ECC Cartoonbooks Club

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Mordillo versus the city of Zhuzhou

Last week I saw this picture in the newspaper. It's in the city of Zhuzhou in China and it made me think immediately at some of Mordillo's cartoons with skyscraper and roof top scenery.

I looked in this three Mordillo books, and I found

some nice cartoons:

Mordillo, many many years ago

Burj al Arab, some time ago...

Mordillo, many many years ago

Burj al Arab, some time ago...

The conclusion is that the ideas in the cartoons of Mordillo weren't as crazy as we might think. What to think about urban farming? On the internet I've found many pictures of agriculture on roof tops and rooftop farms.
Yes, Mordillo was predicting the future in his cartoons.

Learn more:
Mordillo on our blog.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Augmented Reality: a dream for cartoonists?

Our readers know we like great 'old fashioned' cartoon books here on our blog. But as you've noticed in our previous post about the Animated St. Trinian's, and maybe in some older posts, sometimes cartoons are transformed in... cartoons (animated cartoons). Animated cartooning is another discipline in the cartoon world and of course I do appreciate the work.

Here are some examples of cartoonists of whose cartoons were made animated cartoons. Click on the cartoonist's name to see some of their original cartoon work.

Guillermo Mordillo:

In the pipeline: Ronald Searle

Chas Addams:

Quino:

I saw a beautiful and inspiring modern high tech approach of "cartooning" in a TED Talk video clip by Marco Tempest. Marco Tempest isn't a cartoonist: he's a magician and illusionist! His clips are inspiring and are a beautiful example a man's creativity.

I "discovered" Marco Tempest accidentally via the TED app on my new HD TV.

Here you can find some other inspiring clips using 'augmented reality' (TED Talks - Marco Tempest)

Learn more:
www.marcotempest.com

New Ronald Searle Blog: The Animated St. Trinian's

Ronald Searle fans can now join the brand new Animated St.Trinian's Blog run by Matt Jones and Uli Meyer. Learn all about the animated film that is in the pipeline...

The Animated St. Trinian's blog

Learn more:
Ronald Searle on our blog

Monday, August 6, 2012

Random Dogs by Richard Stine

On this blog I already introduced some cartoon books about cats. Now it's the dog's turn.

A time ago I found "Random Dogs" by Richard Stine (Dell Publishing, New York, 1977, ISBN 0-440-57260-6) in a second hand book shop. I tried to find some information about the artist and the site I found is www.richardstine.com (under construction).

Some more art of Richard Stine is on Imagekind.com.

Armored dog by Richard Stine

Dog in Disguise by Richard Stine

Jonathan Livingston Dog by Richard Stine

Supported Dog by Richard Stine

War dog by Richard Stine

Learn more:
www.richardstine.com
ECC Cartoonbooks Club: Catch 'n' scratch... a cartoon book for... cats
ECC Cartoonbooks Club: Morbid fun with cats and rabbits - Skip Morrow and Andy Riley

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Olympic Humor cartoons by Blachon and Serre

The Olympic Games 2012 in London are 100% English, but the cartoon books below are draw by 100% French cartoonists.

If humor was an olympic discipline, the French Roger Blachon (1941-2008) and Claude Serre (1938-1998) would certainly have earned gold medals.

Roger Blachon was one of the greatest sport cartoonists ever... enjoy some cartoons of him to come into the spirit of the olympic games... (Mehr Spass Beim Sport, Eichborn, 1992, ISBN 3-8218-2118-3/ and Dessins Sportifs Tome1 , Glénat Humour, 2002, ISBN 2-7234-4035-4)

The cartoon above is the first cartoon of Blachon published in 1985 in 'l Equipe Magazine. He got some bad reactions such as 'I find your sence of humor not funny at all' and 'it's scandalous to publish such a drawing in an interesting magazine...>'

Of course, we cartoon lovers, know better...

In 'Le Sport', (Glénat, 1977, ISBN 2-7234-0071-9) Claude Serre, drew some other great sports cartoons...

Of course, the Belgian cartoonists must not be forgotten. Please read the article on the ECC blog about Olympic cartoons in the Belgian House at het 2012 Olympics in London.
You can admire some great cartoons by Cost, Jan Dufour, Nicola Hendrickx, etc...

Learn more:
Roger Blachon on our blog + links
Claude Serre on our blog + links
London 2012 – Olympic cartoons in the Belgium house

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Cartoon book exhibition

In September our local library is putting the cartoon in the picture. There will be an exhibition of drawings by Karl Meersman and I was asked to present some cartoon books to the public. The big task is to choose which books I'll put in the exhibition. The place is limited, and the book selection will be tough.

The idea of promoting cartoons in libraries is fine. In Flanders (Belgium) where I live most local libraries have were high quality standards,especially of course the library of Wevelgem ;-) ... and Kruishoutem.

I'm curious how cartoons are presented in libraries in other places and countries. Please feed the discussion on our facebook page! What kind of cartoon books do you find in your town's library?

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Tour de France 2012 - what I saw...

Stage 2 of the Tour 2012 finished in Tournai, Belgium yesterday, 2 July 2012. I had never seen the Tour 'live' in my life and Tournai is only 35 km from my home... so I got to be there to watch one of the biggest sports events in the world. As always... there is a cartoon link as you'll notice further in this post.

Tournai, 3 km from the finish line - 2,5 hours before The Tour arrives
in town

One hour before The Tour passes, the Publicity Caravan arrives...

To my surprice I spotted drawings on the Vittel (a water brand) publicity vehicles that looked familiar to me... and yes, I was right: those were the style of the great French cartoonist Roger Blachon (1941 - 2008).