Fun With Scissors - part 90

Fancy Fancy of Top Cat's gang.

Fun With Scissors - part 89

Mr. Peabody's pal, Sherman.

Fun With Scissors - part 88

Miss Prissy.

Fun With Scissors - part 87

Felix the Cat.

Fun With Scissors - part 86

Kwicky Koala may be the 86th post in this series, but he's the 92nd character I've collaged for "Fun With Scissors." I can't believe how many I've done, and how many I've yet to do.

I'm thinking I should do some special character for the 100th post, but haven't decided on who it's going to be yet. Feel free to make suggestions.

In Comic Book Stores Today

Have you ever wanted to see what your own DNA looked like? Well, now you can! Boy genius, Dexter will show you how in a "Dexter's Laboratory" story I wrote for this month's issue of "Cartoon Network Block Party" which is available in comic book stores today.

Fun With Scissors - part 85

After creating my entry for Saxton Moore's Fat Albert contest last month, I was a bit burned out on the junkyard gang, but way too much time has passed since one of the Cosby kids found their way into "Fun With Scissors" and enough time has passed so that I felt ready to tackle collaging one of them again. This time, it's Bucky.

Fun With Scissors - part 84

Since I didn't manage to get anything posted yesterday, here are two characters to make up for it; Pixie and Dixie.

Fun With Scissors - part 83

George of the Jungle.

Illustration Friday - "Robot"

I've been looking for an excuse to make a new robot collage. Until I get to it, here are 2 from my archives.

Fun With Scissors - part 82

Mot, or is it Yob? from the terrific Chuck Jones cartoon "Rocket Bye Baby."

Fun With Scissors - part 81

Crazylegs was the hero of the "Blast-Off Buzzard" segments of the CB Bears" show. I don't remember much about it, other than it was pretty much the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner formula only with a vulture and a snake in a football helmet.

If anyone out there has a tape of this show (or any of the other CB Bears segments), let me know.

Fun With Scissors - part 80

Chilly Willy.

Fun With Scissors - part 79

Amazingly, this far in, I've not rendered any superhero licensed to a cartoon show. I have not collaged a single member of the Superfriends. Not Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Marvin, Wendy and the Wonderdog.

Here's Aquaman astride Storm, as they appeared in the 1968 series.

Illustration Friday - "Spotted"

My apologies for the poor quality of the photographs. These are a couple of papier mache creatures I made a few years back, the first that I'd attempted in many, many years.

The dog, "Max," is about three feet tall, the fish, "Julius" is about four feet long, and is a bit the worse for wear after three long distance moves. He now hangs in my son's bedroom. I've since made another, nearly identical fish, which was much improved over this early effort, but I don't have a picture of that one, which is no longer in my possession.

I also did a seven foot tall, articulated el dia de los muertos style human skeleton for Halloween last year, which can be seen here.

Fun With Scissors - part 78

Before Andy Merrill transformed him into the lovable dimwit of "Cartoon Planet," Brak was a vicious space pirate who plagued Space Ghost and his sidekicks, until eventually Brak and his partner in crime, Sisto, fell victim to a swarm of pirahnamites.

In either incarnation, this Alex Toth designed character is one of my favorites.

Fun With Scissors - part 77

Country, one of "The Cattanooga Cats."

Fun With Scissors - part 76

Fangface is one of two later 70s/early 80s cartoons that, to me, represented the end of decent Saturday morning animated series (until the mid-90s). Fangface, employed that gimmick used by a number of animated shows which supplied a a whole slew of despised nephew characters. Plastic Man had one, Scooby-Doo had Scrappy-Doo, and Fangface had Fangpus.

As for the other show that killed quality Saturday morning entertainment, stay tuned...

Or, should that be "tooned"?

Fun With Scissors - part 75

Morocco Mole

Fun With Scissors - part 74

Fluid Man of "The Impossibles." As his name suggests, he's able to turn himself into a mobile mass of green liquid.

Cheeta turns 74

Seen here (left) with his Tarzan co-stars, is Cheeta in his heydey as a Hollywood star in the 1930s and 1940s.
On Sunday, Cheeta, the world's oldest chimpanzee, celebrated his 74th birthday. Retired from acting, he spends much of his leisure time painting.

You can read more about him, and the refuge he lends his name to
here .

Happy birthday, Cheeta!

Monsters And More

My kids now have their own blog to display their artwork, so I don't always have to do it here. Their blog is called Monsters and More and is still in it's rudimentary stages. Give it a visit and let them know what you think.

Early Influences

I'm frequently asked about early influences. I was religiously watching monster movies by first grade, particularly "The Creature Double Feature" on WLVI channel 56 out of Boston. My friend James, and I would draw the monsters from every single feature shown. Sadly, all of these drawings are now gone, the victims of mice, except for Reptilicus, which once I can locate it, I will post.

What probably cemented the monster bug in me was not the movies, Kirby and Ditko monster comics, or even the few issues of "Famous Monsters" that I had collected by then, no it was the book pictured here. "Movie Monsters" by Alan Ormsby (who would later go on to direct "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things") was published by Scholastic Books in 1975. I got my copy via the Scholastic Book Club in 4th grade, and read it over and over again.

The book, as Ormsby points out, has three parts: The Greatest Movie Monsters, a section which covered not only all the classic Universal monsters, but Mr. Hyde (Fredric March) and Blacula, as well as a page on Lon Chaney. The second part was a bunch of recipes for recreating these monsters in make-up using household ingredients such as paper bags, cornmeal, and shoe polish. The third section was how to put on a monster show, including a script you could use.

I never put on the show, but did attempt a few of the make-ups. Basically though, it was the first section that captivated me. I still have the same copy of that book, and it's in exceptional shape, considering how many times I read it.

Fun With Scissors - part 73

Jezebel Jade from "Jonny Quest."

Fun With Scissors - part 72

Yankee Doodle Pigeon from "The Dastardly and Muttley Show."

Fun With Scissors - part 71

Wilma Flintstone.

Speaking of "The Flintstones," I just stumbled across the blog of Earl Kress . Kress is a veteran writer of animated fare, and a Hanna-Barbera historian. He's responsible for the extra content on the various Hanna-Barbera DVD sets, particularly, "The Flintstones."

His blog is informative and well worth repeated visits.

Fun With Scissors - part 70

Batfink was created in 1966 by Hal Seegar, the man who also created the great "Milton the Monster Show," as a parody of the popular "Batman" tv series. There didn't seem to be much point in parodying a show that was already a parody, but I'd still like to have these on DVD anyway.

Fun With Scissors - part 69

Here's the little man from the "Pink Panther" cartoons.

Fun With Scissors - part 68

I was never a big fan of Henery Hawk. Granted I haven't seen one of the Foghorn Leghorn films featuring him in a number of years, but he always seemed to me to be a bit of a precursor to such annoying tough little guy characters like Scrappy-Doo.

Fun With Scissors - part 67

Bullwinkle J. Moose.

Fun With Scissors - part 66

Bubi Bear from "The Hair Bear Bunch."

Fun With Scissors - part 65

Mightor.

Lon Chaney, Birthday Boy

Lon Chaney was born today, way back in 1883. Perhaps the most popular movieactor of his time, he is best remembered today for his role as "The Phantom of the Opera" from 1925. This collage of Chaney's impressive make-up job for that film was the second collage I ever did, and the first portrait.

Looking at it now, I can't believe how bad it was. I chalk it up as a learning experience now. When I did it, I assembled the Phantom's black clothing out of small patches of black paper, and similarly did the background using scraps of red. What blends to the naked eye, does not blend so well under the scanner, or color copier. It was the last time I ever did things this way, or I should say without more care in matching and blending. I now try to use one single piece of paper for any expanse of the same color, limiting most of my work to a size that would generally fit on a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" paper.

For a better portrait of Chaney that I collaged later, check out this image of him as a legless man in The Penalty

For a better interpretation of Chaney as the Phantom, check out webmaster Rob Scott's version here . While there check out the other monster portraits Rob's been working on.

Fun With Scissors - part 64

I know I already did a portrait of Daffy Duck back here but I couldn't resist collaging him as he appeared in the classic "Duck Amuck" the perfect cartoon for April Fool's Day.