Shoe

I really love looking at early installments of long-running comics.

Here's an early "Shoe" strip by Jeff MacNelly. Published in June 3, 1979.

Reminder

Auction ends tonight. Also, I have other stuff for sale.

Original Comic Art for sale

I normally don't do this, but I'm in a need of some cash. So I'm selling some originals for American Paradise, a newspaper comic that I drew back in 2010. These strips were published in Tennessee papers.

They end in 3 days, so hurry if you want any. Listing's here.

"Two Guys on the Border" by Shunji Sonoyama

Shunji Sonoyama (1935-1993) was a Japanese cartoonist best known for First Human Gyatoruzu (Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu), a comic published Manga Sunday and other magazines from 1965 to 1975. It was turned into anime twice (one from the '70s by Tokyo Movie Shinsha and another from the '90s by Studio Pierrot). The 1970s anime is still being rerun in Japan to this day and was released on DVD.

Sonoyama also did other strips, including Ganbare Gonbe (1958-1992), Hana no Kakaricho (1969-1982), and Gatapishi (1979-1992). But one of the most unusual is probably this one, and I happened to have a copy of it.

It's called Kokkyo no Futari (Two Guys on the Border). It's a 32-page booklet that Sonoyama published himself in 1962. It's a series of one-panel cartoons featuring two guards on the opposing sides and their friendship. I took the liberty of scanning some of the pages below, along with the letter Sonoyama himself wrote (in English), signed and attached to the booklet.

Preview

A little something I'm working on.

Tintin continued

I thought I'd post more on the 1960s Tintin animation.

They were originally shown in cliffhanger format, where 5-minute segment would air every weekday, forming a complete storyline. Some later video releases edit them together into one large film.

The English version plays it off like a radio serial, complete with the narrator (Paul Frees) saying "Herge's Adventures of Tintin!" in booming voice at the start of every episode. I thought I share this, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, which was adapted into a mocap film recently by Steven Spielberg.

Dal McKennon, who frequently did voices for Walter Lantz, does Tintin and Professor Calculus. Paul Frees is Captain Haddock, Thomson and Thompson, as well as the narrator. The two men took turns voicing the villains and other side characters.

Interestingly they took liberties with the original storyline. For one, in the comics, Tintin didn't meet Calculus until Red Rackham's Treasure, but here they already knew each-other.

How anime is made

I know not everyone enjoys anime, but this should interest animation fans.

Ever wondered how anime is made? Well, this post gives a detailed explanation of the production pipeline and how the jobs are divided. Obviously it can vary depending on the studio (or even shows within the same studio), but for the most part it's the same.

As I pointed out before, in Japan the animation is inked and painted before voices are recorded. They must save alot of time and money not breaking down dialogues onto exposure sheets (trust me, it's a huge pain in the butt).

I wonder how many of us actually care about accurate lip sync in animation.

What would the state of western studios be like if they used a similar method domestically? Japanese cartoons are produced much quicker; supposedly it only takes one to three months to complete an episode (from script to final dubbing), as opposed to six-to-nine months on western shows.

Of course, cultural differences can be a big factor here. But still, it makes me think...

2012

I thought I'd welcome 2012 with this thing that I doodled, using Sharpie and orange highlighter.

That's Cow and Chicken's dad in the bottom left corner.