I’m not sure what the answer is… Should I keep this site up despite next to never having the motivation to update it? I didn’t hear much when it was gone, but since I have to keep up the costs of maintaining a server for actual paying work, it might as well stay.
Devon Baxter has been doing an enjoyable series of posts at Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research about animators who moonlighted in comic books, largely under the former animator’s Jim Davis’s shop. Devon’s most recent post highlighted the only known (for now) comic-book work by those beloved animators Irv Spence and Rod Scribner. As the esteemed and vastly underrated Dave Bennett notes in the comments, comic work suited many animators, but for many it was a hassle. He cites Preston Blair’s only known comic story, and Johnny Gent probably didn’t do more than a handful. I can imagine it was a struggle for many to do satisfying work, for there’s a significant difference between drawing for comics and drawing for animation, as the unremarkable Spence and Scribner comics indicate.
Here, too, is another one-shot from a highly identifiable animator: the only comic book story I know of that was drawn by Emery Hawkins (unsigned, though). The poses and line of action throughout “The Cat and Canary” are unmistakably from Hawkins’ hand, probably knocked out after doing scenes for Shamus Culhane’s Fish Fry at Lantz’s.
Without further adieu, from Giggle Comics #5 (Feb. 1944)…
Well, despite having to disagree with you at times; it was interesting to see those crappy Screen Gems cartoons that would make people have a second opinion about TerryToons.
I read all your posts and am sorry you and a number of others I read and learn from don’t have time to blog.
Welcome back, Thad! It’s hard for me to tell that your lastest posted comic is by Emery. If so, his animation drawings are a lot more expressive than his comic book drawings! Stick around, now that your blog is back.
Thanks, Mark. I agree – but it’s hard to look at those drawings of the cat and not be reminded of Emery’s great feline animation in Fish Fry and Woody Dines Out, or the early scenes in The Gullible Canary. Maybe, like Irv and Rod, Emery knew his calling was as a screen cartoonist!
Ah, great to see the site back! :) Keep it up! (Pun intended.)
Well, I certainly welcome your return! The disappearance of your site had an alarming effect on me, as this for me was THE source on controversies on ‘The Heckling Hare’ and ‘The Cat Concerto’/’Rhapsody Rabbit’. Now the links on my own site to your articles work again! Besides that, I really enjoy your writing and research, and I hope to see more of it in the future.
Very glad your site is back. I’ve long enjoyed your critical (intelligent) writings about the golden age era of animation. As for “I didn’t hear much when it (the site) was gone…”– I personally had no way to contact you to say I missed the site. Anyways, I’ll continue to check the biog and hope you will be posting – no matter how infrequently. DJA