Posts Tagged ‘Watchmen’
“What, Me Worry?”*…
We lost a giant earlier this week…
Al Jaffee, the celebrated and much-laureled cartoonist known to generations for his clever creations for MAD magazine, died Monday [at age 102] in Manhattan due to multiple organ failure…
Jaffee studied at the High School of Music & Art in New York City in the late 1930s, alongside several future MAD colleagues: Will Elder, Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman and John Severin. He began his career in the early ’40s as an artist working for several comics publications, including Marvel Comics precursors Timely Comics and Atlas Comics. He began creating gag-driven comedy spots for Timely, including Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal at the request of Marvel legend Stan Lee.
He made his MAD magazine debut in 1955, but soon left with outgoing editor and his old school friend Kurtzman to work for his Trump and Humbug publications. When these folded in the late ’50s, Jaffee returned to the MAD fold. A few years later, in 1964, Jaffee approached Feldstein with his idea for the first Fold-In cover, which would riff on the scandal of Elizabeth Taylor leaving her husband Eddie Fisher for her Cleopatra co-star Richard Burton. Feldstein and Bill Gaines were immediately enthusiastic, and Jaffee was soon asked for a new Fold-In, and the intricate and clever gimmick soon appeared in almost every issue…
Jaffee also notably created the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions as well as humorous articles about concepts for newfangled inventions — many of which turned out to be very accurate predictions…
He continued creating for MAD and other publications into the new millennium. Among his many career accolades, Jaffee was presented with a Sergio Award from the Comic Art Professional Society in 2011, inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2013, elected to the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame in 2014, and was officially declared to have had “the longest career as a comics artist” (73 year, three months) by Guinness World Records in 2016, well before he retired at age 99.
On the March 13, 2006, episode of The Colbert Report aired on Jaffee’s 85th birthday, comedian Stephen Colbert saluted the artist with a Fold-In birthday cake. The cake featured the salutary message “Al, you have repeatedly shown artistry & care of great credit to your field.” When the center section of the cake was removed, the remainder read, “Al, you are old.”
More on the master: “Award-Winning ‘MAD’ Cartoonist and Fold-In Inventor Al Jaffee Dies at 102,” in @animag.
See also: “Al Jaffee, A MAD Magazine Legend, Remembered As ‘Every Cartoonist’s Role Model’,” from @robsalk.
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As we appreciate art, we might send powerfully-drawn and carefully-lettered birthday greetings to Dave Gibbons; he was born on this date in 1949. A comics artist, writer and letterer, he was a creator of 2000 AD, the Martha Washington series, Doctor Who, Green Lantern, World’s Finest, The Secret Service, and others. But he is best known for his work with writer Alan Moore, which includes the seminal Watchmen and the Superman story “For the Man Who Has Everything.”
Special Academy Awards Edition: Sounds Like…
The goal of the Soundworks Collection on Vimeo is simple– and bold: “we are dedicated to profiling the greatest and upcoming sound minds from around the world and highlight their contributions.” From backgrounders on the sound design and recording on Black Swan, The King’s Speech, and other of this year’s Oscar contenders, to celebrations of and conversations with legendary practitioners, it’s a library of delights.
Your correspondent’s favorite (a very difficult choice) is an “illustrated interview” with a master of a woefully unappreciated craft: Foley, the reproduction of everyday sounds for soundtracks. Jack Foley*, the inventor of the technique, was working at Universal when sound came to the moving pictures. Because then (as now) specific sounds (closing doors, ripping fabric, galloping horses; indeed, sometimes even ambient sound) needed to be added or sweetened, Foley developed a set of tools and techniques that allowed him to create and record in a studio virtually any sound that might be needed. Ever since, the folks who perform that invaluable service to directors and producers have called themselves “Foley Artists.”
Foley is a remarkably challenging assignment– one in which the artist’s call is to create, often in original ways, the perfectly appropriate, completely believable, and at the same time, dramatically compelling sounds to accompany action on screen. Soundworks Collection showcases Gary Hecker, a Foley Artist who was worked on over 200 films, including The Empire Strikes Back, Robin Hood, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Angels & Demons, Watchmen, and the Spiderman trilogy– and who explains how it’s done.
* Jack Foley, a man of many talents, also created the “CC in a TV” symbol, which is used to signal the availability of Closed Captioning for a TV show, and which he designed while he was the senior graphic designer at Boston pubcaster WGBH..
As we settle in the watch the Red Carpet parade, we might recall that it was on this date in 1963 that Antoine Argoud, a former Colonel in the French Army was charged with organizing a plot to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. Argoud was a leader of the OAS, an organization opposed to Algerian independence that used violence to promote its cause. The plot failed, but did give the world the novel and film that it inspired, The Day of the Jackal.
Colonel Argoud (source)
Who you callin’ “Cupcake”?…
Cupcakes are, of course, all the vogue. And as their popularity has exploded, they’ve begun to speciate…
There are Periodic Table Cupcakes…
Elmo cupcakes…
Watchmen Cupcakes…
And oh so many others (for a nifty selection, starting with the ones above, poke around at Laughing Squid and at Friday Foodie)…
But cupcakes, in their mainstream “chocolate or vanilla” manifestations, or in these more elaborate guises, have remained… well, dainty.
No longer! Now the formidable folks at Butch Bakery (“Where butch meets buttercream”) offer cupcakes in 12 flavors and six “styles”: Woodland Camo, Wood Grain, Houndstooth, Plaid, Checkerboard or Marble.
Got beer?
As we bench press a baker’s dozen, we might recall that it was on this date in 1953 that James D. Watson and Francis Crick announced to friends that they had determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement took place on April 25 following publication in the April issue of Nature (published April 2). The not-yet-Nobel-laureates walked into the Eagle pub in Cambridge and announced, “We have found the secret of Life.”
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