Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

In honour of Remembrance Day / Veterans Day, Rauch Brothers Animation has posted Germans in the Woods. The animated documentary illustrates a recording of WWII veteran Joseph Robertson who is haunted by the memory of killing a young German soldier during the Battle of the Buldge. The short was created with Photoshop, AfterEffects, and scanned pencil drawings.

To commemorate the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which occured 64 years ago today on August 6, 1945, Dan Blank presents his stop-motion film Shadowplay.

Dan writes:

Shadowplay focuses on the permanent shadows imprinted on the city’s walls & streets by the intense flash, creating indelible images from the exact moment the bomb hit. The film was created at NYU, and took two and a half years to complete. It won multiple awards, including a Student Academy Award and Student Emmy. I hesitated on posting it online for years, but felt it was better to have it available rather than let it sit buried on my hard drive. Thank you so much for helping share my work!

Visit Dan Blank’s website.

Chet Phillips has created a set of trading cards Inspired by turn of the century cigarette cards. World War Monkey depicts an alternative history of monkey warfare from the WWI era. Each card is illustrated in Chet’s beautiful scratchboard style.

Previously:
Chet Phillips: Twilight of the Tiki
Chet Phillips: Painter Interview

Another beautiful example of public historical archives being returned to the people through the Internet.

The National Collection of War Art is composed of about 1,500 artworks, including portraits, battle scenes, landscapes and abstracts, depicting those who served New Zealand in times of war, and the arenas in which they served.

It includes both official pieces of war art, by artists formally commissioned by the New Zealand government, and other unofficial art works that were acquired by or donated to the collection.

The featured lithograph is called On the railways – engine and carriage cleaners, 1917 by by Archibald Standish-Hartrick.

Also of interest:
Willie & Joe, by Bill Mauldin

A poster on a Russian message board has shared an interesting collection of anti-Nazi political cartoons.

This ambitious animated short uses ethnic foodstuffs to re-enact the history of armed conflict since the Second World War. For example, the chapter on the Cold War shows a Big Mac rattling sabres with a pile of Beef Stroganoff and then skulking off-screen defeatedly.

From the film’s official site:

Food Fight is an abridged history of war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression.

One YouTube reviewer raved:

“Absolutely amazing video for lovers of food and global conflict.”

via Art Threat

UPDATE: I’ve replaced the YouTube clip with the yesterday’s episode of BoingBoing.tv, which features an annotated, higher quality version of the film.

The University of Victoria has posted a sketchbook created by a British soldier stationed in Belgium and France during World War I. It’s a revealing look at the war, and it’s fascinating to see the urgency of some of the pieces next to the more refined and polished drawings. It also raises a question: where are the sketchbooks being created on-site by today’s soldier-artists? (Via Amy Crehore)

The Society of Illustrators is showcasing a slideshow by Artists Against the War.

The above acrylic painting is called America’s Peace Campaign by Scott Bakal.

(via Jillian Tamaki)

One of Fantagraphics’ flagship releases next year, Willie & Joe: The WWII Years is now available for pre-order on their site and Amazon.com.

During the Second World War, Mauldin drew cartoons for Stars and Stripes, an American soldiers’ newspaper which was distributed throughout Europe and North America. His comics became a lightning rod for soldiers’ frustrations and anger with the war. “The surest way to become a pacifist,” Mauldin wrote in his comic, Up Front, “is to join the infantry.”

Mauldin had a long and rich career, influencing everyone from contemporary cartoonists such as Charles Schultz to American president, Dwight Eisenhower. He passed away in 2003.

Fantagraphics is running an excerpt of a 1983 interview with Bill Mauldin on their site.

Also of interest:
Bill Mauldin on Wikipedia

Andrew Bawidamann, for all your sexy vector pin-up needs! (Thanks, Daniel!)

This fine collection of WWII propaganda posters show the impact and the beautiful designs one can achieve with limited palettes and no help from Adobe. Don’t miss the nearly-hidden link at the bottom of the page that takes you to Page 2.

Check out this series of comics drawn by Kiuchi Nobuo, a Japanese POW in the Soviet Union during the Second World War.

(Thanks, Eric!)