In The Meantime: The Golden Age Of Coloring Books

fun things to look at

HB Fun

Here are some neat images from 2 of my favorite sites.

BARBIE'S COLORING AND ACTIVITY BOOKS

I love the look of these early HB cartoons. The BG colors in 2 Corny Crows are really clever and tasty.
Sometimes I think it's harder to pull off simple than complicated.
These layouts have everything I talk about, with just enough detail to give them organic texture.
I think I will take that superficially simple "Nowhere Bear" cartoon from the other day and compare it, creatively point by creative point to some big budget modern animated executive created leviathan. Any ideas of what movie I should use? That furry picture would be good. Or the afro-'tude-frog-princess-revert to our roots and sell more princess dolls picture? There are too many to choose from.

I'll leave out the amount of inbetweens comparison, because obviously if you have an unlimited budget you can afford as many inbetweens as you crave.

YOWP

P.S. Is there someone who lives in the San Fernando Valley who is good at the technical stuff I'm always asking about? I could trade someone a drawing and t -shirt for an hour or 2 of your time.

Some Real Coloring and Kids' Books

At last Barney gets his own starring vehicle.
We didn't have VCRs when I was a kid so it was hard to copy cartoon drawings from the actual cartoons. I used to instead copy the drawings from comic books, coloring books and Golden books. These weren't usually drawn by animators (although some were) but it was the best school for cartooning I could get! - Comic strips too, of course.
People are lucky today; they can study classic cartoons frame by frame, there are tons of blogs with info about the old cartoons and even lessons. So why do cartoons look crappier than ever?

CARTOON VS MAN or FUN VS NONE

Which one is evil?

Remember your evil aunt or uncle who would give you socks and underwear for Christmas instead of a toy? What causes someone to do such an awful thing?
There is a certain type of human that doesn't understand kids and fun. The same kind of problem applies to coloring books.
Here is a great one from the 40s. It looks like a Clampett cartoon. Porky even has an ass-head! Whoever made this book understands kids.




When I was a kid, I would only color in coloring books that starred cartoon characters. Any other kind of coloring book was a lie, created by monsters who hated kids.




I especially loved the coloring books that had beautifully painted covers, as these would inspire us to color carefully within the lines and have high standards in all things in life.
This kid grew up to become an animation critic, because he couldn't quite cut it.

BOB MCKIMSON COLORING BOOK!Who wouldn't want a coloring book filled with drawings by an actual star animator!

But then....there came the ugliest of inventions: MAN coloring books!
This kind of thing had to be invented by the same weirdo who gave kids socks and underwear and called them presents. "Here kids! Color your Dad!"Color the Man and his hairy baby.
Color seed of Man.
Here's fish with man face to color.
Here is man with Mammoth Chipmunk. Who will win?I can't imagine anything being more fun for a kid to color than a blind man, can you?

I remember as a kid wondering about how this kind of stuff ever got made and what kind of retard would think a kid would like it? I thought "Thank God, the animated cartoons aren't like this!" Then came Scooby Doo, the 70s and my life and all my beliefs about fun were shattered.

Whole empires have been built around the socks and underwear entertainment theory: Filmation, Dic, Dreamworks.

You can bet 99% of the executives in cartoons give their kids socks, underwear and tax forms for their birthdays!