Sunday, December 23, 2012

A Terrytoon Xmas

Here are some rare christmas cards by various Terrytoon artists, some better known than others. These were copied from originals owned by animator "Red" Auguston, who received them while animating at Terrytoons in the late 1930s and early 40s. Thanks Red!


                                                                         Bill Bailey 




Bill Weiss 




Director "Connie" Rasinski




Storyman Don Figlozzi



Animator Jose Carreon




John Phelps



Rocco Alietto





Conductor and Composer Phil Scheib



Storyman Al Stahl 




Two Studio Cards





Paul Terry (the lettering on the tags on the tree looks like Paul's handwriting)



Carlo Vinci (dated 1937)



And one more from the Terrys. 


Thursday, August 23, 2012

Comparison: Vet Anderson as Animator and Print Cartoonist

Probably one of my favorite animators is Jesse "Vet" Anderson (1875-1966), a cartoonist who carried his wild, gritty drawing style with him all throughout his long career. Here's a complete run (minus one example which has already been posted online) of his wild strip "Hardy Hiram" from the NY Herald, 1902. Sorry about the poor quality, I was working from ancient microfilm and sometimes this is the best you can do.




And here's a few of his stylish caricatures, from the same paper, same year:







Now here's some framegrabs of Vet's wild animation. It really has to be seen to believed.... the way he moves his characters around really sticks out like a sore but wonderful thumb. I immediately noticed it when I began watching the Lantz Oswalds, but didn't realize it was Vet's work until I saw the same style in a few scenes of Ted Eshbaugh's Wizard of Oz cartoon on which Vet is credited. Soon after I started to notice his work in earlier Fleischer and Aesop's Fables cartoons. 



Vet's scene in "The Hair Mail" (Lantz, 1931) 












Does the expression above look familliar to you? 





That's because he'd been using it for at least 30 years. Don't ya love the way the guy draws mouths?


Typical Anderson beasts in "The Fisherman" and "The Clown" (Lantz, Both 1931) 





Some Horrifying Vet scenes from "Grandma's Pet" (Lantz, 1931)











      This is the kind of footage only a grizzled, 56 year old veteran of the Spanish-American War could turn out.

                                           Lastly, here's some of Vet's animation for other studios:

                                        Vet scene in Ted Eshbaugh's "The Wizard of Oz" (1933)











And this quick scene in "Hide and Seek" (Fleischer, 1931) looks like Anderson to me.