Category: Cartooning

Pretty faces for Marvel Comics

I missed the Valentine’s Day deadline for this post, but here it is anyway.

I became a comic book fan when Batman appeared on TV in January, ’66. After reading only DC titles for a few months, I started reading Marvel Comics. My first two favorite Marvel artists were John Romita Sr. and Gene Colan. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko’s drawings were, well, scary, when I was ten. It was Joe Sinnott’s clean and friendly style of inking that made Kirby approachable for me.

As Kirby progressed creatively and artistically, paradoxically he seemed to lose his ability to draw attractive people. Women in particular. Were they noble? Yes. But pretty? Not so much. Ditko’s characters looked so outright strange that he almost seemed to be conveying an innate misanthropy.

I don’t know if Stan Lee was inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s swiping of romance comic book panels, but he brought in Romita and Colan, who had been drawing love comics for DC. I think Romita and Colan deserve a lot of credit for the way they broadened the appeal of Marvel Comics, starting in the mid-60’s. They learned how to draw the dynamic action scenes that Stan wanted, while making it possible for him to better develop the soap opera elements of the stories. Never underestimate the power of a pretty face! Later, when John Buscema came back on board, I think the writing was on the wall for Kirby. After Stan assigned Buscema to illustrate the premiere issue of ‘The Silver Surfer’ in 1968, Jack’s departure from Marvel was inevitable.

Courtesy of D.F. Rogers, here is an excellent example of John Romita’s work at DC. It’s from ‘Young Romance’ No. 134, Feb-March, 1965. Go to the Gallery and read, “A Ticket to ROMANCE!” And be sure to read the love letters page.

Captain America steeping in the tea baggers

Marvel Comics is taking some heat for what’s being taken as a swipe against the Tea Baggers, in the latest issue of Captain America.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100211/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1129

I heard about this while watching Keith Olbermann. Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada issued a statement that seemed to implicate… the letterer?? Then, in the middle of the piece, Bill Clinton’s doctors held a press conference about his heart stent operation. I just checked the MSNBC site and this part of Olbermann’s show isn’t there, so I grabbed it myself from the re-broadcast at 10. I sure can make good video transfers off of Verizon FiOS TV, huh?

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2010/FEB/Olbermann.flv 512 384]

Clinton’s doctors refused to say what brand of stent was used but if it’s a Kamen stent there’s still a comics connection, because it was invented by Dean Kamen, son of the late comic book artist Jack Kamen.

Pet Duet

Despite two of my recent items about Petula Clark, my pal Denro has accused me of neglecting her. So I’ll remedy that with a link to an excellent interview with Pet from a year ago on Irish TV. I can’t embed it, so click on the link and you’ll see where to find “Petula Clarke” [sic]. From there you’ll have to click PLAY CLIP 14:54 for the interview, and the 2:54 clip is of Petula at the piano. Note: The video is in Real format, and you may need to install some plug-ins, but it’s worth the trouble and waiting.

A fascinating aspect of Petula Clark’s career is that she reinvented herself several times. Beginning as a child star in England, she went on to films and television before establishing herself in France. Petula’s childhood chum Julie Andrews was a Broadway star for eight years before she was in “Mary Poppins,” but when Pet first appeared here in America in late ’64 we had no idea she had been in show business for twenty years.

Something I didn’t know about Petula until recently is that she’s something of an icon for gay men. Sincerely, that was news to me, and I can’t even say I understand why she has that status, because she’s neither tragic nor kitsch, and as far as I know her father wasn’t gay. Judy Garland impersonations are, of course, a staple of gay revues. Something that Judy Garland and Petula Clark share was appearing on screen with Fred Astaire. In this scene from “Easter Parade,” Judy and Fred perform “A Couple of Swells.”

Petula, sounding very bright and young, can be heard in a duet with one of England’s great dance band leaders, Billy Ternent, doing their own version of “A Couple of Swells.”

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/JAN/ACoupleofSwells.mp3]

And here I must do the only sort of singing I can do — singing praises. Because I would have had no idea who Billy Ternent was without Clare Teal on BBC Radio 2. Since getting my Logitech Squeezebox WiFi Radio, I have become a big fan of Clare’s big band show.

Mistah Magloo’s Christmas

One of the first animated Christmas TV specials in the sixties was “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” from 1962. It hasn’t been broadcast in ages, so it isn’t as well known as perennial favorites Charlie Brown, Rudolph, and the Grinch. I don’t have Magoo’s Christmas on video, and I’m wondering how it holds up today. So I’ll embed it here, thanks to YouTube user eboWaxx.

Freberg gets nuttin’

Cartoon Brew has this brand-new take on an old Christmas song by Stan Freberg, animated by Doug Compton.

(Does anybody have real silverware that’s worth stealing these days?)

As always, Mark Evanier is on top of the error department:

12/24/09 12:31am

Mark Evanier says:

Hey, tell Doug he got the credits wrong. He says the kid is Daws Butler and the burglar is Stan Freberg.

Nope. They’re both Freberg.

And being a stickler myself, I’ve corrected the video itself by properly cropping it and getting the aspect ratio right.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/DEC/NuttinForXmas.flv 320 240]