Mike Lynch Cartoon in November 2011 READER'S DIGEST

I have a cartoon in this month's Reader's Digest.

 

It's for their "Off Base" section, which focuses on military life.

OK, above is the cartoon I sent and below is the cartoon as it's printed in the November 2011 issue.  This is my own opinion, but I think it's more successful when vertical, like my original submission above, than horizontal like below. But maybe that's just me.

The cartoon was drawn on typing paper with a Micron Pigma marker. I used a kids' watercolor paint set for the colors. I wanted to get a watercolory feel using PhotoShop, but after about ten minutes fooling around with that, I went old school style. After it was dry, I tweaked the colors a bit in PhotoShop.

Roz Chast Dinnerware

Fish's Eddy has an entire set of Roz Chast cartoon-decorated dishware titled "The In Crowd."

Video: Gag Cartoonist Doug Sneyd

Russell Brockbank Cartoons

Ever hear of British cartoonist Russell Brockbank? I had not, until the Chocarrice blog ran a spate of them. Some great stuff!

Sketches from CARTOONING FOR EVERYBODY by Lawrence Lariar

Here are some sketches from CARTOONING FOR EVERYBODY by Lawrence Lariar, copyright 1941 by Crown Publishing.

Above: Lawrence Lariar self portrait.

Lawrence Lariar was a cartoonist, a cartoon editor for PARADE and LIBERTY, a novelist and one of the most prolific authors of "How to Cartoon" books. He edited the long-running BEST CARTOONS OF series of books from 1942 to 1971. He died in 1981.

If you are building a shelf of books about cartooning, it's inevitable you'll run into a Lariar book. Thanks to him, we have many gag cartoonists' work between hardcovers that may have otherwise turned into dust after being published in the throwaway magazine medium..

Here are some sketches by Lariar and a couple of colleagues. Unlike his other, later books, Lariar emphasizes the value of sketching and doodling for a number of pages. The nice thing about these sketches is that they look as vibrant and full of life as ever. He's right: sketching from life helps you cartoon.

 

Above: a page from illustrator and cartoonist Greg D'Allessio's sketchbook. (He was married to cartoonist Hilda Terry for 55 years.)

Above: spots by John Groth (1902-88). I love how loose he works. Loose and confident.

 John Groth made a career as a painter and illustrator by focusing on sports and war. He captured the action-packed scenes by witnessing the events first-hand and sketching his experiences. Groth used a style technique called “speed line,” in which he sketched his subjects using rough, unperfected lines and filled the lines in with watercolors. Upon describing his technique, Ernest Hemingway, whom Groth spent time with during World War II, wrote, “None of us understood the sort of shorthand he sketched in. the men would look at the sketches and see just a lot of lines. It was a great pleasure to find what fine drawings they were when we got to see them.”

He also was a artist-correspondent during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Groth was also the art Director for Esquire magazine.

From his rogallery.com biography.

 

 Above two pages again by John Groth "with no preliminary pencil understructure."

Above: cartoonist Jack Kabat with some freehand fanciful doodles.

Above: a sketch from Lariar's sketchbook that he sold to the New Yorker as a spot drawing.

Above and below: some more finished sketches of middle-aged women and kids. "Study these doodles and originate a few."

My thanks to my friend, the one and only Don Orehek, for passing along this great book. Thanks, Don!

Virgil VIP Partch: ARMED FARCES

 

The Hairy Green Eyeball 3 blog has scans of VIP's 1968 book ARMED FARCES.

1970 Sergio Aragones Interview

From Cartoonist PROfiles #7, August 1970. Interview by Jud Hurd, photos by Jim Ruth. Art copyright 1970 E.C. Publications, Inc.

This early issue of PROfiles sports a gorgeous Aragones wraparound cover of the fantasy and reality of MAD Magazine back in the day when it was selling millions.

COLLIER'S COLLECTS ITS WITS: 66 Cartoonist Self-Portraits

COLLIER'S COLLECTS ITS WITS is a large trade paperback from 1941, which may make it the first trade paperback. As the cover splash says, the book contains

339 colossal cartoons by

103 extraordinary artists

 enthusiastically edited by

GURNEY WILLIAMS

with 66 life stories and 66

devastating self-caricatures

It's the self-caricatures that I wanted to post. Here are a few highlights:

Reamer Keller:

Charles Addams:

Syd Hoff:

Helen Hokinson:

And, below, are the 66 stories and caricatures of some of the great COLLIER'S cartoonists:

Above: the back cover.

Mark Anderson's Cartoon Process

 

Today's required reading: How my inky pal Mark Anderson creates a cartoon.

FATHER DEAR FATHER by Frank Evers

Here is a selection from FATHER DEAR FATHER (copyright Abbey Books, 1958), a series of Catholic cartoons by Frank Evers. Frank was a comic book artist, an illustrator and gag cartoonist before he got a regular gig as the New York Daily News' editorial cartoonist. After retiring from the News, he was President of the National Cartoonists Society from 1985-87.

These cartoons are, obviously, fro a more innocent time. The continuing characters were the Father, of course, and a choir boy named Jimmy Coogan. These were all drawn with a razor quick line. I have no idea where these first appeared.

Frank Evers' bio from the NCS site:

Frank Evers' obituary from the Daily News via AAEC.

Hat tip to Don Orehek for the book! Thanks, Don!