Cartoonists, Animated and Otherwise – A Roundup

Graphic Illustrator or Cartoonist?

What is a graphic illustrator?

A graphic illustrator is a professional who creates illustrations with the help of computer software, application, or by hand. They create visual content such as logos that help their clients display their intentions and messages.

To be a graphic illustrator is not easy as it requires an artistic mind, creativity, and the ability to convert abstract concepts into visual images. These visuals images can then be used on reports, advertisement boards, and brochures.

What is a cartoonist?

A cartoonist is a person who draws and creates animated cartoons using computer software or by hand. These cartoons can be for a newspaper, magazine, television, film studios, animation studios, videos, social media platforms, gaming companies, or publishing companies. These cartoon drawings can be used for political commentary, illustration guides, comic strips, and instruction manuals.

  
above: James Montgmery Flagg graphic illustrator and comic strip cartoonist 

Rupesh Kumar, at Gamers Suffice, defines the roles of two graphic professions.

The Animation History Bibliography 

Hello, Cartoon Researchers! My name is Orrin Scott and today I would like to share with you The Animation History Bibliography. It is a bibliography that aims to contain every English written book on animation!

The books contained in the bibliography range from topics such as historical non-fiction to the importance of Saturday mornings, from the professional world of the industry to the pioneering world of independents, and the art of everything in between. There are books that look at animation through the lens of dance, architecture, and technological censorship, books that explore the triumphs and setbacks of women and people of color, and books that celebrate the accomplishments of the young and the old.

Orrin Scott’s introduction to his Animation History Bibliography.
and
The Animation History Bibliography at Cartoon Resources.

Sergio Aragonés Draws for The NCS Foundation

Follow the National Cartoonists Society for details. Or here.

The Abiding Joy of Sharing Comic Strips

There are several abiding joys in my life … Postcards … Movies … Need I even mention books?

There is one abiding joy that I share with really only one friend in particular, though: comic strips.

I have loved comic strips — not comic books, but comic strips like those found on the comics page of this newspaper — since I have been old enough to read. When I was a kid, the comics page was the only part of the newspaper that I read. These days, I save the comics page for the end of my daily read through The Gadsden Times.

© Bizarro Studios

David Murdock shares the Joy of Comic Strips with his readers.

Matt Bors Returns to Comics with Apocalyptic Comic Book 

Imagine a world where the rich and powerful live in their own little world, where the poor and underprivileged are ignored and abandoned, and where the police aren’t much better than the criminals they’re tasked with protecting the populace from. The world of Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson‘s Justice Warriors, the pair’s forthcoming series from AHOY Comics, takes real-world cultural dynamics to their most extreme, with corrupt cops patrolling the Uninhabited Zone, the area outside of Bubble City inhabited by a majority of the population.

  
© Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson

Comics Beat interviews Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson.

Bors: In the last few years, I really gravitated toward dystopian and futuristic stuff in my political cartoons, which was really a reflection of my love for genre comics going back to my childhood and honestly getting a little bored drawing Washington politicians. Justice Warriors lets me talk about economics, police, and society in less didactic ways than a political cartoon. There’s a lot of jokes in this comic, for sure, but it’s not trying to be preachy or provide answers or the One Right Take on something. Readers will all pick up on different things we’re trying to do here. It’s a lot more fun, frankly!

Justice Warriors #1 is set to arrive in stores and digitally on Wednesday, June 8th.

Murray Ball’s Comic Strip Donated to National Library

Five thousand Footrot Flats comic strips have been donated to the National Library by the family of the late cartoonist Murray Ball.

On Friday, 50 carefully wrapped packages containing 100 comics, all in date order from 1976 through to the 2000s, were officially handed over to the Cartoon and Comics Archive.

The collection of comics, read and enjoyed across the world for decades, began after the first strip appeared in The Evening Post in 1976.

Over nearly 20 years, they appeared in more than 2000 newspapers across New Zealand, Australia and the world.

Sophie Cornish, for Stuff, relays the good news.

Chuck or Bob? Jones vs. Clampett

If you’ve ever broken out the phrase, “you’re despicable!” with a heavy lisp a la Daffy Duck, you can thank Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones. If you enjoyed the antics of Gogo Dodo on Tiny Toon Adventures, you can thank animator Bob Clampett. And if you’ve grown up loving Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and the rest of the Looney Tunes, you can thank them both. Jones and Clampett came up together as animators under the madcap director Tex Avery who made the Looney Tunes funny.

© Warner Bros.

Two of the Looney Tunes’ finest directors developed the series’ greatest characters, made us all laugh, and couldn’t stand each other.

William Fischer, at Collider, on the feuding animators of Termite Terrace.

Sid Sutherland, Virgil Ross, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Bob Clampett