early animation

Norakuro, the Japanese Felix?

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Pam’s Pictorama Curiosity Post: Pictured above is a bowl and saucer with the jaunty Japanese chacter Norakuro that I picked up on eBay for a song – only because it was listed incorrectly, I’m sure. The amazing thing about this piece is that when you hold the bowl up to the light, voila! – the geisha appears in the bottom!  I love this fat cat-like dog and have had an eye out for a stuffed toy of him for a long time, but to date to no avail.  The few toys I have seen are astronomically expensive, (at the time of writing this two wooden toys are listed on eBay under Felix for upwards of $800), but one of these days I hope a stuffed one will cross my path when I am feeling flush.  I have also included a trading card which I assume is him (although he’s gained weight) or a rip-off similar character.  Alas. since I do not read Japanese I cannot say for sure. 

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Lastly, I have included a link to a specimen cartoon on Youtube. It is in Japanese, but like most cartoons you can get most of the gist of it without understanding the dialogue. He isn’t as clever as Felix and his movements are distinctly Japanese – yet you can’t help but assume that they were looking at those early Felix cartoons. He’s in the army, rather than the sumo wrestler mode here. In the cartoon he practices looking fierce and samurai with his sword in the mirror before going out to drill.  He is most charming in his early comic book form.  I love to look at them – do wish I could read them!

Van Bueren’s Aesop Fables – the Toys!

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Extravaganza Post:  Hold onto your hats, this is a huge post! I started this morning with the photo of Jane Withers holding her wonderful Aesop Fable doll, the Princess, shown in a photo grab off the internet rather than a ham-handed photo of my own also rather pristine example – the first to enter my collection several years ago. Jane evidently had an enormous collection which she sold off in recent times.  (See http://collectdolls.about.com/od/auctions/a/janewithers.htm for more info.)  One can only imagine what toys a child star had the chance to indulge herself in! I like this photo and it is one of the ones in more or less permanent rotation in our tiny home.

But onto the cartoons – and the toys! I never got to see these cartoons as a child. I have to assume that I would simply be a better person if I had been raised on them. I am convinced that their influence is one of the things that made my husband the extraordinary human being he is today. Certainly, they helped lure me over to him. I am including a photograph of his book Boulevard of Broken Dreams, although it wasn’t the first of his work I ever saw (his book Beyond the Pale was so I knew I liked him and it) the original comic books that ultimately made up Boulevard transformed me into a real fan.  jpeg

So, when I first heard about these dolls I was in love!  The only problem – they are about as rare as hen’s teeth and I only ever saw them in old ad photos such as the one above which is a Google image grab. As a collector there are somethings that make your pulse race and blind you to all thoughts except, “I must have it!”  These are among them. An expensive habit though. After several years I acquired the Princess through Hake’s auction, paying top dollar. Just in the past year I snatched up the other two – actually both were gifts from Kim.  One for my birthday (see me in black dress) and the other, in admittedly poor shape but much beloved, as part of a big art for toys trade he did as a surprise for me in San Francisco last year.

Finally, for good measure, I am throwing in a link to Making ‘Em Move, the Van Bueren cartoon I gather helped inform some of Boulevard and one of my very favorites. Enjoy!

Aesop Fable Photo and Art Post

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Pam Pictorama Post: Featured at the top, a splendid press photo The Making of an Aesop’s Sound Fables.  It says, “A close-up of the cameraman at work.  The ‘Frame’ is now down in position over the background and ‘cells.’ This shows a complete single picture about to be taken.” It is dated ’32.

Below are three drawings, original art (I couldn’t be certain until I had them in hand, but there are traces of pencil and the ink is clearly original) on penny postcards. I purchased first two and then a subsequent one months later, on eBay. The first two were acquired from a seller in Great Britain (although these are clearly American and one wonders how they got there) and I can’t remember where or who the third, the one with color, was purchased from, but it was a different seller.

When I originally posted these on Facebook a FB friend (Stephen Worth) told me that he had a similar piece by Mannie Davis – the farmer and several animals, and he posted it for me to see.  They certainly seem to be of the same hand.

No idea what the purpose of these was – there is no writing on them and mine are not signed. Perfectly wonderful though and clearly drawn and inked by a practiced hand that had drawn thousands before.  As a huge fan of the cartoons I find all of it pretty fascinating.