Mister Scribbles

The Lion and the Shepherd, Ambrose Bierce A lion roaming through the forest, got a thorn in his foot, and, meeting a shepherd, asked him to remove it. The shepherd did so, and the lion, having just surfeited himself on another shepherd, went away without harming him. Some time afterward the shepherd was condemned on a false accusation to be cast to the lions in the amphitheater. When they were about to devour him, one of them said, "This is the man who removed the thorn from my foot." Hearing this, the others honorably abstained, and the claimant ate the shepherd all himself. ****************************************************************  Yes, damn it, that is a lion.  Just squint and you can make it out.  What?  The last cartoon lion you saw as fucked up as this was by W. W. Denslow?  Gee, buddy, I got feelings too!  William Wallace Denslow   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._W._Denslow

Dave K Davis 1932 - 2019      This is my Dad c. 1949.  I think he is in High School here.  Dad was genius engineer.  His specialty was microwave radio.  Dad taught math at U. T. Austin and then moved to Dallas and went to work for Collins Radio. He eventually started his own company and did very well.  If his memory was not photographic it was damn near.   He spent his entire life figuring out how and why things work.  He was the smartest and best man I have ever known.  His passion was sailing and I spent my youth as a deckhand on increasing larger and more difficult to control boats.  Alzheimer's robbed him of everything that made him what he was, and it took forever to kill him. I never told Dad how much I loved him and now it makes no difference. I tried to find a vintage illustration from a greeting card to close this but the best I found was this old still from some Disney flick.  It will have t...

Mac Smith has written and drawn an unforgettable post apocalypse epic. The essence of terror.  Better than even Disney can do. A new world.  Remember, "new" does not mean "good". Point of view really makes a difference, don't it? A moose and a mouse.  The world is huge to me, how so much bigger to a mouse? I really don't wish to say anything else about this.  Wix the mouse is on a journey to save his girlfriend and his colony.  He is opposed by, well, the entire world.     This ain't The Rescuers, no sir. https://www.scurrycomic.com/  Read this and know what storytelling is all about.

One of the Disney multi-plane cameras. Here we have the man himself with the machine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplane_camera This amazing device was perfected by - Ub Iwerks, responsible for much of Disney's success and a founder of the company.  Ub came up with Mickey Mouse and Disney would not give him any credit for it.  When Ub left Disney he sold back his stock for 3,000 dollars.  This would be in the area of over 20 billion dollars worth today.  He ended up back at Disney, and was an amazingly talented man.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ub_Iwerks Gustav Tenngren's work on Pinocchio set the tone of the movie.  Shots like this were made using the multi-plane.    And here is the old ogre himself explaining the camera.  By the by, Walt could not draw and could not direct.  He was an idea man with the willingness to push things to the limit...

Well, yesterday I said I might post this horror I have been working on for a week.  I just finished watching Curse of the Demon, the American name for Night of the Demon, the Hammer movie made from Casting the Runes by M. R. James, one of my fave stories. I like pink underdrawings as opposed to blue pencil.  This went from beefcake to St. Anthony real quick.  These are the main figures, and I am going to outline them with the #8B pencils I like so much.  I cannot ink.  (or draw, an unkind person might say).  I will make this better when I am finished, but this is what I have blocked out.  As far as Night of the Demon is concerned- Sometimes subtlety is wasted.

I have had a furry drawing, of a strange-o rabbit, on the desk for a week and I can't summon the slightest interest in doing even a small amount of work.  I hate the picture and most everything I have ever done and I wish I could get a do over, life wise.  Maybe I can have it up on here tomorrow.  In the meantime, let's look at Blunder Bunny and his Friends! Alkali Ike, Oatsie, and Oasis Joe.  Probably by Dan Gordon.   http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2009/01/dan-gordon-biography-life-and-work-of.html   Terrific artwork. This is the standard Blunder Bunny plot.  Before I started trying to draw anthros I had no idea how hard this type of work is.  Much talent in the art department.  I guess the writer knew the whole thing was doomed from the start and probably rarely showed up sober, if at all. Normally I would call this horror something vulgar and move on.  But it is exuberant, and it is well drawn....

This is Good Fortune, from the book The Cat Who Went To Heaven, by Elizabeth Coatsworth.  It is illustrated by Lynd Ward, one of the greats.  I was given a copy of Kidnapped that he drew, and I thought those pictures a window on a wild, cold, violent adventure such as I have never seen. I still have this.  I have always wanted that coat. H. J. Ward.  Not the Ward of the day, I will get to him some other time.  But is this great or what? The only copy of this I can find.  The Cat Who Went To Heaven is about an artist and his little cat, Good Fortune.  When he is hired by a monastery to illustrate the animals attending the dying Buddha, his cat wants to be in the picture.  As cats are excluded from Siddartha because of their nature, the artist does not show a cat in the picture.  But after watching the kitty catch and release a bird, he realizes that all life has the Buddha nature and paints her in.  The...