Posting Pause Passes!

Hi Kids!

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted, but I've been up to my inkwells in work. Hopefully, I'll share some of it with you shortly, as well as do some of the posts I've been promising, including details of my trip to Harry Pottersville and the movie that haunts  my dreams/nightmares.

Until then, here are a few more  of the Richie Rich pages that were recently returned to me. They are from a long time ago, so no apologies for my drawing flaws. One thing I cannot take credit/blame for, however, is the design of Richie's faithful butler, Cadbury. The designs for the comic were from the syndicated Richie TV show, and I was obliged to follow them. I had no problems with most of the other characters' looks, but I felt the designers on the show really dropped the ball with Cadbury. Granted, he was  a difficult character to render well, and even some of the Harvey artists had trouble  with him (fans will know of whom I speak). Even so, the designers on the show  reduced him to the neckless wonder you see above. Believe me, and I say this with no pride, my renderings are  an improvement on how he looked on the show.

For an example of how Cadbury should really look, check out these examples from Mykal's blog. The examples you'll see there were drawn by Harvey artist extraordinaire, Ernie Colon. Nobody, but NOBODY, could draw Cadbury like Ernie! It pains me to say this, but even my hero, Warren Kremer, couldn't come close.

All design issues aside, one thing I liked about  doing this story was getting to draw the villain, The Onion. This rascal with the super-stinky onion addiction was a favorite of mine as a kid, so it was fun to get a chance to draw him "professionally". As an added bonus, since The Onion wasn't  featured on the TV cartoon, I got to draw him as I saw fit. Any grief on his design, I'll accept.

One last note: Not sure who did the inks or letters on this, but they look serviceable to me.

Enjoy.

Happy Warren Kremer Day!

A lot of great cartoonists out there have influenced me, but one of the most important was the late great, Warren Kremer. Today, June, 26th is the anniversary of  his birth. For those of you out of the loop, Warren was THE artist at Harvey Comics. He set the standard there, and what a standard it was! He was a master of character design, layout and storytelling. He was also incredibly prolific. While it's  true that artists like Jack Kirby, Dan DeCarlo and Carl Barks are revered for the thousands of comic pages they produced over the course of their careers, Warren's output surely equally matched or surpassed theirs. My good pal, Sid Jacobson, who was Warren's friend  and editor for many years, told me that at his peak Warren could pencil  an astounding eight pages a day! As fast as he was, his quality never suffered. I've never seen a page drawn by him where he ever gave less than 100%. There aren't many artists you can say that about, myself included.

I was exposed to Warren's work at a very early age, and its impact on my own work was substantial (not that I will ever hold a candle to him!). Even though it was years until I learned his name (Harvey artists never signed their work, perhaps one reason Warren's name is still unknown to most), I always knew his work, and would page through issues of the comics on the stands until I found copies of the books with the "good" artist in them (Actually, Ernie Colon's work was great too, but more on him another day. Ernie won't mind, he is one of Warren's biggest admirers.).

Warren concentrated most of his career on the Harvey children's line, but he was equally adept at drawing "realistic" stories, as you can see here.

It's a shame that he never received the recognition he so richly deserved. Indeed, even a lot of die-hard comic fans don't know his name. His work is rarely collected, and when it is, he is lumped in collections anonymously with the rest of the Harvey cartoonists (not that any of them were slouches!). He still has never gotten a posthumous Eisner or Kirby award, even though many lesser lights in the comic industry have gotten them. Perhaps it's because Harvey Comics are dismissed by most fans as "kiddie" comics. A ridiculous attitude for people to have that consider superhero comics "serious literature" and bemoan how the general public dismisses them as "just for kids". How is Superman less absurd than Casper the Friendly Ghost?!

A stroke in 1989 cut Warren's career short and he never drew a comic book story again. He died in 2003.

Sadly, I never got a chance to meet Mr. Kremer in person, but I did get a chance to speak to him on the phone a couple of times before his death. He seemed surprised that anyone was interested in his work, but he was very gracious in answering all my geeky questions. One of the treasures in my "collection" of comic-related stuff is a Stumbo the Giant page Warren drew, that my pal Gary surprised me with a few years back. It is gorgeous! I really wanted to post it here for you all to see, but the massive page wouldn't fit on my dinky scanner. Sorry. If you're ever in the neighborhood, drop by and I'll show it to you. I hope Warren's bio from the NCS  directory and my silly pic will do.

Someday, perhaps, some enlightened soul with deep pockets and deeper resources will publish a collection of Warren's work. Until then, I'll have to make do with my dog-eared collection of old Harveys. I can live with that.

Happy Birthday Warren, wherever you are. Say "hello" to Casper for me!

UPDATE: Warren's friend and former editor, Sid Jacobson, read today's post and had this  to say: "For so many reasons the Harveys were selfish, but for not allowing anyone but their chosen friends to include their names on their work was a travesty. And for Warren, the worst. What you said is so true.  The people at Marvel recognized his enormous talent immediately, and worshipped him and popularized him from the beginning. I can't tell you how many times I pleaded with Alfred (Harvey) to let people sign their names, it would  make them a more popular and profitable commodity.

No, we were like Disney, he told me.

The signed pages were, if memory serves me right, only Lee Elias, Simon & Kirby, Bob Powell, Al Avison and Howie Post, ONCE!

Happy Warren Kremer Day to you!"

Thanks to Sid, for writing that and letting me post it. Hearing that the Harveys kept their artists anonymous deliberately,  and not out of ignorance, rankles me. It must have been really frustrating for Warren and all the other artists in Harvey's stable.

"Like Disney", indeed!

Vault O' Shame: Baby Screwy

So very busy, busy! I really haven't had the time to post a proper entry lately. I do know, however, that there are one or two of you out there who  check this site on a semi-regular basis for a heapin' helpin' of my nonsense, so I felt I should post something.  So here is... something.

The illustration you see here comes from the deep dark pits of my archive. "Archive" is a fancy word I use to describe the enormous piles of crap that are spread about my home. I was rooting through the archives recently, when I came across this curious piece. It is curious, because while I can tell I drew it, I have absolutely no recollection of doing so.

The drawing is, of course, a rendition of every body's favorite stupid duck-infant, Baby Huey. Huey starred in a bunch of Famous Studio cartoons in the glory days of animation, and for years was a staple of the Harvey Comics line. I love this character! One of the highlights of my otherwise laughable "career"  was drawing Huey for a line of European comics in the 1990's.

This drawing is not from that era.

I really have no clue when, why or where I drew this, but it must be pretty old. For one thing, this  drawing isn't too good, to put it mildly. The composition? Check out the complete lack of negative space between the little duck and Huey! They are practically on top of each other. The inking is pretty dreadful, too. From the looks of it, I used a brush marker that had worn out well before I started inking this piece. A napkin dipped in chocolate might have produced a smoother line. They say, "A poor artist blames his tools". They are right. The characters are "off model", too, but frankly, I have always considered that my Editor's problem.

Of course if I did this drawing today,  a few clicks of the mouse in Photoshop™ would fix most of the problems. Actually, it wouldn't, as I am not really "up to speed" on the whole Photoshop™ shizzle.

On a positive note, the gag here is in the same vein as the gags they used to use on the covers of the old comics.  Most of the jokes in the Baby Huey comics were of the "Wow, that baby duck is big/strong/a glutton!", variety. Here, I cleverly combined all three themes in one drawing.

Some of you may puzzle, "Why did Bill  post a drawing he isn't proud of?" There's a good answer for that: I dunno. Maybe I hope to inspire young cartoonists out there who are frustrated that they will never see any improvement in their work. Perhaps this will demonstrate to them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, if they keep practicing and drawing a lot.

That sounds nice. The truth is of course, I really had nothing to post.

Better luck next time.

By the way, all the characters in this post are copyright by whoever owns these characters now. So be respectful!