Caniff Class Artwork

This piece was sold on eBay a few days ago.

At $143.50 it was a steal for the lucky winner.
If it's a real Caniff, that is. The piece is unsigned and here's what the seller wrote:

"[...] a MILT CANIFF Original STEVE CANYON Drawing Pencil & Ink. The guy that I got this from said that Milt Caniff drew and inked it as an example in his art class. Measures 8 1/2" x 11".

 Could be the real deal or a darn good copy of an original Caniff piece. Guess that's why it didn't fetch more. A beautiful and iconic piece none the less.

Horseface Klotz by DeBeck

It's saturday and I'm relaxing in the kitchen with my girlfriend. Both of us are working on our computers and our cat is watching us. On the stereo: Veronica Maggio.

Have been reading and scanning Barney Google dailies by the great Billy DeBeck for the past month and I thought I'd share some raw scans with you. Let's begin with taking a look at one of the forgotten characters: Horseface Klotz. 

He first appeared in the Barney Google strip in 1928 and was a part of the cast for the next two years. When Snuffy appeared in 1934 the likes of him, Sunshine and Sully were quickly forgotten.

Here are the first Klotz dailies from August 1928. (He had been mentioned, but not seen previously.) Enjoy!

 

PS. If you got Barney Google strips for sale I still have some gaps in my vast collection of BG dailies. Just drop me a mail. Or if you want to trade, I have thousands of BG dailies to trade with.

 

T&J #84 question

A quick question to Tom & Jerry /Harvey Eisenberg fans with access to T&J #84.
Does the artwork look like this on page 8 in the comic book, or is it just the set of proofs I got?
The same wobbly effect appears on page 9 too.

(If it looks good in the comic book I'd be happy someone could help me with scans in 600 dpi, color of those two pages.)

DD 46 Shop Dummy

The "never ending" series of blog posts about the cover to Donald Duck 46 ( See HERE, HERE and HERE.) has now reached the "shop dummy" of the cover. (Are you thrilled? No? Hmpf ...)
The shop dummy was the cover proof used in house to check for wrong colors etc, before the issue went to press. Enjoy!

The Shop Dummy

The published cover

Barks/Block x 3

Three "lost" Barks/Block pieces just turned up in the comicartfans gallery of Niels Larsen.

To get a closer look and the history behind them click HERE.

Here are miniatures of the Treasury versions of the drawings (taken from inducks) for quick reference. 

Barney Google 1931

Flashback to 1931.
What happened this week in the life of Barney Google 80 years ago? Wonder no more! It's time for a "it's the middle of the summer and I'm too lazy to finsh that post I should have posted weeks ago, so here's something rare from the drawers"-post.
Enjoy!

PS. I can't explain why I love this old fashioned big foot cartooning style and the 1930's gags. I just do.

Al Taliaferro pencil sketch

How often do you come across a pencil sketch of Donald and Daisy Duck by Al Taliaferro? Almost never, but a few days ago this piece turned up on eBay. (It sold for $232.50.)

Anyone who knows if this piece was inked and published?

  

 Hmm... when you speak of the devil ...

Barney Bear book

Just read over at the IDW site that the Carl Barks Barney Bear book will be released at San Diego Comic con. That's next week! If you go to the con make sure to grab a copy. (Amazon.com still says January 10, 2012 as release date ...)

XXX

Oh, wadda dirty li'l rat Mickey is.
Bet he's gonna put that "home movie" up on the internet ...

Panel taken from the daily Mickey Mouse strip 3-25, 1947.

Bill and Crab Shanty

Yesterday Bill Peckmann sent me some really nice designs for t-shirts and a few ads he had made. I liked them and thought you would enjoy seeing some of them. Here are my favourites + a few words from Bill himself: 
"Back in the late '90's, instead of singing for my supper, I used to draw for it. A friend of mine had a seafood restaurant called the "Crab Shanty" and loved to give out T-Shirts as a form of advertising. He also loved cartoons and so in exchange for meals I was lucky enough to draw what I wanted."
Enjoy!

 

 

Anyone who can guess which year the drawing above was made? :)

Mickey Mouse - tall and wide

With the reprint boom of classic comic strips there has been some talking among enthusiasts about cut and uncut strips from the 40's. You might know that the strips back then were drawn so that they could be published in two different formats? One tall and one wide.
Unfortunately the most common version seems to be the wide versions. At least when it comes to surviving proofs. Meaning there's not much of an option on which version to use.

But in some cases the full versions exists. Should those be used as is or trimmed down to the wide version? Especially if proofs for the tall versions are available for only a number of weeks in a run of otherwise wide strips.

I've been looking at a lot of Floyd Gottfredson stuff lately and before I give you my personal opinion I'm asking you:
If you have two sets of Mickey Mouse proofs from the period where the strips were drawn for two formats, one tall and one wide, wich one would you go for and why?
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject. :)

A typical Micky Mouse strip from 1943.

[For more Gottfredson click HERE. ]

Russell Patterson original art - Part IV

Seems that I forgot to post one of the Russell Patterson pieces I bought earlier this year.
Well, here it is:

Wilbur Jenks never got his Patterson original either. (See previous Patterson posts.) You see, this drawing was still on an artboard with other drawings left to be cut up and sent out to some lucky Patterson fans back in the days.
Somehow, someone must have forgotten. This piece ended up with an editor who kept it for many, many years. It was later sold to a collector and then he sold them to me.
Here is the full piece, spliced togheter quick in photoshop. (The original is too large for my A3 scanner.) Just so you can see them all together.

For more of the stuff in my collection, please check out my CAF gallery.

Deja View

In case you have missed it, animator Andreas Deja has started a blog called Deja View. He has already posted a large quantity of great artwork by legendary animators and illustrators (Sullivant and Kley) that I havn't seen elsewhere.
If you haven't checked it out already, you should!
Just click HERE.

This also gives me an opportunity to show the nice drawing I got in Andreas sketchbook A different stripe. (Stil available from Stuart NG books!) Enjoy!

A new book on Walt Kelly

This book caught my eye on Amazon.com today:

Walt Kelly: The Life and Art of the Creator of Pogo

This should be interesting. "[...] essays by Walt Kelly scholars Tom Andrae, Carsten Laqua, and Mark Burstein together with an appreciation by Kelly's stepson, Scott Daley." 244 pages and July 27 as a release date. The only thing that makes me worried is the design. It screams "cheap fan publication" in capital letters. And if I may judge a book from it's cover, I'll stay away from it until I'm sure the repro quality on the inside is OK. 

[Edit: This seems to be the final cover:

And it's a stunner! Beautiful! Thanks to Germund who alerted me.]

Until then: check out the wonderful Walt Kelly blog Whirled of Kelly!

Heinrich Kley

Here's a nice piece of pen and ink work by Heinrich Kley.
It was sold on eBay in January 2007 and I still wish I had bought it. But if my memory serves me right it went for much more than I could afford at the time.
Still, these eBay images are better than nothing. Enjoy!

I have absolutely no idea about what's going on in this drawing, but that only adds to the beauty of Kleys work.  Much of his work will make you think twice before you can figure out what's going on. If you can at all. Still those lines are so full of life you just can't stop beeing fascinated by them.

Hmm... Thinking twice, those antlers and womans makes me think that the guy is having something dirty on his mind ...

For more Kley please click HERE to get to heinrich-kley.com.