Category: Cartooning

He’s Mighty Sore!

At the request of Mark Sinnott, I scanned a picture of the original, unedited cover to Journey Into Mystery #83 that his dad, Joltin’ Joe Sinnott, inked over Jack Kirby’s pencil art, for the first appearance of The Mighty Thor. Hover over the color picture to see how the illustration looked on Joe’s drawing table. Click here to see the scan I’m sending to Mark.

A point of particular interest to Silver Age comic book fans is the fact that the figures of the alien stone men were removed (undoubtedly at Stan Lee’s direction) during post-production, after Joe had inked them and turned in the finished job. Later, another comic book inker, who I shall not name, took it upon himself to sometimes erase background figures from Jack Kirby’s penciled pages, rather than ink them.

The Tappet Brothers close up shop

What the heck is going on with Boston radio? Steve LeVeille retired today and now the Car Talk guys, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, have announced that they’re quitting. I’ve been listening to their on-air antics for more than 20 years. Cartoonist Jimmy “Arlo & Janis” Johnson is a fan of theirs, and some years back he even wrote ‘Click and Clack’ into the strip.

Why they fought

During World War II the English, minus Alfred Hitchcock who had left for America, somehow managed to not only make movies, they made some truly outstanding ones. I am particularly fond of the films that showed life on the home front. One of them is This Happy Breed, by Noel Coward and David Lean, and another is Millions Like Us, by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. The latter film has a funny surprise in it for animation fans, because it uses Raymond Scott’s tune Powerhouse in a factory scene.

[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/2012/Millions.flv 400 300]

That double turntable setup with a single tonearm is neat. Powerhouse became a fixture in the Warner Bros. cartoons starting with Porky’s Pig Feat, as seen in this post from about a year ago. Porky’s Pig Feat was released on July 17, 1943, and Millions Like Us was released in the UK on November 5, 1943, so it would seem likely that somebody involved with the making the film had seen the cartoon.

Schulz original on Antiques Roadshow

Antiques Roadshow is in Minneapolis, and a visitor has the original art to the December 4, 1949 installment of Li’l Folks by Charles Schulz.

Watch Appraisal: 1949 Charles Schulz “Li’l Folks” Original Cartoon on PBS. See more from Antiques Roadshow.

The owner says the art was found in his attic! The appraiser, Phillip Weiss, estimates the value of the piece at $18-24,000, and while it’s certainly a rarity I’m not sure a Li’l Folks original can get that much at auction. Ideally, it would go to the Charles M. Schulz Museum.

Note: the missing eyes were due to a printing error, which was a problem that also plagued the early installments of Peanuts in some newspapers.

Fans in the fold-in

There was a 2-day comic book con in Boston this weekend. Three stalwarts of MAD Magazine were there — Al Feldstein, Al Jaffee, and Paul Coker. After writing and/or drawing many memorable stories for Bill Gaines at EC, Feldstein was MAD’s editor for almost 30 years, throughout its heyday.

Jaffee is famous for his fabulous back cover fold-ins. Click here to see some interactive Jaffee fold-ins, presented by the NY Times. Jaffee is also known for his Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.

Prolific Paul Coker’s unmistakable drawings appeared in many pages of MAD, but he’s perhaps best known for designing the animated Frosty the Snowman cartoon.

I spent most of my time at the convention today sitting at Joltin’ Joe Sinnott’s table, helping with requests for autographs and sketches, while his son Mark made the rounds and Denro procured old comics, including one from 1951 that he found, with Joe’s second ever appearance in a Marvel (then Atlas) comic book. This scan is of Joe’s inking on Steranko’s famous centerfold splash page in Captain America #111 (March ’69).