Speedball Booklet circa 1956

Above: Ross F. George reminding us that when you use Speedball it's "posture, posture, posture" that makes all the difference.

Here are some scans from a 1956 Speedball pen booklet from the files of my dear ol' Dad. He probably gave me this when I was first struggling with pen and ink at the age of 9 or 10. Copyright is most likely with the Hunt/Speedball people. The front cover is missing, and the indicia along with it.


I had a lot of these nibs when I was kid and tried my best at inking and lettering.


I am in awe of cartoonists like Guy Gilchrist and Orlando Busino who not only are natural born great cartoonists, but are master letterers too. Look at all the knowledge you have to store in your noggin!


So, most of the book is like the above: examples of different lettering styles with a little cartoon stylus moving around, showing you how the letters are created. Page after page of this!


Above: some cool price ticket signs. As the book progresses, the imagery gets a lot more interesting.

Above: Charles Stoner gives us this great inky nature drawing. The text is correct: if you want to master your pen, then draw without penciling first.

More on Mr. Stoner:

"After working for various agencies in Philadelphia, Mr. Stoner joined Hunt Pen Co, (later Hunt Manufacturing Co.) in 1935 as advertising director, retiring in 1971. While at Hunt he wrote two books, 'Pen Tips on Cartooning' in 1939 and 'Beautiful Italic Handwriting Made Easy' in 1977. He also edited the Speedball Textbook from 1935 on. In 1968, he won a National Packaging Award for Hunt products for artists."

The above is from The Record Herald (Waynesboro, PA) obituary for Mr. Stoner who passed away this month, on March 9, 2008. There will be a public service in April. I didn't know about any of this until I began Googling his this morning! My condolences to the Stoner family. What an amazing artist!




Above: 3 pages of stick figure motion cartoons. Whoever drew this sure looked like he had a fun time doing it. These would be ideal to show kids who want to learn to cartoon.

And here is a color section showing examples of "progressive steps in making a poster for screen process reproduction."

I liked these little mini-posters and wonder if they were real or just created for the book.

I picked this Speedball book up out of a stack of stuff the other day and wondered why I had kept it for so long. I haven't looked at it for years. After paging through it, I could see why! Lots of great illustrations and a glimpse back at some skills that are going by the wayside.

Big hat tip to Dad for today's blog entry! Thanks, Dad!