Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Big Bad Week- Act III

Time for a Paul Murry story, from WDC&Ss 78!










Best,

Andrea

Monday, September 29, 2008

MY BIRTHDAY!

Just wanted to thank everyone who sent birthday wishes to me today! If you called, e-mailed, posted a HAPPY BIRTHDAY comment on my MySpace or Facebook page, sent a card or a gift...I really appreciated it! Once again, I had a terrific birthday this year. It was great celebrating with family and friends! Thank you!

Big Bad Week- Act II

This is another of my favorite stories with the Big Bad Wolf, expecially because it includes cameos from some beloved minor Disney cartoons stars, one of them acting Henery Hawk-like!
Enjoy it, right from the first issue of "Vacation Parade" (the one with the longest Barks' story ever!)and from the talent of Gil Turner!










Best,

Andrea

Sunday, September 28, 2008

BIRTHDAY DINNER

My birthday isn't until tomorrow, the 29th, but Leslie and I got together last night with a few friends to celebrate my birthday and have dinner at Stanley's in Sherman Oaks, CA. It was great seeing everybody again and we had a great time! Here's Leslie and I last night. Thank you, Baby, for putting together a wonderful evening...I love you!
Here's a few of my former Warner Bros. Consumer Products co-workers and good friends, (standing left to right) DAVID COHEN and MIKE FONTANELLI. (Seated left to right) MARK CHRISTIANSEN and myself. Mike and Mark are both terrific cartoonists! David was a member of WBCP's Brand Assurance department.
Cartoonist EDDIE FITZGERALD (left) came along with MIKE to wish me a Happy Birthday! Thanks, Eddie!
Here's MARK's wife, ANNETTE, with MARK and I.
It was great to see friends, EMILY and ERIC SCHWARTZ!
My pal DAVID COHEN enjoying his iced tea!
I'm very happy that our great friends, LAUREN DiCOCCO and LON BROWN, were there to help me celebrate! Lauren's husband, PAUL, and Lon's girlfriend, JODI, were unable to make it to the dinner. Leslie and I hope to see them again soon! Thanks to everyone for coming and for a fun evening!

YAHOO NEWS


LOS ANGELES - He is the Michelangelo of the hip-hop world, the acclaimed tattoo artist to practically every rap star seeking an elaborate, perfectly lettered, black-and-white body drawing that comes complete with an instant dose of street cred.
More recently, though, Mr. Cartoon’s work has been showing up everywhere. You’ll find it on lithographs, on hot-selling Joker brand T-shirts, on high-end Nike shoes. That’s not to mention the framed paintings that cover an entire wall of his studio, which is buried deep in an anonymous section of warehouses on the edge of gritty Skid Row.


“That will be later in my life when that stuff kicks in,” the 39-year-old artist says as he gestures to the works and briefly ruminates about someday spending more time creating fine art. Already, he says, some of his works have been hung in galleries in Paris, London and Amsterdam.

But for now he keeps coming back to the genre in which he first made his mark — tattoos.

“Nothing like skin,” he says as he pauses the whirling needle that sounds like a quieter version of a dentist’s drill to look up briefly from the arm of a customer he’s spent the last several minutes inking.

“The only canvas that bleeds,” he says with a smile. “The only canvas that moves. Where the art directs you.”

With tattoos covering almost every exposed part of his body, from the back of his shaved head to his ankles, Mr. Cartoon is not only an artist but a living billboard for his art.

Short and stocky, and dressed in baggy shorts and a T-shirt, he’s sometimes been described as looking like the central casting version of a street gang member. But his friendly demeanor and penchant for waxing nostalgic about his childhood (”My first computer,” he says pointing to an old manual typewriter) quickly dispel that image.

Skin, meanwhile, is the canvas that made him an L.A. underground legend, ever since he put an elaborate drawing of an urban street scene onto one of Eminem’s arms.

Soon after, just about everyone else in the hip-hop world was beating a path to his door. And they had to — because he wasn’t going to them. Mr. Cartoon doesn’t accept walk-in customers, won’t list his phone number in the book and, until recently, wouldn’t even say where his studio was.

Still, high-profile customers managed to find him.

“Done Eminem and 50 Cent. Missy Elliott, Keyshia Cole, Usher, Pepe Aguilar, Cypress Hill,” he says, not bothering to look up at the celebrity photos on another wall.

But most of his business is provided by “blue-collar guys who want to save their money and come get a nice tattoo.”

They are guys like Bobby Flores of Los Angeles, who met him years ago at a lowrider car show, when Cartoon was a kid hawking airbrushed T-shirts. Since then, the artist has etched an entire mural of Los Angeles on Flores’ back.

He uses a Sharpie marker to draw about 90 percent of his tattoos and then he inks them. There’s no pattern.

“It’s not cheap,” Flores says of the cartoonist’s work. “But he’s the best. He’s the world famous Mr. Cartoon. I wouldn’t let anybody else touch me.”

The artist won’t say what he charges, adding that every circumstance is different. The result: rumors have circulated on the Internet that a Mr. Cartoon tattoo can fetch anywhere from $100 to $20,000 depending on how well-heeled you are and how elaborate a one-of-a-kind drawing you want.

As for price: “I just say if you’re asking about price you’re at the wrong spot,” he says. “Focus on the quality. Focus on the style you want. Find the artist and then negotiate.”

There was a time, he acknowledges, when he’d do them for free. That was before he was very good.

“You’ve just got to practice,” he says of learning the art. “Your friends don’t have any money, you don’t have any experience. Perfect situation.”

He was Mark Machado back then, although his friends were already calling him Cartoon. He threw the Mister in front to dress it up a little. These days it annoys him if someone tries to address him as Mark.

“The only ones who call me by my Christian name,” he says, “are my mother and my wife. And my wife only if she’s angry at me.”

As Mr. Cartoon, he drifted into tattooing after trying his hand at numerous other art forms, including graffiti, airbrushing, etching and an ill-fated nine months at a trade school trying to learn sign-painting.

“They gave me the boot,” chuckles the ordinarily laconic Cartoon. “The teacher told me, ‘Man, you’re a great artist, maybe the best in the class. But you’ve got to go. You don’t turn nothin’ in.’”

Things began to look up after he was busted for spraying graffiti on a building and ordered to pay $800 in restitution. He had no idea where the money would come from until he landed a job painting a mural on the wall of a gymnasium.

“They went, ‘How much to do the mural?’ And I went, “Eight hundred dollars, sir.’ And I kind of never looked back.”

If he hasn’t gone mainstream in the years since, Cartoon has slowly begun to go more public. His main studio is still more or less a secret hideout but he recently opened a more public one. Called Skid Row Tattoos, it is located in a rapidly gentrifying section of the hardscrabble neighborhood, an area Cartoon says he wants to give something back to.

Although his name isn’t on the sign out front, anyone familiar with his work will recognize the place immediately from the beautiful airbrushed lowrider motorcycle on display in the front window. If that isn’t enough, the boutique next door carries Joker brand clothes and Cartoon’s line of Nike shoes.

Back in the day, he used to live at the main studio a mile or so away. He would throw big parties there that helped spread his reputation.

These days he says he leads a slightly more sedate life, with a wife and four kids and a house in the suburbs.

“I’m a white-picket-fence man now,” he says with a laugh as he walks into the main studio.

Moments before, as he was maneuvering his tricked-out pickup truck through downtown traffic, he had reflected on growing older but not losing his connection to the rough-and-tumble side of L.A. that inspired so much of his art. As he spoke, menacing looking clown faces (a Mr. Cartoon trademark) stared up from the vehicle’s floor mats.

“Hopefully you grow up and you have a family and you change,” he mused at one point. “Some guys never change. But the majority of us get older, we start clothing companies, we start design centers, graphic design houses. And we go for broke.”

It's a Gas, bill.

http://www.zen36049.zen.co.uk/clangnuts%202008/bill-payments.jpg
Gas Bill Cartoon.

Did I say I'd post a cartoon yesterday? I did, didn't I? Opps. Well here it is anyway. For once it wasn't a case of having to draw the cartoon first. It was sitting here on my desk, waiting to be scanned. The distraction was a trip to Staples, to browse some stationery. Didn't need any stationery, but I can pass up a trip to a stationery superstore. I bought a small draw unit, to place my cartoons in, and to avoid the near miss I had the other week, when I put some cartoon drawings on the feed tray of my printer! Luckily I didn't like the cartoons that were printed on, and it really did seem to brighten up the washing machine sales invoice I was printing. Today we had delivery of the washing machine. We have now run out of things to wash. It's so exciting. Tomorrow, it's just a washing machine. Today, it's something very special.


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Saturday, September 27, 2008

Big Bad Week- Act I

I hope you'll enjoy an entire week of this blog devoted to the Big Bad Wolf, our Zeke Wolf. His comicbook series has always been a favorite of mine and it was about time to share some of his best stories with you.
We start with a sunday pages continuity from 1936, drawn by Al Taliaferro, courtesy of my friend Klaus Harms.
Enjoy!














Best,

Andrea

No cartoons

Sorry there doesn't appear to be any cartoons available right now. Something has gone wrong with the host. Normal service will resume soon, or failing that I'll just upload them to somewhere else.
UPDATE: Cartoons are now appearing. Oh and I'll be uploading a new one today. So stay tuned. It'll be great. Maybe.

Friday, September 26, 2008

COMMANDER McBRAGG

From my files...here's TOTAL TELEVISION's COMMANDER McBRAGG. I did this for the UNDERDOG / TOTAL TELEVISION style guide. Be sure to scroll down and click on my eBay auctions link in my LINKS section. I've got a lot of original cartoon art currently listed! Hope everyone has a great weekend! You can e-mail me at powsley@flash.net. Thanks! - Patrick Owsley

Thursday, September 25, 2008

KING LEONARDO AND HIS SHORT SUBJECTS

This is the KING LEONARDO piece that I did for the 2006 UNDERDOG DVD set packaging. KING LEONARDO AND HIS SHORT SUBJECTS were one of the TOTAL TELEVISION cartoon segments seen on THE UNDERDOG SHOW.
Here's KING LEONARDO's sidekick, ODIE COLOGNE. I also did the ODIE character art for the 2006 UNDERDOG DVD set packaging.
Very cool cover art for this 1962 issue of KING LEONARDO AND HIS SHORT SUBJECTS #1 from Gold Key! Click on each image for a larger view!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

FRED & WILMA - IN COLOR!

Back in 1998, I took a Craig Kellman WILMA & FRED FLINTSTONE drawing and gave it some color. I used markers with colored pencils on marker paper, and I liked the way it turned out. Click on the image for a larger view!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

TWEETY AND SYLVESTER

Here is one of the many inking jobs that I have done for Warner Bros. Consumer Products. It's a re-creation of an old TWEETY AND SYLVESTER comic book cover. I also did the cover lettering. It was used on the front of a blank greeting card by Hallmark. Click on the image for a larger view!

MRS. TOONS/ BACKPIECE



Monday, September 22, 2008

GOLD KEY KID

Love this illustration that was seen in a 1960s GOLD KEY Comics advertisement. It has a great 60s advertising cartoon style! Cool cross-hatched clouds! Click on the image for a larger view!

HOT IMPORT NIGHTS

VIMBY - Mister Cartoon @ HIN
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Sunday, September 21, 2008

"Hare Trimmed"

I sure love the character of Elmer Fudd and many of my favorite cartoons feature him against Bugs, but I'm also fond of the Bugs vs Sam shorts, with "Hare Trimmed" being one I love to re-watch the most. The timing, as usual for a Freleng cartoon, is superb!



Best,

Andrea

Saturday, September 20, 2008

CHICAGO CUBS - 2008 NL CENTRAL CHAMPS!

GO CUBS!

YIPPEE, YAPPEE & YAHOOEY!

Here's Hanna-Barbera's YIPPEE, YAPPEE and YAHOOEY (also known as THE GOOFY GUARDS) and their KING! Both pieces are brush, pen & ink with white opaque watercolor on duralene. YIPPEE, YAPPEE and YAHOOEY were seen on THE PETER POTAMUS SHOW. Click on each image for a larger view!