Graphite on paper

Some random and recent sketches.

QRN!

Here's something for every Franquin/Spirou fan out there!
I've had this book for a few weeks now and I have to say that it's amazing!!!
It's huge! (Compare it to the, equally excellent, Fables book below and you see what I mean.)

It has tons of bonus material from Le Journal de Spirou. Including all of the pages deleted from the album etc.


But the main part is filled with the entire album shot in color straight from the original art. You can see every tiny detail, every piece of yellowed tape and every ... well, everything! They have managed to find all of the originals except for one half page wich is included in black and white.



To order your own copy, simply place an order with Marsu Productions. It's expensive but if you see to what you get for the price it's actually pretty cheap. If you are Franquin fan like me you'll love it and treasure it for the rest of your life. :)

Mystery Moores

A quick question for the Dick Moores fans out there: Where is this image taken from? (From Outducks obviously, but I hope you understand what I mean...)
As you can see it was used on the cover of Gladstone's Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, but where did it appear first? Is this even a cover a mix of different images? MM and Goofy from one picture and Donald from another?

BAMSE covers

Finally, here's the finished cover (still missing its logo) for BAMSE 6/09.

I showed my rough sketch a while ago. But here it is again: Since then Lars Bällsten has pencilled it, Bernt Hanson inked it and Lise Jörgensen colored it. Watch for it in the newsstands in Sweden, Norway and Finland on April 21.

And while I'm at it here's the cover for no 5. (The colors on the published colors will be different. Artwork by Ted Johansson after my very, very rough layout..)

Mel Graff ca 1935

Mel Graff is well known for having drawn Secret Agent X-9, 1940 - 1960 and Adventures of Patsy, 1935-1940.
Some of you might even have seen his Captain Easy sundays from the 60's.
But how many have seen his illustration art from the 30's?
I recently bought a set of X-9 dailies from the 40's and as a surprise bonus I found a set of illustrations from the mid 30's included. I don't know wich paper they are from or if they were syndicated. Guess they were done for AP.
All the illustrations I got are heavily yellowed and torn. I really should scan and do some restoration work on these when time permits.
Anyway, here's one of them. (If I get requests I can always post a few more.)

More Gottfredson in color

As a follow up to yesterdays post here is another Gottfredson watercolor piece that graced the cover of Alberto Beccattini's "Floyd & Mickey" book.

The photo below appeared in Leonardo Gori and Francesco Stajano's Gottfredson book.

It's dated 1986. (The same year that Gottfredson passed away.) I didn't think of it at first but when I looked closer I noticed something. There's a police motorbike in the lower right corner. (Clearly visible in the printed version of this photo.) Now, he did his last Willits watercolor in 1983. Or did he? Maybe this is a watercolor for another fan? The word must have spread that Gottfredson was doing this type of work and some others must have ordered similar works. Who? And where are those pieces now? Anyone seen other large finished watercolors by Floyd like those from the Willits collection?

Myself, I only got a tiny, tiny watercolor sketch of his character Mark O'Polo...

A $2200 mouse

Got $2200 to spend?
You like Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson?
Well, then you could buy this:


Click here to go to the eBay auction.

As you might know Gottfredson created a series of watercolors for Malcom Willits in the 70's and 80's. But this is a rare example of one of the lesser known pieces, not made for Willits. I wonder if there are more... ;) Stay tuned for tomorrows post.

Barks?

What? No one guessed Carl Barks?
Well, neither did I when I first saw this image as a low resolution page intended for The Carl Barks Collection. (CBC is the European version of Carl Barks Library. In color with loads of extra material not seen in te US version.) The copy below the image said it came from Barks scrap piles and might be a sheet for testing new nibs or something like that.
Since the image I saw was in such low resolution I coluldn't be 100% sure.
When the page finally appeared in print I checked it out to see what it looked like in nice sharp quality. And it confirmed what I had thought in the first place: this was not by Barks.

Now, why do I say that it's not by Barks when it's included in CBC?
Follow me and I'll give you my theory:
The image of Gladstone Gander and the pig are traced from WDC 131 and WDC 136. That would date it to ca 1951 or later.The inking on these lacks any trace of Barks elegant inking. He was at his peak in the early 50's and these are clearly inked by some one not used to ink in this style. You can see how the inker hesitates and the lines becomes unsure.
The sketch of a man between the Beagle Boy reminds me of Barks designs from ca 1945. The Donald in the upper right corner looks like a copied Taliaferro drawing. Then there are three Donald heads that looks like they are copied from various stories. The Scrooge and the man next to him and the Donald in the upper left corner are drawings done by someone not familar with Barks designs and construction of characters at all. (The shape of Scrooges hat is all wrong.)
Conclusion: This was made by someone else than Barks.

So, if Barks didn't do it, why did it survive in his scap pile?
One guess is that this is a try-out. Maybe someone asked Barks if he needed an assistant in the early 50's. These might even be done at Barks house with him "looking over the shoulder". However, Barks didn't have use of an assistant at that time. Maybe he saved the sheet of drawings all these years. Like a memory of that first meeting. Who knows. I don't and the answer is probably impossible to find with both of the Barkses gone.

/Joakim.

"You can't guess"

Gotta get some inking done this evening, but here's a teaser for an upcoming post.
Anyone who can guess who did this drawing?
(I have a feeling that no one will guess who I'll later say it is. Besides Germund, who I already spilled the beans to.)

Dragon Lady

In the 60's and 70's Milton Caniff began to do some nude drawings of his characters. Some are to be found in Craig Yoes book Clean cartoonists dirty drawings but not this one. Found it in the Illustration House Illustration Art Action catalog of May 8, 1999. So here she is, the Dragon Lady:

WIP

Having a coffee break so here's a post to show some Work In Progress.

I'm currently inking a Bamse story drawn by Adam Blomgren. We try to go for the old Rune Andréasson style. (And this story is actually written by him.) It will appear in print this autumn.


Then we have my rough cover sketch for BAMSE #6/09. In stores April 21. I'll try to show the finished cover here later.

update

Just a quick update. I'm still swamped with work and want to do as much as possible of it before my girlfriend comes here for the weekend. But when things have calmed down I've got more Noonan, a nude drawing by Milt Caniff and some rare advertising art by Mel Graff to post.

In the meantime, here is a panel from Emma och Sara that I just inked over Hedvigs pencils.

Dan Noonan's Egbert

One of the best artists working in the Walt Kelly style (and in the shadow of) was Dan Noonan. He was in fact so good at it that his stuff some times are mistaken for beeing Kellys. Check out for yourself in the sample "Egbert the Elephant" (ca late 40's) below.

Cover step-by-step

If you are curious about how I made the cover to the new issue of KP, together with Carolina Ståhlberg and Johanna Kristiansson, please check out KPwebben for a step-by-step on the creation of the cover.

I've got more deadlines than I can meet right now, so I'd better get back to the drawingboard right away. Blog updates will follow as soon as I get some spare time. :)

Floyd Gottfredson 1933

Gunnar Andreassen just alerted me on this photo available from Corbis:

Original caption: Thousands of people in all parts of the world laugh and enjoy the antics of Mickey Mouse, the star of stars, but few know the painstaking and intricate work necessary in the making of the popular film. Scores of artists and sound experts work in the Mickey Mouse Studio just outside of Los Angeles, making thousands of drawings and sound accompaniments under the direction of Walt Disney, creator of Mickey. Here is Floyd Gottfredson, one of the artists, making a drawing of Mickey at the studio.
Image: © Bettmann/CORBIS
Collection: Bettmann Standard RM
Date Photographed: February 21, 1933