Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Handicraft Guide No. 9 CARTOONING

This is one of those things I came across on eBay. All I know is that it's from WW2 and part of a series of guides for such things as carpentry, bookbinding and tin can craft -- and it's for the Use of U.S. Armed Services Personnel Only.
You can click on the above for a larger pic.

OK, it's funny that the wannabe cartoonist Private here is spilling the ink out of his back pocket, but funnier (maybe weird-funny, not funny-funny) is the eentsy beentsy puff of smoke behind the guy's left foot. I wish there was an art credit here, but it might've been farmed off on the some anonymous Popular Mechanics art department staff members.

I find those expressions to be rather haunting and ugly. Picking out the person's big nose to caricature may get you a sock in the puss.

Ha ha. "Pick a nose."

That guy with the big eye looks like a Jack Cole character. And what's with the aging, sad looking yellow kid on the lower right?

I wish we all wore hats (aside from baseball caps and knit hats). Hats are fun to draw, and I have a personal weakness for the ol' guy-so-shocked-his-hat-flies-off-his-head image.

This kinda stuff ("7 1/2 to 8 times the length of their heads") always spooked me.I don't like math, that's why I draw pictures.

More tomorrow.

3 comments:

Brian Fies said...

Best part: "You should have some understanding of anatomy. Sketch the men in the shower or barracks." I'm thinking you had to be pretty tough to be a cartoonist during WWII.

"Hey, ease up fellas! I'm training to be a U.S. Army cartoonist!"

Mike Rhode said...

Great stuff - can you add in the missing page 4?

Mike Rhode said...

Whoops, ignore that previous post please - somehow I just missed seeing page 4.