Saturday, April 18, 2009

Some OLD Eek Layouts

How many of you have seen a show called "Eek The Cat"? I just recently watched a couple of episodes on YouTube. Ah, what a walk down memory lane. That's back when we still did everything on PAPER....with a PENCIL....different coloured pencils....and we used a Field Guide....and I don't mean the type you take out with you while bird watching.
Anyhow....here are a few typical layouts that we would do for posing purposes. The backgrounds and overlays etc. would have been done on separate sheets of paper, which I must have lost. Everything was registered on peg bars and drawn on a light-table. I'm not sure peg bars are even used anymore....especially not if using a digital program like "Flash".
This was a secondary character named "Mittens" who was a bit neurotic due to his doting but clumsy owner, Granny. Here he is falling down a short flight of steps at the front door, so we had to indicate a camera move to follow him.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

The Shadow Knows!

Recently I've been reading a bunch of old Shadow pulps (courtesy of Rich's collection) and I've become a huge fan of the Shadow! I love the slogan,"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit!" I have come to the conclusion that "Batman" is a rip-off of the Shadow. These books were written in the early 1930's (most of these pictured here are reprints from the '6o's) But Batman didn't come into being until the late 1930's. I don't know enough about the subject really, but the Shadow is a really impressive character!
One thing I found amusing was that these two books have their covers switched. The story "The Crime Cult" should have the illustration from "Hands In The Dark" and vice versa.

Anyway, the Shadow books have been keeping me company on the subway to and from work everyday. I'm going to have to seek out more once I've finished reading these ones.