What About Thad?

Mike Sporn posted scans of the obscenely rare Piccoli children’s book by Paul Julian, a must-see for anyone interested in the phenomenally talented artist.

As somewhat of a companion piece, here’s the Friz Freleng directed sequence from the 1948 Dennis Morgan/Jack Carson feature, Two Guys from Texas. No question that the gorgeous Julian backgrounds are the highlight of it. Julian remarked to Shamus Culhane once that he never did anything at Warners that was in his own “vision,” only Freleng’s. A surprisingly dismissive statement, given that Julian’s are regularly the best of the Warner background paintings of the 1940s. (I guess it was no good because it was all for smartass animals and stupid humor.) Also on display here are some great caricatures by Ben Shenkman (You can see the Carson caricature briefly in Freleng’s Slick Hare as well.) Watchful eyes will notice the rampant animation reuse from Tashlin’s Swooner Crooner.

I included a bit of footage from the actual movie to put it in context. (The squaw harassing Carson is a running gag throughout it.) Clearly you can see why it’s not on DVD: it’s a bad old movie. So it’s chances of release are slim to none.

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Let me heartily recommend the Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, assembled by Art Spielgelman and Francoise Mouly (and a team of experts that included Mike Barrier, Frank Young, Kim Deitch, and Jeff Smith). This is an excellent sampler of all the masters of the funny animal and people books of the Golden Age of comics. Carl Barks, John Stanley, and Walt Kelly all get nice coverage, as do Sheldon Mayer, Jim Davis, Basil Wolverton (some obscenely early stuff by him!), Milt Gross, and Harvey Kurtzman. While this does the job of allowing one to decide which artists and series he or she would like to pursue further, I fear that its intention of introducing these stories to today’s children is going to probably fail miserably. Animation and comic books are similar, because to an extent, both, as artforms, are dead. Unlike with animation however, which they can see anywhere for free, kids now go for years without actually buying or reading a comic book. The likelihood of them picking up one that isn’t a meandering written and drawn superhero/’serious’ comic (aimed at the most unimaginative of readers) is pretty low. So it’s unlikely that the under 10 crowd will even glance at this amazing tome.

Now, with that typical blunt truthfulness out of the way, I only have two caveats with this book… 1) I’d have chosen a better story than “Bee Bumbles” (WDC&S 158, November 1953), an average story from Barks’s best period. (Perhaps one of the more sublime entries with Gladstone Gander or Gyro Gearloose, such as that classic “Terrible Secret” story from WDC&S 140.) The other two that they chose, however, were fine. 2) The Fox and Crow story they chose was a weak one. There were many, many better examples to choose from, particularly that insane crossover story from Real Screen Comics #100. For shame!

I’d have also included one of the better Li’l Bad Wolf stories by either Carl Buettner or Gil Turner. (And for that matter, at least one of Owen Fitzgerald’s Bob Hope or Martin & Lewis stories.) While a lot of these delve into meandering repetition (ala Famous Studios at its worst), these two really developed the cast into fun and interesting characters. This one written and drawn by Buettner, from WDC&S 57 (June 1945), is one of my favorites. It shows what a disgusting and greedy hick Zeke is at his best, forcing his naive son to do his bidding of torturing the local critters, because he’s too lazy to do so himself. No (non-Billy Wilder) Fred MacMurray this dad be, says I. I also love how morbid the harvesting of the squabbit is. Does Li’l Bad Wolf bring it home dead? Or are we to assume it is being roasted and eaten alive? And why does Buettner draw Practical Pig scowling in every panel? So many unanswered questions these ancient funnybooks pose.

There’s some great conversation about Carl Barks going on over at Michael Barrier’s site. In short, while many (myself included) are trying to find other examples of characters that have consistency in spite of a lack of it, like Barks’s Donald, the answer seems to be there really is none. Perhaps that’s what makes Barks’s genius so unique, because one can’t really find parallels between his and other authors’ worlds.

The following is not my favorite Barks story. It probably wouldn’t even be in my Top 20. But it was definitely one of the first ones I ever read closely (in a Gladstone reprint I received in a trade with Rodney Bowcock), after hearing so much about Barks, and when I was of the mindset of: “OK nobody can be that good.” (I had a similar view of Hitchcock in my mid-teens.) But as I quickly found out, he really does deserve the near-canonization he’s received. I’m surprised that I have never read an overall negative critique about Barks, at least from someone sane. Maybe levelheaded people are afraid of that canonization status, and refrain from criticizing Barks (I know I’m afraid of criticizing Charles Schulz because of him being a patron saint in America), but I’d love to read any, just for a different point of view.

This September 1944 story (from Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories #48) is still early enough in Barks’s oeuvre to show some of the “bugs” that plagued it (a little cruder drawing, too much of the brashness of the animated Donald) while at the same time showing how quickly Barks evolved as an artist and writer (stronger sense of composition and dialog). Browsing through these original 1940s issues, I’m stupefied at how literally none of Barks’s colleagues took it upon themselves to improve their work and follow his example.

(I wonder if it was intentional that the forms Donald and Jones take at the end of this story resemble Al Capp’s Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat.)