Thursday 17 February 2011

The Disneyland Memorial Orgy

I guess you've all seen the Disneyland Memorial Orgy by Wallace Wood?
 If not, here it is:

It appeared in The Realist #74, May 1967. (Scan taken from the Realist site.)

Now, last week I was checking comicartfans.com when I stumbled upon a set of drawings by Frank Follmer. Click on his name to go to the website where loads of his artwork is beeing sold.


A quote from that site: 
"He's been called the man who should have been the 10th old man. Or maybe he's the new Charlie Thorson or "Tex"
Henson. He's Frank Follmer, and a well-known dealer of cartoon-related items was selling his artwork at the San Diego Con. Frank Follmer was one of Disney’s greatest cartoonists. “Snow White” among all, is one of the most unforgettable characters Frank mainly developed." 


10th old man? One of Disney's greatest cartoonists? Well, let's just say that I dont agree. 
(OK. The guy was an a-m-a-t-e-u-r. How he could land a job at Disney in the 30's is beyond me. The owner of the Follmer site claims " I have a letter from Walt Disney archives signed by Robert Tieman the manager, that frank worked at Disney from April 12, 1937 to November 28, 1940. " I'd like to have that confirmed... )

Aaaaaanyway, this post is not about Frank Follmers artistic qualities but about the Disneyland Memorial Orgy.
 
The first image I saw on Comicartfans.com reminded me of the Wood piece. 


And then I found another one, and another...




On the Frank Follmer page I found even more...







Now, the question is: Did Wood see one of Follmers pieces and simply "traced" it?
(Notice that the black and white Follmer piece is dated 1953.)
Why did Follmer do so many versions of it?
And why so long after he left Disney?
And most, most, most important: was nude Disney characters a turn on for Follmer?


Edit: Don't miss Ron Harris post 

Frank Follmer's Naughty Disney

9 comments:

Ger Apeldoorn said...

You forgot to add the biggy: why do Folmer's characters like they were designed by Walace Wood?

Joakim Gunnarsson said...

Oh, I never thought of that!
You are right!
Could it be that they are all fakes?

Hmm...
Here's the recipe for foregery success:
Find the name of an unknown employee at the Disney Studio. Preferrably from the golden age. It's harder to check for anyone since he's probably long gone. Make sure you get a letter from the Walt Disney Archives saying that the artist was indeed an employee.
Now, get some old paper and begin to paint. Do the same drawing several times over in different versions. Please note, there's no trouble if you can't draw. Just say that the artist could have been the 10th old man if he had stayed at Disney. There's always someone who will fall for it.

Even if these pieces are by someone called Frank Follmer, why do anyone want to pay a single buck for these amateur drawings?

Joakim Gunnarsson said...

BTW, those concept paintings featuring Snow White couldn't possibly have been made at the Studio during the 30's. No way.
Why?
Because they feature Snow White and the Dwarfs in their final design. When the concept art was made for the movie they looked a lot different from what they did later.

Anonymous said...

These non-Disney images are interesting. Look like they even might be from the 30's. Does anyone know the source for them?

http://www.frankfollmer.com/Gallery_15.html

(I have a weird fascination for fakes like those, btw. They're not very well done, but they seem to have taken quite some time to complete.)

Håkan / Wakuran

Smurfswacker said...

This is such an interesting post that it set me a-Googling. I came up with a response so lengthy that I turned it into a post on my own blog:

http://smurfswacker.blogspot.com/2011/02/frank-follmers-naughty-disney.html

Anonymous said...

Fake, fake, fake. Incredibly obvious to anyone who has ever drawn a cartoon.

A point that I haven't seen made anywhere: Wood doesn't show any actual naughtyness, it's all in the character poses. This puzzled me initially, as the satire would have been improved with some judicious exposure. Then I realized that The Realist was no doubt distributed through the postal service. And in the 60s it was probably illegal to distribute obscene material (with depictions of sexual organs) through the mail. So Wood had to keep it clean.

But, why would "Frank Follmer" - who apparently was obsessed by Disney characters having sex, churning out drawing after drawing of this, and who apparently did the drawings for the discreet pleasure of selected private friends - want to keep it clean?

Anonymous said...

Another thing that has puzzled me: What was supposed to have been lettered in the plate at the top of the picture frame?

I've never seen a version with text there. The plate detracts from the drawing and Would would have no reason to add it if he hadn't been instructed to.

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Anonymous said...

Where can we buy these prints