Page from A NARROW ESCAPE, a Lord Dunsany adaptation for Graphic Classics.

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Recording onto disc now. Fabulous "movie jazz".

I am reading The Furry Freak Bros. again in the complete edition reprint book. Such a sense of fun that's since become illegal in comics. Real, vibrant humor. Shelton's a real pro.

'Bye for now,
Milt

By Jay Jackson, a black cartoonist.

I am angered by the news. That is all I can say without spreading the hate myself.

GENII YOUNG

One of the most classically beautiful strippers. (Courtesy of Something Weird Video.)

The video itself.

A hearty handclasp, MK

FILLING FRAMES WITH STRIPPERS

An acquaintance I owed a favor to gave me this frame holder and asked me to fill it. So I did.

And now, an adult version of an old favorite, "The Castration of Strawberry Roan", an after-hours recording tentatively credited to Dick Foran and The Sons of The Pioneers.

'Bye, all! Milt

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

BLUTO'S FAMOUS LAUGH

I spliced this together myself...

MY MUSIC

I HEARD-HUGO WINTERHALTER

Different from Don Redman's classic version, this one is just as infectious, given a unique sound by Hugo Winterhalter's double-sized Dixieland group.

SINGING A HAPPY SONG-ENRIC MADUIGUERA

Peppy, catchy instrumental that rather reminds me of a backup to Popeye's antics. A 1950s reissue LP of earlier 'high tone' dance orchestras.

COMING AT MIDNITE...

Wednesday, August 13th on cartoonresearch.com: My article, SUPERKATT: HIS STORY!

RESEARCH!

THREE TERRYTOONS

I posted these the other day on YouTube:

1950 was possibly the high point of loopy Terrytoons animation. This one puts a novel twist on the Tom & Jerry “kill the romance” plot. Very overstated, wild animation by all.

This rare later Gandy has him as “the new sheriff”. Many gags are pale echoes of Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam encounters, but the crazy animation and satisfying climax may make it worth your while.

I don't hang on to many things I loved as a child, but this is forever. The virtues of Jim Tyer's shootout need not be stated, and I was especially wowed by the bizarre surprise in Carlo Vinci's "gun matching" scene.
As a kid, before home videos, I had to keep memories of this one in my head through the school day so I could attempt to reproduce the "feel" in still drawings at home. Animation like this is not just made up of "funny" and "cool" drawings; it has to be expertly timed to "read" at all. They all knew their stuff (not just the "stars" of the studio).

Enjoy, Milt!

COMICS ARE NO FUN

I hope my FB friend, Al, won't mind, but I am quoting myself from a little "talk" we had today:

I like joy, anger, and physical, human feeling in art. In comics, I see that diminished by Spiegelman & Fantagraphics' influence, and am angry about it.

I'm reading some early Tezuka now, and THAT is work I like. Unafraid of being earnest to the point of "uncool".

It's my first time reading his comics at length. They have a sense of fancy and sincerity discouraged in current fare.

I mean, I'm tired of hipsters desolate over their coffee mugs, "above it all".

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

LATEST EDITION

Regarding CLR James: Ye editor says not to lose heart, the book will be published. I dam sure hope so!

Below, another sequence from my CLR James 'graphic novel' (comic, dammit!). James at age 8 in Trinidad.

Yrs, MK

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

FOILED AGAIN

The project I’ve been working on since Fall last year is less than likely to see print. The history of CLR James, 20th century Trinidadian social activist, is not a subject I would have chosen myself. It was presented to me by an editor who said it had a publisher and that it was a “done deal”. It wasn’t, and once the months of (paid) labor were presented, the publisher passed on it. They have committed themselves to too many ‘graphic novel’ projects as it is. (I have my doubts about the legitimacy of the “graphic novel revolution’, but will go into that another time.)

Since the humor element of comics has been supplanted by strivings for Art and Education (‘humor’, ‘comics’, how’s that for irony?), I hoped that this book might break one or two glass ceilings for me, and also hoped that the book would serve a more noble purpose: to use a cartoon style to present images of blacks in new, constructive, even heroic roles. I wanted to make a book that would make kids’ eyes pop and would inspire wonder and interest to those of all ages, especially those who normally avoid the majority of stodgy graphic textbooks. A sort of ‘learning by accident’.

Since, as I said, the book is less than likely to see print, I feel less beholden to keep it a secret. Here’s a sequence summarizing CLR James’ play, TOUSSAINT L’OVERTURE, about the former slave who led his fellow Haitians to freedom. Paul Robeson created the leading role, and it is he who plays it here. (Note: Haiti was under French rule at the time, 1791, and renamed San Domingo. The blacks had been officially freed, but the conditions of life remained the same.)

Yrs, MK

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

NOTION

Tired of 'awesome' art that isn't ABOUT anything.

This is a 'Golden Age' of polished artists; the schools are spewing out more than ever before. But most of them are high on polish and low on actual ideas. There is nothing there besides being 'awesome'. And to see every country going this way is depressing to me. No more styles unique to their countries. Just one big, highly polished lump.

SLAUGHTER THE EVIL

Today's my first day seeing Tod Slaughter, England's drooling, cackling poverty row horror star. These broad melodramas are like staged spook shows. Even Ed Wood said they were bad (but loved them). Three finales here.

HAPPY 4th!

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

CANINE/FELINE CLASSICS!

Now out: another in the GRAPHIC CLASSICS line of paperbacks; CANINE/FELINE CLASSICS features a whole heap of vital cartoonists bringing pet-oriented literature to life in full color. (Happy to say I have two pages therein.)

Now available from the publisher at only $15. http://graphicclassics.com/

HOW PLIMPS AND PLUMPS FOOLED THE DETECTIVE

Odd German cut out animation from about 1912. I believe the full title is HOW PLIMPS AND PLUMPS FOOLED THE DETECTIVE. http://youtu.be/8ZlFUSSC8IA

HI-YO SILVER!

A punchy pop song about The Lone Ranger. Dick Robertson & his Orchestra.

MOSCOW LAUGHS

One of my favorite pieces of musical film. Opening number of JOLLY FELLOWS or MOSCOW LAUGHS;1934, USSR. Cleverly cut to approximate a five minute continuous pan across the countryside. That the director (Grigori Aleksandrov) was inspired by... SILLY SYMPHONIES is apparent. The singer is Leonid Utyosov, one of the few Russian jazz bandleaders of the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzLpRUSPsoM&list=PLivNtQ6CpGkiYt20o3FjhdLz8NVuFaxJB&feature=share&index=20

BEGGING

Now guys are hanging out in gas stations begging money for their film projects! I had to tell him "NO" three times in increasing volume, as in a cartoon. "Buy my comic!" "Buy my CD!" "Finance my film!" Begging is becoming a way of life in the USA. Something is wrong.

TALE WITHOUT AN ENDING

When I was a kid, I wrote a long, unfinished story in a blank book. In a chapter of it, a kid (actually a prince) lands in a cave. A fat caveman wipes the pig's feet grease from his lips, gets up from his TV, and walks up menacingly to the kid, yelling, "What the hell is this piece of chickenshit doing in my goddamn house?" His wife lamely protests, "What language!" The caveman bites her ass off, and throws her to the dogs in the back. She made a good rubber bone.
Father & Mother, get it?

BTW; a beautiful girl showed up and killed the caveman by slicing him into pieces.

LET'S DRINK TO THE FUTURE!

Lloyd Keating (really Ben Selvin) & his Orchestra!

PANEL

From my in-progress CLR James book.

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

WHEN I'M GONE...

When I know I am going to die, I will have my originals burned. No one will be able to lavish the praise (and cash) on me in death that the various Big Daddy Roth imitators are receiving during their lifetimes.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

A contest: DRAW YOUR FAVORITE BOHEMIAN AND WIN BIG PRIZES! From Verso Books, publishers of a book I'm in, BOHEMIANS. Good Luck! http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1622-we-re-giving-away-2-posters-with-illustrations-from-bohemians-a-graphic-history-and-two-copies-of-the-book

SKETCHES

QUOTE

Ralph Bakshi on my more recent work: "Well, from it, I can see you know a lot more about the world. You know what life is. I dunno if I like that."

Yrs, MK

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

ANTHOLOGIES

A few anthology books I'm proud to have taken a small part in recently:

 BOHEMIANS: A century of counter culture edited by Paul Buhle and rendered by a sparkling array of comic artists. Available from Verso Books.

Panels from "'Stretch' Johnson, my five page contribution to BOHEMIANS.

MOLASSES: Some very funny stuff here, engaging, new, and classic, too. Cover artist and editor, the enterprising Jason Payne. Available this September. Click HERE for previews.

Panels from "Blackbird Pie", my two page strip in MOLASSES.

APUCKALYPSE: Cartoonists from all parts of the globe given one page each to share their visions of the end time. In both English and Italian editions, both rocking with rueful laughter. Here, check out their Facebook page.



From my page in APUCKALYPSE.

Today's song: "My Canary has Circles Under his Eyes", a robust bouncer from England's Debroy Somers.

Yrs, MK



MOOD MUSIC FOR MILTON

One of th' good ol' favorites, HEARTS & FLOWERS.

Snazzy li'l tune...YOU DON'T LIKE IT (Not Much)

SEVEN YEARS WITH THE WRONG WOMAN

The humor in this song's a little bitter...

(Top image courtesy of Diane Wanek.)

THOUGHTS...FROM MY BRAIN. A-HYUK!

An acquaintance, working on storyboard correction at one of the studios, is being exhausted working overtime for no pay. I mean, no hourly rate. No pay at all. It can go on 'til 10 pm. He is the second person in our little group to be in this situation. The studios know you'll be jobless if you don't comply. It's become the normal situation. All the studios are doing it. The union does nothing.

***

TOO FEW BOOKSHOPS, TOO MANY NAIL SALONS!!

Yrs, MK

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

THE GOOD OL' BUMP 'N' GRIND

My YouTube playlist of naughty burlesque-type antics from the 1940s and 50s, and a few from the 1960s and '70s, too.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1uoHbzYQbsX-SxzxyLDhmk2xOxjwuim1&feature=mh_lolz

Happy Lechery!-MK

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

THOUGHTS ON CARTOONING CRAFT

There was a SUPER RABBIT comic book (Marvel, 1940s) in which the hero saves a pig from jumping off a bridge, giving him $100 so he can "start anew". I like that better than the "heroes" of today who think of nothing but massaging their egos by killing each other.

***

Thunderbean Animation has unearthed another "lost" animated artifact:

http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/lost-ted-eshbaugh-film-sammy-salvage-1943/

It's a little wonky (which I love), but I noticed as soon as it began that every detail is a work of art, filling the screen with an endless, ripe lushness. If I were growing up with today's fare, I might not even want to BE a cartoonist.

JIM TYER POLKA

Selected artworks I've assembled as a tribute to animation and comic book giant, Jim Tyer. http://youtu.be/8mnyzWRe024

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

THE AWFUL TRUTH

A telling sequence from African American director/producer Oscar Micheaux's film WITHIN OUR GATES (1920).

EXPERT TIMING

My concept of an animation timing sheet at age 13. (1975)

Yrs, MK

A SPLASH OF GRAPHIC CLASSICS

Yrs, MK

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

MY MEMORIAL DAY GIFT

WITHIN OUR GATES (1920), an early movie by Oscar Micheaux, pioneering African-American filmmaker, directing a multi-racial cast. The film has the usual Micheaux quirks (the lighter the skin, the more trustworthy the black), but I find the film to be sincere, and sometimes painfully honest concerning race relations. For those who crave fast action, the lynching/rape sequences (in answer to BIRTH OF A NATION, no doubt) are in the latter third of the film.

YUMMY MUSIC, YUMMY DANCER

A HARLEM TORCH

American song, Danish jazz.

INTERVIEW ON ARTS & EROTICA

A journalist conducted this interview with me (by email) in the spring of '02 for an art magazine that seems to have disappeared. A shame to let it rot...so I've brought it to you myself.

What is it about erotic art that compels you to create it?
MK:I simply see sexuality as something so human, so grotesque and ripe for satirization, that I  cannot help but be attracted to it as a subject for my art.

What qualifies as erotic art, something titillating, sexually arousing, voyeuristic? Political?

MK: For me, it is a successful use of the artist's tools (color and the paint mediums) to approximate the feelings before, during or after coitus. Willem De Kooning said that "oil paint was made for painting the nude". I use acrylics when I paint, and, like oil, it is ideal for my own rough, expressionistic expression of sensuality. The female form especially is slammed onto the canvas with heavy slashes of paint, sometimes of fairly decayed-looking hues. The action of the woman's body and the thoughts of the individual's brain are what I attempt to capture (in the spirit of the Ukiyo-e artists) ; in the paintings of strippers, there is even a sadism. Romanticization is almost non-existent. I would say that, for myself, eroticism springs just as much from the evocative emotions of the subjects as anything else. Just showing a couple f---ing won't do it.

Am I off the track here, perhaps erotic art has nothing to do with sexuality, but stripping the human form back to something real, something raw, honest and or candid?

MK: This is getting very close to it for me. The words 'eroticism' and 'sexuality' can connote idealization, but, as stated previously, I work to attain what may be percieved as the opposite; a representation of humanity that is satirical, full of bile, yet humanistic. Not terribly easy to do.

Is erotica directly related to our sexuality or can it be an androgynous commodity?

MK: I suppose in our hip, cynical, yet dewy-eyed society, it can be, but that doesn't interest me in the least. Any sort of sexual art will be sexist, because a man or woman created it. To me, politically correct eroticism, taking all pains not to offend, and attempting to see a situation from all possible sides, is condescending. Such attempts cheat the audience of an experience it should be allowed to rightfully enjoy...or not enjoy.

Who are some artists/ periods of history in which erotic art appealed/ inspired you?

MK: There are many. As stated, Japan's 'floating world' print artists of the late nineteenth century, particularly Yoshitoshi; the Australian Norman Lindsay, famous for his prints and paintings of lush classically derived nudes of the first sixty years of the last century; the popular Tamara De Lempicka and other European artists of 'Art Moderne' sexuality of the 1920s & 1930s. Such Russian painters as V. Lyapkalo are celebrating with new, freely painted, delightfully carnal-looking nudes.

What doesn't qualify as erotic art?

MK: Pin-up paintings can be classified as at least using eroticism, but to me they do not qualify as erotic art because they reflect so little of a human experience. They are genre paintings, meant to deliver certain proscribed messages with a proscribed number of gimmicks. Individualized techniques are rare; in this regard, Earl Moran and Zoe Mozert were standouts. Moran's women seemed franker and fleshier.

Is painting as strong a medium as photography in this realm?

MK: A photograph can be manipulated in wondrous ways by the photographer, but the result will always be a manipulated photograph. In this way, the painter, starting off fresher and owing to no one but himself, has an advantage; he is the presenter of the theater of his own mind. But the erotic painter takes risks that the photographer is safe from. Viewers will agree at least on the 'sexiness' of a given photo; staying within certain perimiters, the photographer cannot help but be pleasing to the visual vocabulary we have built up; he is, after all, working in a different kind of partnership with God's handiwork. Painted art is so subjective! Techniques and styles will not translate to everyone, and if a viewer doesn't dig the approach, he may remain blind to whatever message the artist is working to convey. No painter can be 'erotic' to all.

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

THOUGHTS

Only in LA: I drove into the driveway of a church and got caught in the snarl of a movie shoot. A kind movie shooter guided me backing out.

***

"Fine Art" ruined my profession. Nowadays comic artists get kicks playing the starving artist (usually subsidized by their parents). See, I've been working since the 1980s. I'm old enough to miss the days of publishers NEEDING content and my being able to negotiate a proper price. I entered comics partially to express myself, but also because it was a JOB.

***

My problem is, I think the sex in my work is as happy and innocent as nature itself. Certainly not as sick as the "mainstream" image of Commissioner Gordon tied up naked.

Yrs, MK

MISTER WOLF

1949 Soviet razz at capitalist greed. I'm by no means "on their side", and am well aware of Stalin's crimes against humanity, but the points made in this relic are possibly more relevant than ever.

Yrs, MK

BEHIND THE IRON CUR-TOON

I don't know when or why I started recognizing certain cartoons as Russian ones. I don't recall being exposed to them often on TV. But their polished appearance, characters who, to me, seemed extremely realistic at the time, and the strange, almost "backward" timing let me know what I was seeing in seconds. Thanks to You Tube and Dailymotion, the films from the 1940s and '50s are easy to see; too bad most of them are the Most Boring Films on Earth.

It's the animation for adults that tend to offer real surprises, but there are gems among the childrens' films as well. Here's one that made a big, BIG impression on me as a youngster when I saw it dubbed in English in a department store "kiddie theater". The signs in that version were crossed out on the film, frame-by-frame (occasionally revealed), which was just as impressive...and mysterious.

Yrs, MK

THOUGHT

Today seems less of an end of civilization when you study world history.

***

On a brighter note, Rita Rio's Orchestra with Alan Ladd:

Yrs, Milt

TWO MORE RECORDS

"Nice People", a snappy song about living the best one can under financial duress. Played by Joe Loss' band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7FbhCJp_NM&feature=share&list=PL1uoHbzYQbsUHX4tkkTBuBJ5DD72NGoT6&index=191

Henry Hudson, another British aggregation, gives us "Today I Feel So Happy".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzkRb6WDlsM&list=PL1uoHbzYQbsUHX4tkkTBuBJ5DD72NGoT6&feature=share&index=196

A FAVORITE RECORD

1929; Ted Weems & his Orchestra beautifully play "Washing Dishes with my Sweetie at the Kitchen Sink". The band that laughs out loud!!

THOUGHT

I feel less apt to post new pics on the web now. Free samples lead most people to expect...more free samples.

PNEUMONIAC THOUGHTS

Strange part of cold/pneumonia is its start; when all my tasks are laid out in front of me, but look uncontrollable and don't know why. ("Why can't I think??") Waking up the next day with "hair hurt" is just as bad.

Just documenting the sensations while I still recall them.

ROAD TO RECOVERY, H'I SAY

Feeling better. Able to stand, walk & sit upright without buckling for the first time in 2 wks.

FEELING BETTER, I HOPE

I was losing faith in the antibiotics the doctor prescribed me, but for the first time in weeks, my cough has stopped and it's not so hard to get out of bed. I hope it lasts. Thanks to those who've sent their best wishes.