art – Page 45

Remembering friends from my youth

A friend sent me a notice that it’s the anniversary of Tom & Jerry. I’m not sure why, maybe because my name is Tom, but I never really watched Tom & Jerry growing up. I was a big Hanna-Barbera fan and that was one of their first cartoons, created in 1940, but I was a big Hanna-Barbera fan of the 1960s cartoons like Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear.

I’m wondering what makes a kid a fan of certain cartoons or cartoon studios. I’ve never been into Warner-Brothers cartoons or Disney. Not sure why, but most Hanna-Barbera stuff I loved and grew up with. I loved Fractured Fairy Tales, too. I had forgotten about them but a friend recently has been posting episodes on Facebook and it all came back to me. And I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle, which I think featured Fractured Fairy Tales and Sherman and Mr. Peabody, they were by Jay Ward Productions.

This is true: my earliest memory is me at age two or three, running around our Brooklyn apartment, with my mother chasing me, trying to get me into the bath and Huckleberry Hound was on the tv. The show was just coming on, I could hear the theme music in my head as I ran around trying to avoid bath time. That’s it above.

And the first character I can remember drawing is Fred Flintstone. I used to draw Fred daily I remember, from when I could first hold a pencil. So along with Huckleberry Hound, I loved The Flintstones and The Jetsons.

I loved Magilla Gorilla and Yogi Bear, Quickdraw McGraw, Wally Gator, Peter Potamus, Jinxie and Pixie and Dixie, Touché Turtle and Dum Dum, etc.

I remember Huckleberry and Magilla and Yogi and the others being on certain nights at about 7 or 7:30 pm on New York tv. They were reruns at the time and for instance, Huckleberry Hound was on Monday night and he had three parts – his own adventures, and Pixie and Dixie and Hokey Wolf, then Quickdraw McGraw might have been on Tuesday nights and he had his adventure and then showed Auggie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and Snooper and Blabber.

The Flintstones were on in prime time, so were the Jetsons and also Top Cat, I remember.

I remember watching the Wacky Races on Saturday mornings with one of my brothers. We would watch each week, cheering on our favorite character. I don’t think the show was on very long, maybe two years, but we watched the reruns over and over again.

Here’s a list of all the Hanna-Barbera shows.

Some of my favorites: Yogi, Huckleberry, Snagglepuss, Pixie & Dixie, etc. Friends from my youth.

Treasures I found at NY Comic Con

There’s so much to see and do at Comic Con, but as you walk around, you’ll see quite a few booths that sell original cartoon art. Most is comic book characters and pages, but in between if you take the time, you’ll see this. Here is an original Peanuts strip from 1964. Look at the size of it. (Click on the image for large view).

It’s amazing to see this original work. I’ve seen Peanuts strips in museums, too, but this was special, I don’t know why. Maybe because if I had $10,000, I could have had it. But that might be the starting price at auction, and it will probably jump up many thousands more.

I love looking at the line work. I think these are such great pieces of art, up there with Van Goghs and Picassos.

Hiding behind the counter at one booth was this original Krazy Kat Sunday strip. Incredible. I think this one is from the 1930s – an original George Herriman Krazy Kat! It’s marked at $21,000, but at auction will go up much higher.

There were original Hanna-Barbera comic cells and original drawings, too, and so many cool things if you looked around. You had to look past all the noise and activities at Comic Con to find these treasures.

My first visit to the Guggenheim

I visited the Guggenheim Museum for the first time in my life yesterday. I think because it was raining and I wanted to get out of the rain. I loved the structure, the architecture, I didn’t care so much for the art. It was mostly blank canvases with a few lines drawn, very abstract. I did enjoy the few Degas, Picassos and Rembrants and of course Van Gogh, but it’s no MOMA.

I loved that Mr. Softee was right outside when I arrived, the perfect thing to start my visit, ice cream from my favorite ice cream truck.

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Here are a few more pics of my trip inside.

Two favs at NY Comic Con

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I saw two favorites at New York Comic Con yesterday – Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek and Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine cartoonist. Stephan was signing books at the GoComics booth and Ms. Nichols downstairs at the autograph section.

I admire Stephan a lot. I interviewed him for my 10 With Tom column once. You can see that here.

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I visited MOMA; again

I visited MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) yesterday in New York. It was quite crowded, I guess it always is. I feel very at home there, whenever I’m in town, I make it a point to stop by, I say that I’m visiting “my friends,” Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, etc.

Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” is my favorite. And then I love the Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” I think I’ve told the story often; in college we had to recreate a famous painting using the colors that we cut out of magazines. I chose the Demoiselles painting by Picasso. I did a great recreation, the size was about 3″ x 3,” so when I first saw the original at MOMA a few years later, I was flabbergasted at the size of the real thing. I was so used to seeing my original at that small size that the original really threw me. And “Starry Night” is so much smaller when you see it in person. I has such a prominence in the art world that you would assume it would be much larger than it really it.

Always a crowd around “Starry Night.”

Matisse’s “la Danse”

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

Wynwood murals

Went to Wynwood (the Williamsburg, Brooklyn of Miami) for lunch with my friend Harry the other day, Zika mosquitoes and all. Visited the Wynwood walls next to Joey’s, the restaurant we ate in and found that they repainted most of the walls. I didn’t know they did that, but it seems like a crime to paint over that great art. I had come upon the this photo of me in front of the walls a few years ago. I noticed that this great colorful mural was changed you can see it here. Then and now.

I use the image of me and the colorful walls sometimes up above as the name plate of this blog.

Then.

Now.

Here are a bunch of new murals at the Wynwood Walls and other areas in Wynwood.

Entrance to Wynwood Walls

Jose de Diego Middle School in the Wynwood neighborhood.

Kim, Willie and Andrew

10 With Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

kim-willie-andrew — Kim Zolciak-Biermann (Photo: BravoTV), Willie Geist (photo: NBC) Andrew Farago (Photo: Amy Osborne)

I’ve been pumping out a bunch of 10 With Tom’s for the Huffington Post, so rather than post them all separately here, I’ll link to the Huff Post instead.

I recently interviewed Andrew Farago, who has one of the coolest careers as the curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. You can see that interview at the Huffington Post here.

Willie Geist, NBC newsman is one of my favorites. You can see his 10 With Tom here.

And Kim Zolciak-Biermann, who rose to fame in 2008 as one of the Real Housewives of Atlanta can be seen here.

Hillary and I

There’s a great Facebook account called Editorial & Political cartoons, they have almost 85,000 fans. They liked my Hillary cartoon from the other day and they posted it and apparently it struck a nerve because almost 1900 people liked the comic and 2078 people shared it last time I checked. That’s a nice audience for the cartoon. If each share had 100 eyes on it, that’s 190,000 people seeing it. Check out the page, with the current political season, there’s plenty to laugh (or cry) about.

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The election polls are out

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Batman, Superman, Peanuts, he’s got his hand in all of it

10 With Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

Marc Tyler Nobleman, shown here, is the author of books including Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, Brave Like My Brother, and Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, which helped correct the 76-year-old credit line of one of the most iconic fictional characters of all time. This effort is the subject of the Hulu documentary Batman and Bill, premiering in October.

I had the chance to ask Marc the 10 With Tom questions:

TOM: You rescued the legacy of Batman by taking over 10 years to have Bill Finger proclaimed co-creator of Batman so he has his rightful place next to Bob Kane. Why was this so important to you?
MARC: Because it was so important to so many. For decades, Batmaniacs have clamored for this (rumblings at cons, message board posts) but there was no organized campaign to rally around. I had intermittent delusions that Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman alone could lead to change, and if not, felt it could serve as a tangible focal point to educate people and build a groundswell of support for additional efforts. At the heart of the issue, the man who co-created one of our greatest champions of justice suffered from an egregious cultural injustice and it simply wasn’t fair to the Finger legacy, the Finger family, or Batman fans.

TOM: You also talk about the creators of Superman. Who would you prefer to be, Batman or Superman. Why?
MARC: Superman. Power of flight = no airport security lines.

TOM: You interviewed Peanuts voice actors a couple of years ago. That’s such a clever idea, what possessed you to do that?
MARC: Thank you. In between what I am supposed to be doing (writing books and speaking at schools/conferences), I like to fill gaps in pop culture history, particularly the eras I’ve lived through. Everyone has a story, even those who think they don’t. I believe in documenting as much as possible while the principals and firsthand witnesses are still here. The internet has been a boon for the kind of oral histories I do, in terms of both tracking down people and providing a platform to present the result. If there even are any magazines that would run such a niche feature, it’d be there-and-gone; so many fans would miss it. Online, the stories are generally easier to access and available indefinitely.

TOM: Can you draw?
MARC: Certain things! Actually, I’m a lapsed cartoonist. For several years I was regularly licensing single-panel cartoons to publications including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Good Housekeeping. I also drew a book of cartoons for Scholastic. I started cartooning professionally with only one goal: break into The New Yorker. I got as far as having my own rejection folder there, and was proud of it! One day I’ll give it another go.

TOM: If you could spend the day inside any newspaper comic strip (other than Batman or Superman), which would it be?
MARC: Given how often I’m speaking in elementary schools, I already feel like a recurring cameo in Peanuts. But beyond that, Little Nemo in Slumberland for the visual stimuli alone.

TOM: Word of the moment?
MARC: Unconventional.

TOM: What is your favorite book of all time (not including your own)?
MARC: Morality Play by Barry Unsworth.

TOM: What’s the one thing you would like to change about yourself?
MARC: I’m in a constant state of trying to sleep and exercise more. At the moment, I’m doing better than usual.

TOM: What was the best phase of your life, and why?
MARC: Fatherhood. It encompasses all else (love, fun, challenge, responsibility, fear) and ultimately matters most.

TOM: What’s the one thing that people always misunderstand about you.
MARC: Perhaps some don’t realize that my persistence is not only a personality trait but also a bridge to do my job: tell stories to people whom I am confident will be moved.

Thanks for being a good sport, Marc! Marc is one of the great personalities in Tom Falco’s 10 With Tom series.