I DOOD IT FIRST

I invented the emoji in 1985, planning these as decals to go on letters. Took the idea around, found no takers. Sue who??

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY MILTON KNIGHT

BRADLEY FOR JUDGE

I was unaware of this, but the prosecutor that got my assailant put away for 3-6 years is running for Monroe County Judge (Bloomington, IN.). He has my vote & endorsement! https://www.bradley4judge.com/https://www.bradley4judge.com/

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I've learned through experience that taking comfort in "That couldn't happen" or "They wouldn't do that" means absolutely nothing.

WAAHHH...

Yeah, NOW they're tired of hearing about racism.

MAY 2020 PATREON BONUS!

The PDF Bonus for my Patreon Subscribers is out: Eight printable 600 dpi images from a scrapbook of sketches and drawings from the 1980s-90s! Come on and join the Jubilee!

https://www.patreon.com/miltonknighthttps://www.patreon.com/miltonknight

RAMBLINGS

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Damn, I wish I could go to a thrift store and then a restaurant.

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"Never mind him! Can't you see he's ugly?"

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Poor Paul. He got laid, but it hadn't been worth the trouble.


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How about Yoko Ono walking into a dress shop and hopping out in a sack?

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"I predicted this fiction."

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"Heathen!! Slut!! Naked under your clothing!! Oh, I know it. I've been watching you bathe!!"

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My kind of date wants to go to dinner and a THRIFT STORE.

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I'm so old I recall when burlesque was kitschy sexism.

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 "The story you are about to see may bore you..."

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ALL ABOUT NUDES

I envy artists like Gaston Lachaise. If I drew this it would just be "dirty".

In my experience, galleries today are horrified of nudes.

Since the general populace knows nothing of the "classical", all nudes mean now are sex & porn.

YEARNING

I miss cartoons about grown men. Everything today looks like poor dailies, Nickelodeon or anime.

DREAM GIRL DOODLES

If a girl says she wants you to paint her, don't agree too fast or she'll run.

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"Times change, people die."


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FOX News: A Reality You Can Jerk Off To.

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY MILTON KNIGHT

GOODBYE HELLO

I am taking down the ancient art site that began my online life over 11 years ago. Look while you can! www.miltonknight.net

 

 

PROMISES, PROMISES

"As Mayor of ToonTown, I promise you a gaping hole in every wall and a hole in every shoe."

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"The comics medium/industry/art, or whatever it chooses to be in this instance..."

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"His character's so full of holes, there's no good place to aim."

CHARACTER TIES

An illustration for a David Mruz apazine, GARAGE SALE, in 1978 (age 15).

I directed FELIX TV cartoons and did MIGHTY MOUSE comics in between. I tire myself.

AND THE MORAL IS...

I've read that Europeans weren't always pleased with Disney's penchant for neatly wrapping up the climaxes of fairy tale and fable adaptations. I read many years ago that one that was criticized was THE GRASSHOPPER & THE ANTS, in which the grasshopper's laziness was actually rewarded with a step up in life (being made Court Musician).

Friz Freleng sure caught that one in PORKY'S BEAR FACTS ("Working Can Wait..."). The gluttonous pig in PIGS IS PIGS didn't learn his lesson either. Another reason why I dig the other studios' stories more.

The Grasshopper's grim fate in Yasuji Murata's TWO WORLDS (1929)

 In LA CIGALE ET LA FOURMI - di Lortac e Landelle (1922). 

Certainly the story was taken more seriously as an allegory where starvation was a more immediate threat. 

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Kids' kartoon of today: "I'm okay just being myself! I don't *HAVE* to be super strong!!"

The difference between "cartoons" and "childrens' programming".

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WORDS 'N' PICTURES

I don't see enough (any) art that says "f--k the trends."

Following trends doesn't pay what it used to. Hasn't anyone noticed?

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"Hurry hurry, Folks. Can't tell one groundbreaker from another without a critic."

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A valuable tip an animator gave me was to always draw your characters doing something, not just stuck in a "here I am" pose.
What is your character? Never mind the audience. What does the character do?
Not posing. Doing an activity. And *not* kung fu fighting, for God's sake. That's so old it has whiskers.

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COPYRIGHT 2020 BY MILTON KNIGHT 

RANDOMLY YOURS

A valuable tip an animator gave me was to always draw your characters doing something, not just stuck in a "here I am" pose.

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COPYRIGHT 2020 by MILTON KINGHT

MISADVENTURES IN COMICS

Three pages I pencilled, and only pencilled, that appeared in HEATHCLIFF #52 in 1990. A drawing from one made it onto the column page as well!

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A comics idea I marketed in the late 80s.

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A section of a comic I had drawn and sent copies of privately, about 1998.My studio work was slowing to its dead halt, and I was at a low point.

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My polite, noncommittal kiss-off from Eisner once upon a time.

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY MILTON KNIGHT

 

'NUF SAID

"That's not funny, it's ugly."

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"Catherine Zeta Jones?? She must be over a hunnrit!"
"She's seven years younger than you."
"Oh. Well, I've got an excuse. I'm nobody."

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I miss the days when one beer made me fall down. It didn't last long.

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"She's great! She'll lay 'em in the aisles!!"

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Batman:

"It's alright. I'll sing as I kill you. You like Dan Fogelburg?"

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I saw an old movie trailer that showed two women sitting on a couch talking while the narrator went on about "the hazy purple twilight underbelly that only the bold dare whisper about."

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I was at a bookstore today and saw quite a few graphic novel covers with characters dead center facing the camera with hopeless looks on their faces.
Yek.

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"Uh-huh. And ME."
"WHUT???"

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(English voice): "Podden me, m'girl! I lost control o'me bowels!"

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THOUGHTS AND PICTURE

"Alright, my lad! You will win your Lady Love! But then you must give your soul to Eternal HELLLL-L!!"
"Oh, yeah, I'll do it! The sex will be worth it!!"
"You're really pathetic, you know that?"

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There is a live TV clip of a Brit comedian, Tommy Cooper, dying onstage that is perpetually posted and deleted online. He is doing a magic act, wearing his trademark fez, and going over well. Then he gets a blank look and collapses. Obviously unprepared, the orchestra goes into finale music, the audience applauds, and they cut to a commercial. I can't help but contemplate "What a lovely death."

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I hated it when comic people would talk to me about my work with matter-of-fact voices and then drop to hushed, reverent tones when referring to someone else's.

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"All that maketh not a witch."

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My inner child has left the building, toting a bindlestick.

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"This is easier than kicking babies!"

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Spanky stayed with OUR GANG for ten years (1932-1942), and he seemed to be getting pretty angry by the end. Buckwheat was there for the same number of years (1934-1944, the series' end). He matured to change from his unique baby talk to a standard "yo' sho'" dialect, which I'm sure MGM encouraged.

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WORDS, JUST WORDS

Friz Freleng disparagingly referred to the superhero/adventure animation his studio was forced to do as the "musclehead shows".

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Disney entertainment speaks to me as an uncle would, and the best from other studios speak to me as a friend. The same went in live action: MGM was an "uncle", Warners was a "pssst...hey!!" friend. Most audiences prefer entertainment from their uncles, and pay big money for it now as much as ever.
Terry entertainment was from your passive, neglectful guardian.
Fleischer owned the candy store.
Bakshi was the stranger in the alley on your way home.

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Fans that want to suggest that the Fleischer cartoons were "less racist" because of the jazz and Cab Calloway aren't looking very hard. It gets worse, but what about Louis Armstrong himself dropped into the role of a frightening head cannibal?
The GLAD THAT YOU'RE DEAD thing was probably the song "innocently" inspiring the imagery, without considering the wellspring. Ingrained, "normal" thoughts. Armstrong's voice suggests a humorous threat, and even a white with the same voice would have translated into a Fleischer menace.
Also, seeing his various other screen appearances, Armstrong did not have a major problem with such roles. Calloway was handsome, sophisticated and "white enough" so that being a "darkest Africa" cannibal would have been forced (not that they wouldn't have tried it anyway). Amazing to me is the case of The Mills Bros., who had a race specification in only one Fleischer cartoon, and that was a "cheater" that they were no longer involved in using an old soundtrack.

I got rid of my LITTLE RASCALS tapes once I fully admitted I was spending half the time waiting for them to get the color gag out of the way.

 

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They still smeared about in muddle headed sex on occasion, but spent the rest of their evenings in silence.

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I felt myself freed after the COVID news broke out and realized that as people of *all* skin colors die, the potus was still going to blubber his non-sequitirs, the media would continue to air them in its deadpan fashion, and give a part of the population a reason to believe it was all business as usual. That's when I broke from the chains of human race.

TOO MANY THOUGHTS

"A man believes the cliches he chooses to believe, Comrade."

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"Okay, men! Open fire on those evil people. Oh, there are good people in there too, so be careful."

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I dreamed I saw a 40s Noir picture with Ray Milland as a 'decent guy' whose book happened to be a runaway best seller on the lam on New York's city streets. He ducks into his apartment to grab a few essentials but is greeted by a loud surprise cocktail party organized to celebrate his new found success. A drink is shoved into his hand. As the attentions of his friends and hangers-on drift, he sits in a chair isolated amidst the revelry. The cocktail piano and murmur of the crowd dissolve into near-theremin tension music. The camera slowly zooms into his perspiring face, his staring eyes, as the music swells. He suddenly hurls his glass across the room, shattering it in a corner. The crowd gapes in silence. "Why, Steve old boy...?"

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Why is the male fantasy of "having your ass kicked by a girl" so wholly assumed and accepted (and, in fact, expected) in mainstream society while so many others are "sick and twisted"? I believe the violence makes it less threatening!! Social Distancing Rides Again!!

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"Just do a graphic novel and the world will beat a path to your door."

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A tip from a lesson I just gave:
"...the outline of her fist & face join together precisely together, forming what is called a TANGENT. Either keep sections clear of each other or make them overlap. Tangents remind us of what they are in reality: Lines on a flat sheet of paper."
Lessons are $35 per subject!

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Both SIMPSONS and TINY TOONS have "made fun" of animation slave labor practices. See? We can laugh at ourselves.

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People used to not believe me when I told them Disney sends work overseas. They still imagined the studio as the nurturing place where Walt Disney huddled over the Moviola with Bill Tytla. But I think the belief in that kind of "magic" wore out years ago, even for civilians.

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In the early 90s people would say "Why don't you just get a contract with FOX?" Oh, yeah, they were just tearin' off contracts like sheets of toilet paper.

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Yours truly about animation history before the book OF MICE & MAGIC by Leonard Maltin:
"Iwerks was only known as a Disney special effects whiz who had made the tragic mistake of straying from the flock at a moral low point.
All the 30s & 40s guys were mere bushwhackers that cleared the path for the Nine Old Men."

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Me on Jim Tyer's posthumous rockstar status: "Frankly, I think they're too glib about it now. It's hip to drop his name. Shallow and annoying. Bakshi complained that the vocal fans are going for only the sloppiest, most "retarded" stuff: "What they post and say is the *best* of Jim Tyer is da WOIST of Jim Tyer!!" I agree with him.

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50s rock 'n roll: "Yeah, I seen you last night with a Catholic priest/A'fingering his rosary like a wilderbeest."

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It was painful having to pretend to like popular music so I could get laid.

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WHAT'S IT SAYING?

By Gabriele Münter, 1877-1962. I used to assume that people who run galleries had at least a minimal interest in art history, which they don't. The clueless one I was with in Pasadena would have insisted on labeling this "illustration" because of the black lines. Over a century later, "art people" can still get like deer in the headlights encountering such paintings.

I don't see expressionism in much art or any cartoons now, in which the techniques render emotion. Now it's all about 'getting it right'. Because they're scared.

The idea comes first. Brush sizes & conditions are chosen to communicate that idea, whether it takes black ink or a wall brush. Too much art lacks the conviction of an idea, so the results, pure technique, are often weak.

Too much art today is about "getting it right" and not saying a damned thing.

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When I grew up, the only animators worthy of "study" or individual attention were The Nine Old Men.

   

THEY

"They're lazy.
They're takin' our jobs away.
They're lazy."

CURMUDGEON

I don't see why acknowledging a world that simply exists is seen in negative terms as being a "curmudgeon". I consider myself a "Truthster".

MERRIE MELODY

A few of us discussed songs originating in interpretations of African Americans that were later dropped. When Bugs sang "My goil is a first class stepper", he was doing a modernized version of:

"My gal is a high born lady
She's black but not too shady
Feathered like a peacock, just as gay,
She is not colored, she was born that way,
I'm proud of my black Venus,
No coon can come between us
'Long the line they can't out shine this high born gal of mine."

MORE

As far as inking is concerned, I feel more akin with Asian painting than the American standards.

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I remember what happened when I had cable. I'd keep watching a show to see how much more awful it could possibly get.

Sorry to be unsympathetic, but I can't get paying money and tolerating 6 minute long commercial breaks. Entertainment today is the world's hugest ripoff, and people just go with it, gladly handing over their bucks so a minority of people can live like royalty.

Even in the 80s I knew TV was a white noise to be had on while you did things about the house. With their constant, constant reminders of the network you've got on. They set a lifestyle to never change the dial from.

In the 80s, a bumper sticker read "HOLLYWOOD THINKS YOU'RE AN IDIOT."  

THOUGHTS

I'm getting so crabby. A watch party showed a 50s adventure with so much talk about "ignorant natives" I had to leave. In my youth, I would have said "that's the way things were".

Guess I threw cold water on that one. I'm not dictating what they can show, but I don't have to stay and watch it.

As if Anglos are never ignorant. If one can't understand a language, that doesn't make it "gibberish".

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Guardians of Their Own Ignorance.

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Breaking News: Kroger's had THREE CUBES of tofu today!!!

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Package I sent out today. I ain't gon' no no work for NOBODY the next few days! Mmmmm-MMMMMH!!

  

 

FINISHED!

Completed piece, all varnished 'n' stuff today!

 

I keep forgetting this is the "upside down" view.

 

 

 Wanna commission? You can get one!

Love Ya,
MK

HERE I COME TO GET WEBBED BY SPIDERS

Completing a commissioned painting from one of my Marvel covers. Too bad I have to turn it 'right side up'.

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One thing about the 1950s Sci-fi films is that they are the most stridently male chauvinistic films of the period. There's always a male scientist saying to a female scientist as he lights his pipe, "Well, I prefer my women in diapers" or the like. They are feminist (female scientists) and rock bottom sexist simultaneously. It's proud & blatant maintenance of the world order.

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Is something wrong when we consider the likes of BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS and THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! as movies worthy of studies & box sets? Is it because the media is presently so creatively bankrupt that they look like favorable choices for the intelligent among us?

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You've seen this before, but the owner took a clearer picture than I ever did.

Best,
Milt

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY MILTON KNIGHT