Archive Category: Cartoon & Comic
Donald Soffritti’s Comic Book Superheroes and Villains Drawn as Old People
Italian comic artist Donald Soffritti drew very funny cartoons of what super heroes and villains would look like in old age! Doc Ock above doesn’t seem too thrilled having all those arms to carry grocery bags home.
Tons of other excellent drawings of super heroes as fat, middle aged men and women: Link - Thanks Haendel Dantas!
The Original ACME Catalog
Long before internet shopping, Wile E. Coyote got all his products via mail order from the ACME Catalog. ACME sold just about anything you’d ever need! You can take a look at the catalog yourself.
ACME is a worldwide leader of many manufactured goods. From its humble beginnings providing corks and flypaper to bug collectors (”Buddy’s Bug Hunt/1935″) to its heyday in the American Southwest supplying a certain coyote, from Ultimatum Dispatchers to Batman outfits, ACME has set the standard for excellence.
For the first time ever, information and pictures of all ACME products, specialty divisions, and services featured in Warner Bros. cartoons (made by the original studio from 1935 to 1964) are gathered here, in one convenient catalog. For more information about any ACME product, simply click on the thumbnail picture.
Link -via Dump Trumpet
World’s Worst Moms
Just in time for Mother’s Day, TIME magazine has the list of the Best and Worst (Fictional) Moms Ever. Of course, the "Best Mom" list is filled with all sort of wonderful (booring!) mothers, so let’s focus on the 10 Worst Moms Ever. For example, take the Mom from Futurama:
She’s the richest person on earth, so really, how nice could she be? At the dawn of the 31st century, Mom is the head of Momcorp — the massive industrial corporation that includes such highly successful subsidiaries as Mom’s Friendly Robot Co., Mom’s Friendly Drug Factories
and Mom’s Friendly Advanced Weapon & Munition Co. She maintains a friendly, nurturing public persona — she even does charity work for (in her words) "knocked-up teenage sluts" — but don’t be fooled. She’s not even really pleasantly plump! Under her fat suit she’s whippet-thin.Mom’s business tactics are ruthless — she holds trademarks on the words "Mom," "Love," and "Screen Door" — and her private life isn’t much better. She constantly abuses her three sons, Walt, Larry and Ignar, verbally and physically, who respond with fanatical adoration. And if you accept the Futurama comic books as part of the official Futurama canon, she even dated The Simpsons’ Mr. Burns. Ugh.
Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzation
Remember the know-it-all who ruined your Sunday morning cartoons by over-analyzing it? Well, he now got a blog:
Are there existential dilemmas in Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends? Does Brad Bird’s oeuvre contain creepy Objectivist subtext? Is there a Lorenzo Music/Bill Murray Ghostbusters-Garfield conspiracy? Were Paw Paw Bears simply evolved Snorks with a totemic religion? Or maybe Scooby and Shaggy, like, totally smoked weed, man. These and other questions require more than careful analysis. They demand over-analyzation.
With mind-boggling posts like A Freudian Analysis of Beavis and Butt-Head, The Secret Identity of Dr. Claw (I’d never have guessed!) and my favorite: Alchemical Symbolism in Smurfs, the Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations makes for some awesome reading!
Link - via MetaFilter
The 6 Creepiest Comic Book Characters of All Time
Not all comic book chracters are loveable or honorable, or even fathomable. The comics wouldn’t be interesting is they were! But some are so over the top, they’ve made Cracked’s list of the six creepiest. Pictured is a character called Inner Child from Doom Patrol. It’s not even number one! Link
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+SUThe Adventure of Yutaro, by Josef Lee
Ever since I ran across Josef Lee’s Museum of Modern Fiction (on Neatorama here), I’ve been looking forward to his new cartoon installments.
The latest one, the Adventure of the Man/Fish Yutaro, doesn’t disappoint. Josef’s nifty artwork is neat and the, um, mature storyline is genius!
First Drawing of Spider-Man Now at Library of Congress
The Library of Congress had just acquired the original 1962 drawings from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s "Amazing Fantasy #15" - complete with Ditko’s pencil erasures and white-out opaquing fluid - in which Spider-Man made its first appearance in print!
Matt Raymond of the Library of Congress Blog wrote:
People who are more familiar with Amazing Fantasy #15 than I are probably not surprised by this fact, but I got a good chuckle from the disclaimer that appeared at the top of the first page (pictured at left). It almost seems to be begging skeptical readers to give Spider-Man a chance, completely unaware of the phenomenon that was about to be unleashed on the world.
The excessively exclamatory paragraph reads: “Like costume heroes? Confidentially, we in the comic mag business refer to them as ‘long underwear characters’! And, as you know, they’re a dime a dozen! But, we think you may find our SPIDER-MAN just a bit … different!”
The good folks at the LOC promises to digitize the collection forthwith! Link - Thanks Matt!
Captain Capitalism on Why Saving is Bad for America
In this Flash comic "Piggy Bank Pinko", Captain Capitalism explains why it’s bad - heck, down right communistic - to save money.
Kid: Captain Capitalism! Wow! What are you doing here?
Captain Capitalism: I think the better question, son, is just what do you think you’re doing here?
Kid: Putting money in my piggybank …
CC: Cripping our nation by stagnating the economy and throwing us into another recession is more like it, commie!
Link | Check out more Captain Capitalism by Brad Graeber | Captain Capitalism Blog - Thanks Mangesh!
8 (Pointless) Laws All Comic Book Movies Follow
If you watch many of the big-budget superhero movies, you’ll begin to notice how many stylistic and plot devices they have in common, especially when there are sequels and more sequels. With millions of dollars on the line, Hollywood isn’t about to take any chances! If you haven’t seen that many of the movies, Cracked has a guide to the eight rules comic book movie series must follow. Link -via Digg
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUNeatorama on The Troll Show
W00t! The good folks at The Troll Show (Real News. By Real Trolls. Real Fast!) made a special clip just for Neatorama. It’s about this story of a Wal-Mart employee that went berserk … with a price gun! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
You can watch the entire show (#6, as well as the rest of the Troll shows) here: Link - Thanks Raul!
Subnormality Web Comic
If you like your web comic funny with a hip and wry edge, then head on over to Winston Rowntree’s (almost certainly not his real name!) Subnormality.
I spent half the morning perusing the archive (don’t miss: The Evolution of Alternative Music, If Hollywood was a Person, and The Home of Adolf Hitler, 1933: Doubt creeps in) and wholeheartedly agree with his homepage comic "The Crowd at a Rock Show" where he carefully divided a typical crowd watching a rock performance into 16 distinct subtypes!
Link - Thanks jon jason!
Dennis the Menace as the Fantastic Four by DocShaner
deviantArt member DocShaner, who drew "Charles Schulz’s Watchmen," has done it again! this time, he re-imagined Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace as the Fantastic Four: Link - via Super Punch
Savage Chicken: Do You Know What a Bat’leth Is?
Savage Chicken: Trekkie
1. Yes 2. No 3. Yes!
According to Klingon lore, the first Bat’leth was forged around 625 AD by Kahless, who "dropped a lock of his hair into the lava from the Kri’stak Volcano, then plunged the fiery lock into the lake of Lursor and twisted it to form a blade. After forging the weapon, he used it to defeat the tyrant Molor, and in doing so united the Klingon Homeworld. This first bat’leth was known as ‘The Sword of Kahless’" (Source)
For more Savage Chickens, visit Doug Savage’s website: Link - via Locusts & Honey
Citing Concerns for Kids, Venezuela Replaced The Simpsons with Baywatch
Venezuelan broadcasting regulator Conatel has forced The Simpsons off the air during the morning cartoon hours, calling it a bad influence on children, and replaced it with … Baywatch!
No. Really. Link
(The Simpsons are also causing controversy in another South American country, Argentina, when the show talked about Juan Perón)
Jessica Rabbit Untooned by Pixeloo
We’ve covered Pixeloo’s "untoon"-ing of cartoon characters before (basically turning cartoons into "real" people), but his latest creation is unreal. Here’s Jessica Rabbit "untooned": Link - Thanks Haendel Dantas!
Donald Duck Family Tree
The D.U.C.K.man, a website created by Sigvald Grøsfjeld jr. and dedicated to Donald Duck illustrator Don Rosa, has a neat scan of the Donald Duck Family Tree.
If you’ve ever wanted to know how Scrooge McDuck is related to "Dirty" Dingus McDuck, here’s your chance: Link - via AQFL
BTW, most Don Rosa comics have the letters D.U.C.K. (for Dedicated to Unca Carl from Keno) hidden somewhere in the first panel. This is because Disney does not allow personal signatures in the comics.
Project Excelsior 1968: Turning a Yearbook into Cartoons
In his project "Excelsior 1968", John Martz of Robot Johnny turned the photographs of every single person in his mother’s 1968 Toronto High School yearbook into cartoons:
Last year I redrew my mother’s entire high school yearbook from 1968—over a thousand heads. Good cartooning, to me, is all about simplification, and this was a fun experiment in distilling each person’s likeness down to a simple cartoon version and learning to draw efficiently, with both speed and as few details as possible.
Link: Flickr Gallery | You can also buy the project in book form - via Laughing Squid
Fleep Comic by Jason Shiga
Jason Shiga’s 2001 comic "Fleep" is about a boy who wakes up in a telephone booth that has been mysteriously encased in concrete. With only the content of his pockets (two pens, a paperback novel, three coins and 20 feet of unwaxed dental floss), our hero has to fashion an escape plan before he runs out of oxygen ….
Fleep is a geeky fun comic, featuring an exciting use of math, and with a dark twist at the end. Check it out: Link - Thanks sparge!
Turning Spam Into Cartoons
We’ve featured a lot of artists turning spam into art, but Özi of Oezicomix has a slightly different take on the matter: he’s turning ‘em into funny cartoons!
Little Nemo, the Miyazaki Version
Cartoon Brew blog has a clip of what the adaptation of Windsor McCay’s comic strip Little Nemo could have been like…
Here’s the test sequence, animated by the legend of anime Hayao Miyazaki and directed by Yoshifumi Kondo: Link [embedded YouTube] | Longer version at Google Video - Thanks John "Widgett" Robinson!
Self Image
(YouTube link)
From Creature Comforts. It just gets funnier as it goes. The last line is the best! -via Mookie
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUThe Best Bento Boxes EVAR: Mario and Homer Simpson
We’ve posted about cute Japanese bento boxes (their version of lunch boxes - who says Japanese people aren’t creative?) before on Neatorama, but these two are too cute to pass!
Behold, the Super Mario Bento Box - via Technabob, thanks Jimmy!
And the Homer Simpson Bento Box at Kasumin Yorosiku’s Blog:
7 Weird Superheros
OMG Lists details 7 Weird Superheros Who Won’t Ever Hit the Silver Screen (But Should). Would you believe Arm-Fall-Off-Boy, whose superpower is that he can pull one arm off with the other? Or the Chlorophyll Kid, who can stimulate plants to grow fast? These superheroes apparently appeared in some comic book somewhere, since there are panels, but no explanations of their origin are given. Link -via Digg
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUAl Jaffee’s MAD Magazine Fold-Ins
Image: DC Comics
The New York Times has a fantastic interactive gallery featuring Al Jaffee’s fold-ins for MAD magazine from the 1960s to the present.
This one above, titled "Who Wants to be President More Than Anything"
is from the June 1964 issue, with the captions of "Rich candidates Rockefeller and Goldwater would fight hard in any pre-convention debates, weakening unity, so nixing idea was best for party’s chances to beat Johnson." When folded, the unmistakeable image of Richard Nixon emerged (it would be another 4 years before Nixon did indeed become president).
Not to be missed: Link - via Gorilla Mask
(John) Calvin and (Thomas) Hobbes
Nina Matsumoto of Space Coyote (of the Simpsonzu fame, blogged on Neatorama here), made another fan art. This time, it’s her take of Bill Watterson’s classic comic Calvin and Hobbes:
Few historians know of the heartwarming friendship between French Reformation theologian John Calvin and English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the latter of whom may or may not have been real, considering he was not even born yet.
Print (and larger pic) available at deviantART: Link - via Locust & Honey
The Wolverine Blog
Gideon Boomer’s friend asked him to draw the X-Men character Wolverine, so he did. And now he can’t stop!
My friend Chuck made me draw Wolverine, so I did it and made him a mountain and an animal rights activist. One claw at the ready to slay those who would trespass upon his mammalian brotherhood. I guess it fixed or broke something in me cause now I can’t stop drawing Wolverine.
Here’s Gideon’s blog, documenting his one Wolverine a day journey: Link
King Kirby’s comic conspiracy
The above is a great example of collision between pop culture and conspiracy theories. An upcoming talk by Kenn Thomas, one of the more level-headed conspiracy theorists, looks at the links between a story written by comic book legend Jack Kirby, for the comic Race for the Moon, (above) and The Face on Mars - the story coming decades before the feature was discovered.
“When Steamshovel Press editor Kenn Thomas speaks on “JFK to UFO” at RetroCon, his prefatory remarks will concern “Jack Kirby, Conspiracy Theorist”. Thomas looks at the famous comic book artist’s interest in parapolitics as well as the possibilities that Kirby had back channel sources within the world of covert intelligence. Richard Hoagland speculated that the secret space program gave Kirby information leading to the artist’s 1958 comic book story, “The Face On Mars”–an anomaly that did not become part of the conspiracy lexicon until the Viking probe’s Cydonia photographs of 1976.
Thomas examines the history of this as well as Kirby’s prescient forecasts of American involvement in World War II and Vietnam; the use of conspiracy themes in his 1970s comics; and his documented involvement with a CIA rescue operation during the 1980 Iranian crisis.
How does central intelligence shape our view of conspiracies in the popular culture? “
Does this mean the CIA know we are about to be visited by 2,000 feet tall alien Gods? Or Devil Dinosaurs?
This has done the rounds for while, since Hoagland first suggested it, and I do hope there is more evidence to back this up, as the obvious problem with the theory is that the face is vertical, not horizontal. Still spooky though, but perhaps more a testament to Kirby’s vision and skills, as well as his massive output - some estimates suggest he produced 25,000 pages.
The Iranian crisis story mentioned can be found in a long article at Wired.
Via - Nick Redfern.
The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Explained with Cartoons
If you don’t understand a whit about what’s happening with the credit crisis and the whole subprime mortgage mess, here’s a primer - in cartoon form - at Joey deVilla’s Accordion Guy blog: Link
Or, if you’re literary and like readin’ words, the New York Times has a nice write up.
Raise your hand if you don’t quite understand this whole
financial crisis.It has been going on for seven months now, and many people probably feel as if they should understand it. But they don’t, not really. The part about the housing crash seems simple enough. With banks whispering sweet encouragement, people bought homes they couldn’t afford, and now they are falling behind on their mortgages.
But the overwhelming majority of homeowners are doing just fine. So how is it that a mess concentrated in one part of the mortgage business — subprime loans — has frozen the credit markets, sent stock
markets gyrating, caused the collapse of Bear Stearns, left the economy on the brink of the worst recession in a generation and forced the Federal Reserve to take its boldest action since the Depression?
Pulp Heroes: Comics with Pulp Magazine Style Covers
For its annual issues in 1997, DC Comics put pulp magazine (or pulp fiction) style illustrations as covers. They called the series "Pulp Heroes." (Sadly, this seems to be a one time only thing).
Super Punch blog has a neat collection of the various covers: Link
This one to the left is the Shadow of the Bat Annual No. 5, cover by Glen Orbik.
The Dangers of Teleportation (Watch Where You Beam Me Down, Scotty!)
I’ve been a big fan of See Mike Draw since I stumbled across his blog last year … Since then, he’s posted a lot of new comic panels (all funny … in a twisted way, of course!).
After staring at it for a few minutes, I finally "get" this cartoon (yes, I’m slow!). And before the avalanche of protest begins, Vulcans have green blood, but we’ll let that pass for now.
See more here: Link
