Author Archives: STWALLSKULL

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Learn more about Stwallskull here: http://www.stwallskull.com/blog/?page_id=2

INTERESTING LINKS: Freakies : February 16th, 2009

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The amusing Kindertrauma blog posted what is probably the complete 70’s commercials for Freakies cereal (they were resurrected briefly in the late 80’s or early 90’s). I always found the design of these characters to be immensely appealing… I still have some of the magnets on my refrigerator. Most the animation is surprisingly slick, especially when compared to the complete horseshit that made up television cartoon animation in the seventies.

Hellzapoppin’!

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This is post #1001, thank you very much. Let’s celebrate!

In this clip from the movie Hellzapoppin’ (1941), The Slim and Slam AllStars (a band of the great Slim Gaillard and Slam Stewart) provide the soundtrack to the most insane, physics-defying example of extreme swing dancing that you are likely to ever see.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Jack Kirby’s 2001: A Space Oddysey : February 13th, 2008

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I’ve been on a Jack Kirby kick lately. I just wrote a Kirby homage my friend Danno is going to illustrate for the Minicomics Dumptruck project (to be called Phenomenal Tangents), and it got me rereading some of the Kirby comics I had in the basement.

A lot of people love Jack Kirby the artist… a smaller group love Jack Kirby the writer. I like Kirby’s writing as much as his art… he is endlessly inventive and bizarre, if often more than a little incoherent. In addition to all his other numerous achievements, he made some of the most dreamlike comics of all time.

Much of his writing seems almost like he is doing a jam comic with himself… rather than seeing a clear big picture, he constantly changes direction, introducing whatever new idea or plot element catches his fancy to talk about and to draw. He writes like a cross of Ed Wood and Phillip K. Dick… inventiveness and surrealism drips from every page of his best work.

One of his best and least-recognized accomplishments I’ve seen is his interpretation of Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Oddysey for Marvel Comics in the 70’s. Divorced from having a single protagonist or defining concept beyond the mysterious obelisk through the series, Kirby just goes nuts. I’ve only read random issues of it… however, I’m going to download it and read the whole thing because both The Cross-Eyed Cyclops just posted it (here and here). This is highly unlikely to get reprinted, I think, since it is tied to the 2001 franchise. Don’t miss it.

INTERESTING LINKS: The National Digital Newspaper Program : February 13th, 2009

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Happy Friday the 13th!

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I’m excited to call your attention to The National Digital Newspaper Program, the first online newspaper site I’ve seen where the comics appear to be in reasonably good resolution (you could actually print these and have it look decent)… and it’s free! Thank you, gubbmint, for doing something worthwhile for once! Unfortunately, no color, but still fantastic. Check out the great comics sections from The Salt Lake Herald, for a good example. Those of you out there participating in the previously mentioned BIG FUNNY project will want to check this out for sure!

Also, here’s an index of online newspaper digitization projects.

Below: An example of Gus Mager’s Rhymo the Monk from The Salt Lake Herald, courtesy of the National Digital Newspaper Program. A WHOLE LOT more at the link.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Jack Kirby Illustrates Your Dreams at Cartoon SNAP : February 4th, 2009

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Sherm Cohen at Cartoon SNAP brings us some examples of readers’ dreams illustrated by Jack Kirby for the 50’s comic series The Strange World of Your Dreams.

 

INTERESTING LINKS: BIG FUNNY Announced : February 4th, 2009

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READ MORE AND GET THE SUBMISSION DETAILS BY CLICKING ON THE ABOVE IMAGE. This is a really unique and fun opportunity,… I hope a lot of you cartoonists out there will be participating in this! I am one of the curator/editors for this project.

BIG FUNNY

The newspaper industry is coughing blood and gasping on its deathbed. Newspapers lost their relevance a long time ago, and with internet media blossoming they can no longer compete. Readers and advertisers have moved on.

Unfortunately, newspapers are taking their beautiful bastard child, the newspaper comic strip, with them.

Today’s newspaper comics are much-maligned… and deservedly so. Today’s small strips, with mostly predictable, safe themes and bland characters are a pale shadow of what newspaper comics were in their wild and colorful youth.

110-or-so years from their birth, it’s been a good run. Let us not mourn the death of the newspaper comics… rather, let us have a wake to celebrate what they once were, and to build something new.

The International Cartoonist Conspiracy, Big Time Attic, and Altered Esthetics gallery are collaborating to produce an oversized newspaper comics section like they would do it today if they still did it like they did it in the old days.

It will be called BIG FUNNY, and it will be both.

The paper will premiere at a show at Altered Esthetics in August featuring some of the original art from the paper, along with historical comics pages from the dawn of the last century.

Submissions are open to all… no prior cartooning experience is necessary. While we expect to have a lot of cartoonists participate, we are hoping to also have poster artists, printmakers and artists from other disciplines represented.

DEADLINE IS MAY FIRST.

 

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Treasure Trove of Vintage Comics at Cool-Mo-Dee and The Cross-Eyed Cyclops : January 30th, 2008

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As I mentioned in the last post, I ran across some fantastic blogs yesterday, which you will see well represented in the links below. Notably, check out The Cross-Eyed Cyclops and Cool-Mo-Dee for vintage comics scans galore (among other goodies). Both sites had too many comics available to easily list here, although I listed a bunch of them. Also, note that Cool-Mo-Dee pointed out that the fantastic archive.org now has a lot of vintage comic scans to download. Pictured above is a page from the story Escape From Devil’s Island from Dynamic Adventures #9, one of the many great comics you can download courtesy of The Cross-Eyed Cyclops… click the image to go get it.

INTERESTING LINKS: Bollywood Superman II: January 30th, 2009

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A while ago, I called your attention to a Bollywood Superman and Spiderman video. I ran across a few awesome new blogs yesterday that I was previously unaware of… one of which was Cool-Mo-Dee. In one post, they called my attention to another great Bollywood Superman video… go here to see it.

CRUMBLING PAPER: Barney Google by Billy DeBeck

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Here’s a typically funny example I scanned of Barney Google, with header strip Parlor, Bedroom and Sink, which appears to have turned into Bunky eventually, from November 23, 1930 (the depths of the Great Depression) by the great Billy DeBeck. Hard to believe no one is reprinting Barney Google yet… it is truly one of the great strips of the last century. I was thinking I had heard about a reprint project for this a while ago, but if I did, damned if I can find any mention of it now. If there is a strip more deserving of a complete reprinting, I don’t know what it is.

Click the image to view the full strip.

Here are examples of Married Life by Billy DeBeck, courtesy of Barnacle Press.

Here are some assorted strips by Billy DeBeck at Barnacle Press.

Here are some Barney Google/Snuffy Smith strips courtesy of John Adcock at Yesterday’s Papers.

Here’s an old article about Billy DeBeck at The Stripper’s Guide.

Here’s another an old article about Billy DeBeck at The Stripper’s Guide.

Click here to read more about Billy DeBeck at lambiek.net.

Click here to read more about Barney Google at Don Markstein’s Toonopedia.

Click here to read more about Snuffy Smith at Don Markstein’s Toonopedia.

Click here to read more about Bunky at Don Markstein’s Toonopedia.

Here’s a self-portrait of DeBeck (among other cartoonist self-portraits) at entrecomics.com.

Here’s a gallery of fantastic Billy DeBeck sketches at comicartfans.com. Note that there is a lot of other fantastic Billy DeBeck art on that site as well if you do a search for his name (like this one for example… and this one)… for some reason, they unfortunately don’t make it so you can copy and paste a search there.

Here is a bio of Billy DeBeck courtesy of Sekvenskonst

Here is the Wikipedia entry on Billy DeBeck.

Here is Time Magazine’s obituary of Billy DeBeck.