion Days, down in South Gulch.

EC Monday with Johnny Craig

Here's a cover by EC artist Johnny Craig, who may be my favorite of the group. His crisp, concise drawing style foreshadows the Bruce Timm era of cartoon-like rendering (Batman: TAS). Craig also wrote many of the stories he illustrated. To me, he was the perfect counterpoint to the awesome grotesqueness of Graham Ingels' stories. Maybe I'll post some of his twisted, horrid drawings next Monday.

In Memoriam Groucho

Mark Evanier reminds us that Groucho died 30 years ago today. I'll do a caricature later this week just for the occasion. I watched shorts by nearly every classic comedian today before I found this out, so now I feel like I have to watch him and his bros. I guess I'll just watch this interview, and you should too. I've seen it somewhere before, maybe on the Silver Screen Collection.

Grillomation

I'm compelled to do a post on Oscar Grillo, since he has become one of my favorite artists. The line work, the construction, the spontaneity. He has a lot in common with Ralph Steadman. I would love to do some stuff like this. Maybe I'll screw around with an alternative strip someday.

Visit his blog.

Carbon Alley #37

Pete and Wolfy

Here's a still from Disney's Peter and the Wolf from the package film Make Mine Music, 1946. Bland but likable. My interest in it is based purely out of nostalgia. The design of Peter is particularly generic, kind of a mix between Pinocchio and Wendy's brother in Peter Pan. And Grandpa is pretty much Stromboli with white hair. Incidentally, John K has been posting periodically about the Disney blandness. I suppose that is why it is on my mind. The hunters have a great design, though, and Sterling Holloway is always a pleasing narrator.




And here's a non-Disney version. Creepy, no? And this is a coloring book. Once again, some well-meaning adult passes out nightmare fuel.

Whither EC Comics?

Well, I had planned on returning to this subject on a weekly basis but as usual my attention has crawled on to other things. Gotta love these covers though. If only we all had more time in the day. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't need sleep? Think of all you could accomplish before you had to trudge into work at 8am. I'd get into my thoughts on an alternate dimension that you could visit for indefinite periods of time, but I guess it's a little implausible. Not to mention hackneyed.

Old Doc Yak

It's Old Doc Yak by Sidney Smith circa 1912 or so. I saw this on Barnacle Press quite a while back, and was considering incorporating him into my strip, just for fun. Sort of a tip of the hat to the old days. Strange, thinking of just totally reusing a character someone created with no legal ramifications. Not only is it public domain, I'm sure there's no one alive that would give a damn.

All I know is, I don't like the look on Doc's face in panel two.

Carbon Alley #36

Arthur C. Armageddon

Great book. Amazing book. Blew my mind when I read it ten years ago. What's it about? Who knows. The only thing I can remember is at the end the last man on Earth has some sorta existential dilemma. Or not. Wikipedia would know. But it has aliens, and not to ruin it, but the Earth goes bye-bye. Armageddon Wednesday in a nutshell.

Karloff's Got a Big Ol' Brow

The Caricature From Hell

Richard Lewis. He claims to have originated the phrase "the ____ from hell."

Carbon Alley #35

Fighting in the War Room

... or why I stopped caring about the bomb and simply obsess about film. This Armageddon Wednesday features Peter Sellers as the President...




... Captain Mandrake (who would be my favorite character in the film, if not for practically every other character in the film)...




... and Dr. Strangelove. If the world is going to blow up, I'd rather have Sellers lead the way. He may have been crazy in real life, but you gotta be a little crazy to work in this place.




And from the "Well-Known Factoid to Many People, Obscure Factoid to Most" department, Sellers was originally cast in the Slim Pickens role, but evidently four roles in one film was too much of a strain. Oh, come on Peter, suck it up. Actually, it's hard to picture the role without Pickens.

There, it was inevitable that we get to Dr. Strangelove some Wednesday. Maybe next week we'll have more Cold War shenanigans.