Classic Chicago Tribune Cartoonists - 1931

Chuck Jones: The Bear That Wasn't

Great Chuck heads:

Another Great Cole

Take It Like a Man

"You start drawing with your brain, but aim to draw from the heart. That doesn't happen instantly. You have to first absorb the knowledge slowly and then forget about it and let your pencil be guided by your subconscious. Not easy, and it hurts to go through the stiff period. A lot of lesser men give up during the stiff beginnings of learning something new and that's a dirty shame. Take the pain and shame like a man and get over it. You'll be so happy when your new knowledge becomes second nature. Otherwise you will be stuck, a slave to formula for life and unhappy, maybe even without knowing why. That pain and shame is essential to your progress. Embrace it. Kick the walls if you have to. But get back to the drawing board and force that stiff information into your head. Then lay awake nights obsessing over it. That's your tax for being gifted."
- John K.

Kurtzman Storyboards

Very cool! Via eBay.

Owen Fitzgerald: Dennis the Menace

GREAT drawing and acting by Owen Fitzgerald, from Dennis the Menace 76.

Jack Cole: The Bob Clampett of Comics

Many years ago, when I was first getting into classic cartoonists, I would constantly read in interviews about the genius of Jack Cole. So every time a fancy hardcover comics compilation came out with reprints of Cole comics I would eagerly buy it, but I just couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. For some reason, every time these books and magazines reprinted Cole, they would pick the absolute worst of his comics- really early, crude artwork, and usually very badly reproduced or "restored." I knew and loved his Playboy cartoons, but could see very little of that quality in the comics.
It wasn't until many years later that I finally found the good stuff online, and it blew my mind- finally! The energy, layout, movement, drawing, strangeness and invention, just the sheer ENTERTAINMENT of it all was even more than I could've hoped for. Cole put EVERYTHING into these panels- just pure joyful fun and energy.

Bizarre and beautifully unique character design:



Great hands:





This is an incredible page: fantastic perspective in the first four panels- and check out that cart whipping around the corner in panel 3. How about Plas pinching Woozy's lips closed with his foot claw in panel four? Can't beat the combination of virtuosic ability with unique imagination.



















How strange is this? He's got Chester Gould beat:





More great hands:









Wow:



Subtle: Love the folds on the suit, and Plas' limp arm on the stairs:



Yikes!