WOOO!

Happy Halloween!

 

If a musical genre title needs hyphenating, I was once warned, you should should steer well clear... the same apparently goes for food. I find myself more in the finding-hyphens-quite-useful camp. For instance, the whole life's work of trumpeter Donald Byrd (1932-2013) is no less astonishing for falling either side of one hyphen or another.

This Feb we also bid farewell to Bob Godfrey (1921-2013), whose personality has been so colourfully outlined by this week's obituaries. It's curious to hear Godfrey's long term collaborator and national treasure, Richard Briers (1934-2013), in a less familiar turn, narrating artist Ryan Gander's 2008 video, As it Presents Itself - Somewhere Vague.

Danse Macabre

Wonderful Halloween themed drawings by Ub Iwerks for early Disney animation Skeleton Dance, 1929. In the intervening years our collective attention span has become so worn that this so-called short now seems interminable.

  

Robin Recital

Festive feathered felicitations, fellows!
—
Warm wishes for the holiday season and all-the-best for 2012.

First and Last

Commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Peanut's creator's death, Radio 4's documentary on Schulz had me scouring the shelves for some remembered illustrations. The first is a school project (kept by a teacher and forwarded years later), the second a late preliminary sketch. Ironically, the weak line of the latter doesn't betray infirmity, Schulz (Sparky to friends and family) liked to keep sketches vague, ensuring spontaneity in the final inking.

• from Peanuts Jubilee (Allen Lane, 1976)

• from McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #13 (Hamish Hamilton, 2004).

LMNOP

In a fine example of inter-continental back-scratching, we have a little ad on LMNOP this month. Always nice to have the chance to animate a character, even if it is only three frames long.

Hairy artist and owl enthusiast, David Noonan, once told me that each continent has its owls, in Australia they nest on the ground. Hope the branch doesn't confuse kids down-under.

Season's Greetings!

Season's Greetings!