Dream of the Rarebit Fiend

Got the magnificent giant-sized hardcover "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" by Winsor McCay this weekend!
And WOW! this is really everything I had hoped for!
Excellent production quality! Sharp and professional restorations and well researched.
You can tell that Ulrich Merkl who made the book really put his heart and soul into this.

While much has been written about the book already (See links below.) I thought I should share some photos so you'll get an idea of what it looks like. (Click on pics to enlarge.)

First we have the package. Notice the red Rarebit Fiends stamps. :)

As you can see it's very, very well packaged to make secure it's safe from dents and water.

And here it is. A giant brick of a book!

Just to compare size I placed a "normal" reprint book on top of it...

Following are some interior pages. As you can see it's both color and black and white reproductions inside. Fully annotated so you'll catch all references to things well known back then. Besides the actual Rarebit pages it's filled with rare stuff for the McCay fan.





Here are some links if you've missed the buzz:
arflovers.com
srbissette.blogspot.com
TCJ message board

To order the book just visit Ulrich Merkls website
Only 1000 produced... So, what are you wating for? :)

PS. I read it in bed before going to sleep yesterday.
You can only imagine the weird nightmares I had...

Bing!

"Oink, you're hypnotized." Panel in progress from the latest E&S page. Nöff said...
(Silly joke. The pun is bad even if you can read Swedish...)
(Eller så kan man säga att det är "knäppt"... Nä, nu får jag ge mig.)

The Landon School

Are Myklebust just sent me this link to the Landon School of Illustrating and Cartooning. And there's a 20 page sample pdf to download too!

Ratatoing...

This must be one of the worst rip-offs ever.
Too bad to be believed.
From the makers of "Little Cars" and "Little Cars 2" here is Ratatoing in "stunning 3D animation"...

E&S update

I'm happy to report that drawing is going easier now. :)
Emma delivered a 10-panel script wich presented some challenges. Loaded with text it wasn't easy to come up with good panel layouts, but the harder it is the better it usually gets.
Here's the page the way it looked earlier today.
Drawn in A2 size I have to split the page in two parts, as you can see. Click to enlarge.


Besides doing a few panels of E&S today I've had lunch with Sofia and have been busy doning some inking on another, secret, project. So now my back is aching and I should probably head home soon.
Wish my girlfriend weren't so faaaaaaar away. Love, hugs and kisses to you my sweetie! See you soon!

And for those of you who has patiently waited for the "Hot mamas" I mentioned in an earlier post, here they are. Enjoy! :)

Murry?

This piece of artwork was recently auctioned off as an original drawing by Paul Murry.
However it's not by Murry!
If the lucky owner is a reader of this blog I'm happy to announce that this drawing is by Floyd Gottfredson! (It once belonged to Donald Ault, who supplied this info.)
Congratulations to a really good buy!

And there are some really interesting stuff on Disney's Robin Hood over at Will Finns blog!
Don't miss this post:Robin Hood Confidential pt 2

Milton Caniff photos

Darn, drawing/inking is going really bad...
But to cheer these posts up a bit here are some photos of a guy who could really draw! These are some seldom seen photos of Terry and the pirates/Steve Canyon artist Milton Caniff in his office.

E&S #158

Almost finished with the new Emma & Sara page. Still not sure if it looks good or bad. Guess it will take a while to get into drawing it in a more economical style. Anyway, here's the first panel:


What they looked like before? Here's an example from 2001. It really feels like a loooong time ago...

Terrible, eh?
However, right now I feel the same way about the new page. Brrrr... When will I ever learn this craft?

Have been working in the studio most of the day. Johanna Kristiansson and Jakob Hallin has kept me company.
Moussaka for lunch and coffe from both 7/11 and Jakob. Yoghurt/choclate coated nuts from ICA Supermarket. "Pang Prego" on Swedish radio P3. Inking, inking, inking. Tomorrow it's monday and back to work...

Fanny restored

Here's one for Gabriel and Sofia!

Took the colored scan of the first Ethel Hays Flapper Fanny panel in the earlier post. Isolated the black line art. Made some restoration in Photoshop and ta-da, here's a restored version of that panel in glorious black and white. (Click to enlarge. Save it, print it and put it on your fridge.)

However, I think I prefer the version where you still can see the yellowed paper. This almost becomes too clean for an 80 year old cartoon...

Myself I'm having trouble drawing Emma & Sara this week.
Trying to come up with a simpler and faster drawing style to make ends meet, but so far everything looks like crap. Working with simple shapes and stylized backgrounds. Might post a sample here just to get some reactions. Or maybe not. We'll see...

Mr Perfect + Camel girl

I've been digging deep into that stack of old magazines I got recently. And today I've decided not to post anything art related at all. Just two photos that I like.
First out is Margaret McConnell, the 1933 Camel ad girl!

Beautiful composition and pose. Back in the 30's they knew how to make really good publicity shots! In a perfect world all photos would be black and white, printed in sepia tones...


And I know the demand for more swimsuit pictures is high, so here we have John David Horsley, 25, six-feet-two, who was selected "the perfect man", following a poll of 5000 women in 1934.
Satisfied now, guys?

Flapper Fanny

Back in 2002 you could still find stuff really cheap on eBay. You still can, but these was almost for free. Two giant scrapbooks filled with Flapper Fanny panels by Ethel Hays and Gladys Parker! Nine panels per page. The earliest I found in the books are from 1926 and the latest with a year printed is from 1930. Don't know how many there are in these but there are more than plenty.
How much I paid? $11... :)
Maybe the fact that the owner had hand colored every panel was what made me the only bidder. But still, it was well worth the price and the 1930's coloring just adds to the charm.

Here are some examples of Ethels Hays panels from the books. Enjoy!





Notice that the left panel in the last picture is by Gladys Parker. Must be an early one since the style is really close to Ethels.

Anyway, I should head home now. It's late in the evening and I should be home now. Not in the studio. But I have nice company here. Kim W. Andersson and Fabian Göransson are both working here tonight.
But I can feel my body saying "Sleeeeeeep...", so I better do that.

Mickey Mouse by Roy Nelson?

As some of you might know newspaper cartoonist Roy Nelson was employed by Disney in the early 30's. A lot of Roys wonderful non-Disney artwork can be found on Shane Glines excellent site Cartoonretro, but if you're not a member you can find some samples at Roys MySpace profile.
Like this one, that took the liberty to snatch from the MySpace gallery just to give you a quick sample of his work:

Beautiful, eh?

But what about his Disney art?
Some says he worked with Gottfredson on the dailies, but checking the online index "Inducks" there are no listed credits for him on any comics at all! Guess it's hard to figure out who did what almost 80 years afterwards when all of the people involved are since long gone.
However thase scans (taken from eBay) shows that Roy Nelson might have been involved in the artwork for "The Adventures of Mickey Mouse". Or was he? Does anyone know for sure who did the art for these?
Following later this week will be some examples of dailies fron 1930-31 that surely are not by Floyd Gottfredson. With a Gottfredson library coming up, let's hope we can straighten this out and finally get the right credits on the dailies. And maybe we can add Roy to the Inducks listings? *If* he actually did any dailies...

First the covers for the Adv. of MM No. 1:


Some interior pages:






And finally two more covers(?).



Now: Are these really by Roy Nelson?

[Edit July 20, 2007: I've been looking at these pictures a thousand times now since I uploaded them and I must say that my instinct tells med Roy had nothing to do with them. If he did he might just have inked or colored. The style looks more like the strips credited to Earl Duvall in 1930-31. So maybe Duvall was involved in this book?
Saw that Roy was listed as inker only for the MM dailies, on the cover 3 page in Mickey Mouse 244.
And having studied the dailies from that year the style varies both in inking and in pencilling several times. Mickeys proportions changes and for example all of a sudden after the section David describes in the comments here, Mickey becomes really tall and odd looking. If Roy only did ink the strips I guess we'll never know when he did it.
Until someone ask the Disney archives between wich dates he was employed. that is...]

With the scanner now working I hope to scan some Flapper Fanny panels tonight. Stay tuned!
Also: more vintage swimsuit fashion pics coming up! You asked for it! :)

Marianne

Steamboat Willie has a question he just sent out to a mailninglist. Who is the artist and what is the original name to this comic?
The page from wich this panel is taken was published in Sweden late 1966. Unsigned. The swedish name of the comic is "Marianne".
Anyone who knows?

[Edit: Check the comments below for Fortunatos answer!]

For Men Only

Here's a break in the swimsuit theme that has swept across this blog.
Russell Pattersons column "For men only" that ran in College Humor.
Don't know how many of these he wrote. This example is from the June 1933 issue.

Nice spot illustratios in these that Patterson gave away to people writing in. Odd that I've never seen any of these originals for sale. Should be plenty out there.
The very same issue also has an article "Fair-haired boy of the arts - Russell Patterson" with the usual "Russell-with-a-babe" photo.:)

Mickey and Ethel

Two more Mickey Mouse model sheets from October 18, 1938.
Is it Fred Moore behind the pencil on these?



And by popular demand:
Please allow me to present you Ethel Stevens! Another bathing beauty from the October 1926 issue of Tales of the Arts.
I'm tempted to scan the centerfold from that issue, featuring 17 (!!!) "Hot mamas" from MGM's "The Fire Brigade". But I'm afraid it might be too hot for this blogs restrictions...

fgc

I don't think I have to comment on this Life cover from 1925.
What a striking design! I wish I could do at least one cover like this in my life.
F. G. Cooper knew what he did...
More on him on this fine blog: Fillboid Studge

I also found some of Russell Pattersons "For men only" columns (With some gorgeous artwork.) at the same time as I found this issue of Life. Will post those soon. :)

BTW: I'm quite surprised that no one has asked me to post the other two Mickey Mouse modelsheets from 1938. Not everyones cup of tea I suppose.

And since it's summer: here are two bathing beauties.
But watch out! They are showing their legs!!!
Naughty, naughty!

More on DD46

I just couldn't resist...
Maybe Barks layout looked something like this?
Dull enough to make the editor change it...
Notice that I made the nephews lean forward a bit to make the direction clearer.
Studying the published version I saw that some of the lines close to Donald's beak must come from Barks original version. So I had no other option than to place one of the nephews there. Knowing that Donald had to be at the far right and one of the nephews that close to him I saw no other logical oprions than this one.
Feedback on this theory is welcome.

(I just know what my girlfriend will be thinking when she reads this and the previous post: "He's such a cute little nerd!"...
I miss you my love! Hug!)

Barks?

Maybe I should re-name this blog to "Things that puzzles me".
Here's yet another thing I found in my bookshelf today that I began to wonder about.
This is the cover to Donald Duck #46.

The cover is credited to Carl Barks and his records indeed shows an entry for that cover. But... What was printed on the cover of DD #46 was probably not the artwork that he submitted.
-What do you mean? you might wonder. -Inducks and all other indexes credits this to Barks. Then it surely must be by him.
And I reply: -Are you sure?

Looking closely there is no doubt that Carl Barks did Donald's head and the right part of the body. But the nephews and the cake are inked with a brush in a completely different style. My guess is that the art editor saw something wrong with the position of the nephews and felt he could improve the way they blew the cake away. So, said and done: he redrew part of the cover. Any qualified guess who made the new artwork?

Barks version probably had one nephew standing in front of Donald (That's why that part of his body now looks cut off.) and possibly they blew the cake towards the reader, making the action unclear.
And, thinking about it: Maybe all of the nephews stood on a straight line. That would have made a dull arrangement and a reason for the editor to make a change. To support this theory is the fact that Donalds elbow is drawn with thicker line than the rest of his body and the lack of tailfeathers on Donald! If the nephews were shown standing in a row that part of Donald's body wouldn't have been seen on Barks cover.
But that's just a guess and we'll probably never know the answer.

Dixie Dugan hieroglyphs

Here's yet another "mystery"!
I recently bought the original art to an old Dixie Dugan daily.
Click the thumbnail below to see it.

I've really tried to dechiper the hieroglyphic message, but without any luck. Guess I'm no Sherlock...

Anyone out there who wanna give it a try?
Maybe someone has a run of this 1932 Dixie Dugan adventure? I've got a few sets from the 30's and 40's but not this one.
I'd be happy to trade copies.

If you like these kind of puzzles I can recommend the movie Zodiac. I saw it a week ago and there's never a dull moment in the whole movie. Based on a true story. It's actually really creepy and weird. And filled with coded messages. :)