Permalink

Beany & Cecil Storybords by Bruce Timm

beanycecilsb.jpg

Thanks to Cartoon Brew reader Micah Baker you can check out the entire boards of an episode of The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil (1988) inked by Bruce Timm. See the entire set on Flickr HERE.

It’s not custom to ink storyboards at such an early stage for an episode of an animated TV show, but sheesh, I’m glad Timm did. He shows us all how to do it right: the poses, the pacing, the timing, the action — all pitch perfect.

Once you get your fill, watch how all the life and energy is sucked out of these brilliant boards by watching the actual episode here. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

  • http://www.sandboxworld.com/ sandboxworld

    I grew up watching Bob Clampett’s Beany and Cecil, man they don’t make them like that anymore. Thank god for Youtube where we can watch some of the classic episodes. When are they going to bring them back to DVD, there is lesser fare that made it to DVD than this show. Most likely some heirs are either feuding for music rights or some kind of other rights and the kids are the ones who suffer and will never get to see this amazing show. It’s a shame, Amazon has one DVD at highway robbery prices for a scarce copy as high $158.00. Wow. That is a sad state of affairs. That’s $10.00 an episode.

  • http://www.sandboxworld.com sandboxworld

    I grew up watching Bob Clampett’s Beany and Cecil, man they don’t make them like that anymore. Thank god for Youtube where we can watch some of the classic episodes. When are they going to bring them back to DVD, there is lesser fare that made it to DVD than this show. Most likely some heirs are either feuding for music rights or some kind of other rights and the kids are the ones who suffer and will never get to see this amazing show. It’s a shame, Amazon has one DVD at highway robbery prices for a scarce copy as high $158.00. Wow. That is a sad state of affairs. That’s $10.00 an episode.

  • http://jedalexander.blogspot.com/ Jed Alexander

    I think it’s often the case that animators for TV in particular aren’t up to the task of animating the work of these great character designers and storyboard artists. I heard some animator say once that the design had to be simple enough to be drawn by their worst artist. So all those designs by Toth and Kirby and Gil Kane over the years have been very poorly translated.

    Bruce Timm did fantastic designs for Batman, and I think they really got the mood right with the series, the shadows and the backgrounds, but the animation was so-so, and the writing was pretty bad. Timm may just be doing design that’s much better suited to full animation.

    One way to take advantage of the limits of TV animation is to keep in minimal, like with Bullwinkle, where the animation was simple, but imaginative (in a UPAish sort of way) and the writing was some of the best on TV at the time.

    Another guy who’s really taking advantage of the limits of TV animation is Genndy Tartakovsky. Samurai Jack is gorgeous.

  • http://jedalexander.blogspot.com Jed Alexander

    I think it’s often the case that animators for TV in particular aren’t up to the task of animating the work of these great character designers and storyboard artists. I heard some animator say once that the design had to be simple enough to be drawn by their worst artist. So all those designs by Toth and Kirby and Gil Kane over the years have been very poorly translated.

    Bruce Timm did fantastic designs for Batman, and I think they really got the mood right with the series, the shadows and the backgrounds, but the animation was so-so, and the writing was pretty bad. Timm may just be doing design that’s much better suited to full animation.

    One way to take advantage of the limits of TV animation is to keep in minimal, like with Bullwinkle, where the animation was simple, but imaginative (in a UPAish sort of way) and the writing was some of the best on TV at the time.

    Another guy who’s really taking advantage of the limits of TV animation is Genndy Tartakovsky. Samurai Jack is gorgeous.