Li'l Bad Wolf x 3

I guess that it's common knowledge that there's not one Li'l Bad Wolf but three?
But in case you havn't seen them before, here's a sunday from 1938 with great artwork by Al Taliaferro.
Enjoy!

Mickey x 2

Going through my files at home I found these.

Two Mickey drawings I did back in 1998 when I was serious about becoming a Disney artist. Halfway through inking one of the pieces I got a freelance job for Bamse. And the stuff I had made with Mickey was put in an envelope and shelved away. Somewhere in my apartment there should be some try-out pages with Mickey, the Phantom Blot and Eega Beeva etc. If I can find them maybe, just maybe, they will turn up here...

What they won

From Filmjournalen 1947 (and with thanks to Simon Bülow) here are pictures of the cells that the winners got from Disney in the Nils Holgersson competition. All were signed by him personally and I know that Rune Andréasson got the one with Mickey.

Showdown

Apparently there has been a showdown between the Smurfs and their arch enemy in Gothenburg this September. No less than 4 times!

My girlfriend treats me like a rat!!!

Well, like Remy in a deleted scene from Ratatouille, that is. Since she wasn't here on my birthday she took me out to lunch yesterday at a fancy place where they had a cake buffet! I say it again just to make sure you didn't miss that last sentence: a cake buffet!!! Just look at the picture below and you'll get a hunch of how I felt walking around, serving myself one piece after another. :)

Then we went to Universeum in Gothenburg for a few hours and looked at sharks and stuff until they closed. What more can I say than: we had a great day. :)

T-rexmas

It's not christmas yet, but I just had to share Hedvigs final panel to the x-mas E&S page. Can you say anything that's more X-masy that a T-rex? :)

More on Disney and Holgersson

Thanks to Simon Bülow I now have some copies from more issues of Filmjournalen that mentions the 1946 Disney - Nils Holgersson project. (See my previous post on the subject.)

First we have the announcement of the competiotion from '46:

Then we have the actual competition page from the following issue. By designing the lead character Nils Holgerssonj you could win 1000 crowns and an original drawing signed by Disney. As you can see there are some familar faces in this picture. Looks like they are studying some desert scenes?

The next picture is also from 1946. It's taken in London and according to the text he is supposed to do a picture set in England.

I wonder if there were similar competitions in other European countries at the same time? The studio might not have been interested in doing Nils Holgersson at all but launched competitions in several countries just to get some attention after the war? 

Has anyone seen any documents relating to Nils Holgersson at the Disney archives?

The author of Nils Holgersson (Selma Lagerlöf) was still alive in the 40's. I wonder what she thought about all this...

This and that

Thanks to Simon Bülow I now have copies of more articles from Filmjournalen regarding the Walt Disney - Nils Holgersson project!
I'll post those soon. (When the scanner in the studio isn't occupied. Hopefully tomorrow.)

I'm having a cold right now so I havn't been in the studio that much this week. In case you wonder why there hasn't been any posts this week. But I've finished what might be the last "Emma & Sara" page, for the x-mas issue of Julia. I'll try to post the final panel tomorrow. It's a nice but weird panel. :)

Later this evening I'll meet my good friend Germund. We'll select original art and do a dummy for a special section of an upcoming issue of Bild & Bubbla. The last two issues of B&B has featured special sketchbook sections with odd and unseen art by well known swedish comic book artists. But this one will focus on gems from mine and Germunds collections of original comic book and strip art.
There will be plenty of old newspaper strips and some really rare Disney art. And some modern pieces and Scandinavian artwork of course. Look for it in 2009.

/J.

More on Baba

Picked up a stack of BaBa dailies yesterday at Svenskt Seriearkiv to have them photographed. As I've written before we are working on a reprint book featuring a selection of the ca 3000 BaBa strips drawn by Rinaldo between 1937 and 1953. (All but four of the strips I've seen are in pantomime, so this book should appeal to an international audience as well. I hope.)
If everything goes as planned it will be printed in time for next years bookfair in Gothenburg.
Going through the original art makes me really inspired to get back to the drawing board. So confident lines and wonderful use of black and white spaces. I'd call BaBa Swedens answer to Americas Krazy Kat in a way. Its whimsical, strange, funny and graphical in a way seldom seen in newspaper strips. Some times you have no idea what's going on and some time it's just absurd and crazy.

Since the publication date of the book is so far away I just have to treat you with a few panels scanned straight from the original art. The panel above is from early in the run and the ones below are from later dates.
I hope you like them as much as I do. :)

Enveloups

Got some pencils from Hedvig yesterday and I hope she don't mind me sharing the art she made on the envelope. 

Coming home from work and seeing this on my floor when I opened the door just made me happy. :) Thanks, H!

Smile!

Joakim has his birthday tomorrow! Look how happy he is about it! :)
(I did post this sorta thing at his blog last year too, and I just could'nt stop myself from doing it again.) This pic has been a little manipulated, but only a little bit. ;) Go on and wish Joakim a happy birthday naow! //Blogmaster H

Disney's Nils Holgersson, 1946

Back in 1946 the Walt Disney Studios probably got idea of doing something with Selma Lagerlöf Swedish best seller "Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige" (Nils Holgerssons wonderful journey through Sweden) from 1906-1907. So together with the magazine Filmjournalen and RKO they launched a competition in Sweden to find a good design for the lead character.
Maybe they had no intention of animating Nils Holgersson at all, but it was a good way to get some publicity here in Sweden after the war. And well known Swedish artist Einar Nerman was in the Swedish jury!
A colleauge, Björn Ihrstedt at Egmont in Stockholm, sent me copies of the article that announced the winners.


As you can see the winner was Barbro Isacson who went on to illustrate and write several childrens books. The latest was published in 2003! And two of the runners up are familar for Swedish comics fans: Rune Andréasson and Nils Egerbrandt.
But there's a mystery here too! The four drawings top right won third prize and were sent in by the signature "Östratorp". When the winners were announced the real name of the illustrator was still unknown.
I wonder if they were made by someone who already had a career as an illustrator or animator?
Anyone who recognize the style?
Or knows who the artist is?

Young, Dora and Brummelisa

Got this one from the printer today!
It's the first childrens book I've written! :)
Well, the characters aren't mine. Bamse is the most well known comic book character for children 5-8 years old here in Sweden and everything is owned by the Andréasson family. And the script is based on a story I plotted and Mårten Melin scripted for the comic book in 2004. The artwork is by Lars Bällsten and Ann Härdfäldt. The cover has a few coloring mistakes and the spine has a slight misprint. But still...
It's a nice little hardcover book. :)
And as you've already guessed by seeing the cover it's a sugar sweet love story. ;)

And here's the rest of that Dumb Dora daily scanned from a 1932 tearsheet.

And as a follow up to the Chic Young post here are a few more that caught my eye recently:

This one dated is June 14, 1940.


And here he is with Olivia De Havilland, February 1940.


Finally Mr. Young when he was young with two young bathing beauties: Jane Lane and Gretchen Davidson.

We had a hangover breakfast at my flat this morning and I was given this drawing of me toghether with Nils the Cat. :) (Nils is the yellow fat one to the right.) It's drawn by one of swedens most well known manga artists: Åsa Ekström.
Just wanted to share it.

/Joakim.

PS. Nils is not drinking beer. It's lemonade. I swear...

Just to get your brain cells working: Name the strip and the cartoonist behind this drawing.

The name of the strip should not be too hard to figure out. But the cartoonists name might be tricky.

More Mother Goose

Almost forgot about the Walt Kelly "Mother Goose" pages I made copies of a while ago. I think I promised to post a few more.


Beautiful, eh?
Now let us all bug Fantagraphics about a nice anthology of all Kelly's odd works when they have finished the Our Gang series.
Looking forward to the Pogo books but would like to see the Pogo Comic Books reprinted even more.