Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

(via Modern Mechanix)

No matter where you stand on the climate change issue, hopefully this blog will convince you once and for all that someone really needs to come up with a better joke about it.

How to Draw Adventure Time

I can’t imagine characters more fun to draw!

Looks like Fred Seibert is sharing a whack of stuff on Scribd, for various animated shows, including scripts, storyboards, media kits, and character bibles like this one.

Love this bit:

We’re not looking for “on model” drawings.
We’re looking for “in character” drawings.

(via @bobjinx)

Stephen Silver offers us this glimpse at his latest efforts for the Schoolism online art classes. The Masters Series: In the Studio With… is an ongoing documentary/interview series conducted by Stephen in the home studios of some cartooning greats. The first episode features iconic MAD Magazine caricaturist and parody artist Mort Drucker.

Stephen is as passionate about teaching others to love drawing as he is about drawing itself, so this is sure to be a great collection.

This short clips only whets my appetite for the full video, which will set you back $40.

Way back in 1950 Richard Taylor wrote an article advising would-be cartoonists to show a little respect for the profession:

“The woods are full of pseudo-cartoonists,” wrote Taylor, “grinding out things that are not much better than the average high-school student’s masterpieces, doomed forever to a sub-world of third-rate pictorial humor, and without the ghost of a hope of ever climbing higher.”

All this week on my blog I’ve been showcasing the work of some of the masters of mid-20th century cartoon art.
Hank Ketcham, John Huehnergarth, Russell Patterson, Roy Doty and Richard Taylor himself.

* And by the way, is it just me or does our friendly cartooning instructor in the ad above not bear a bit of a resemblance to Drawn!’s own Johnny Martz? Hhmmmm…

“For some reason or other,” wrote Richard Taylor in the October 1950 issue of American Artist magazine, “the general public seems to have the erroneous notion that the drawing of funny pictures is not a serious business.”

All this week on my blog I’ll be showcasing the work of some exceptional mid-20th century cartoonists – and accompanying their work with excerpts from Taylor’s 1950 article.

(Above, a Hank Ketcham illustration that predates Dennis the Menace by one year).

Hogan’s Alley has shared an early Christmas gift with us today–a collection of cartoonist Arnold Roth’s personal Christmas cards that he has been sending out since the 1950s.

My favourite is 1968’s epic Jekyllesque comic:

Just in time for Halloween, Nathan Mazur (previously) has a gallery show of tiny monster paintings, some of which are still available for purchase.

Seen here, the Jabberwocky.

In this video interview for Big Think, Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of the New Yorker, discusses his love of cartooning, and the nature of humour.

It’s one of several video interviews with Bob Mankoff with topics ranging from the science of laughing to the history of cartoons.