How to Create Cartoons by Frank Tashlin

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This Book ts Dedicated to Mary

HOW TO CREATE CARTOONS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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FIRST PRINTING Copy,ight 1952 by Frank Tashlin

Som• of the cartoons In this hook hove been reprint.d through the kind courtesy of tit• orlglnol publish•rs and grateful oeknowled9ement is due •••

Simon ond Schuster, Inc., publisher• of The World Thot Isn't fotrot, Strous, publishers of The Possum That Didn't E. P. Dutton and Co., publishers of The Bear Thot Wasn't and to the Bell Hewspa~r Syndicate Benton and Bowle• Advertising Agency

anc! The Soturdoy Review of Literature

Publl,hed by th• SCOTArt Publl,hing Ca. 11,1 South Beverly Drive, Los Angeles, Colifornio Lithographed In the United States by the Antericon Offset Co.

vVhat the

Critics Say

PORKY PIG'S FEAT

ABOUT

WOOOS ARE FULL OF CUCKOOS

FRANK TASHLIN §

YOU'RE AH EOUCATION 1n1eoious werr le Melodie. One of the beat animation

hilarious Looney Tune: lots ot laucbe

Jobs turned out.

Brilliant.

IVOOOMAH SPARE THAT TREE ot the b ~•rtoons. Screen Gees ••rt new an l 7• • · full or .sheer deltcbf. es.,. a btt ot One

wT:~

PORKY'S ROAO RACE very cood Looney Tune. Better entertainmeot.,. stands out.

WACKY WIGWAMS Good color rhapsody, done .• , excellent.

HONOLULU AOVERTISER

PROVIOEHCE (RHODE ISLANOj JOURNAL

van sorinC' a e\.tence ts tn the islands,

Van Boriac never sa.,a a word

but appeals to old and 1ou.nc'

• 1th his pranks, otton wiit• tul and alwus cigcle-provoklnc..

PEORIA JOURNAL-TRANSCRIPT van sortnc ls a new coato personality who seems to have lots of • •t1"',

LOU ISVILLE COURIER-JOUR~AL olnc over the van aorlng I • 'iook tor bi• flrat tol) Readers on i.he coaic oo.ge.

HEIV 0RLE:AN$

BR IOGEPORT POST

Veo 80

van aorina •erlte • place aaons the top-notcher5 of the comics,

ver;r

TIME:$ PICAYIIHE: r/"'-rJt uoa..,, ta ltelJ dre..,

LOS ANGELES TIMES

•nd

van Borinc.

Every day tbla lnialtable creation troai the

Puck·tib lmacinatlon ot his c reator Tleb Tash, will rtve .rou a wholehearted laucb,.. or a •er\-y a.buckle that wf ll help 1ou start tbe day ott rJ.ght. He'i Jiggled aod

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Jo&eled his .,.., into the 'le.I\ p hearts or thousands of reader&. co•\C.•

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AKRON BEACON JOURNAL Tith Tash bu the 1oolus to

t wist tbe boor out ot a

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Books

oood satire wttb ver1 u.us1n1 drawtaas,

PAJIENTS •AOAZJ~'I!

Particularly &ausJns bo k 60lNBUROH o • Sco;J.,nd

BVEHIHC NEI S

taebltn'a book baa• 81 _

beyond tts te!t 1tttiaance • Plcturee••• or its •••

•essa1e.

SATURDAY

•OBNINO NUS

REVIEW DP LITERATURE

E119/1nd

............ ~Ju,, BEAR THAT WASN'T h.lin tells b18 story witb T...arrage ot 1ncendiar1

• b cartoon•·

DENVER POST ••• OD Mr. T&.sblJ • abo:rid tt coaes ou: a dta•lnr

artous 88QUene:.s a NEY YORI( ut:M. •"-Oa.11to TRIQUNg

blln ls a aad frank T•Jth a puolt-i&b sense

Author hab11

••an~tlcent J!b~as done a

Jf'f:ltJ{8~f"DJUOCURNAL tn

ot the •oet wry &Od !rae f' books to coae alone one ttae.

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••,••••-••, THE

WOR LD

I!e1; .."•'Poaau• That Oidn' t' • llr, tash.Iin' 8

earlier aasterJ>tece • Th Bear That wa.sn' to •• • e

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prank T•shl1n' ado•1~~:o~~ a clock sailes an A reall7 funn .. book. 1 a of on& a. page. "' •in •u JtlKE CONOLLY SuCOURlER .. EXPRESS io< \\\.6 Viri•IY rr#to, N,w YorA \

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On• of the moln points t o r•momber where comic strips ore concerned Is to draw them s.imply s.o thot they will reJ)focfuco well on now1poper stoc~.

Se. how 1imply I drew my comic strip or rath•r my comic ponel.

Von 80,ing, tho main character is cloorly outlined ond olwoy1 woo,1 o solid block coot, which makes him the center of interest no matter what situation he is In.

VAN BORING

( He HY« a&JI a word)

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In all my books the drawings. that seem to interest and fascinate the reoders the most ore the pages I hove devoted to la.rge crowd scenes.

There is o reason for thisl It is because o drawing filled w1th detail and hundreds of peopl• is rarely soon. Most cartoonists wilt not de vote the time or haven't the time to spend on such Intricate drawings. But these drawings of mine do not toke a.n oxces· 1ive amount of timo. Why? Bocouse of the SCOT· Art Technique of Orowing. This system gets o crowd scone done in a third of the time you would ordinorily spend on It. Try o SCOTArt crowd scene yourself. Drow the street corner nearest your home or draw your living..foom when all your in-lows ore os1,embled .

•

Examine tho Night Club drawing below. Noto how simply each individual choroct« is drown ond then study the occumulotive effect achieved when oil theao simple chorocters ore crowded to .. gether. In other words, units of $imiplicity iom .. m.d together give on effoct that is anything but simple.

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Ther• are over twenty gags tn °The Big City" scene obove. Can you find them? Note thcrt the four central figures are inked in a heavier line t o make them stand out from the crowd.

Ll\St Wo(le ~Solli7 [s:~11\111 Because SCOTArt i# the lost word •• • when it com•• to a 1lmplifl•d method of creotlng cartoons. On fh••• two poo•• I hove token choract.rs publlshltd in my books and comic strip and have illusttoted the rough SCOT Art fo,mt that hove gone into tho basic consh'uction of these characters.

Hatlee thot In the final drowlng of th••• choractctrs the basic form, hove In some cases completely dlsoppeor.d. In the final drawing of the ' Possum, for instance you are not conscious thot his head is based on a Triangle form. R-,nember th• primary use ol the SCOTArt lorms is to give you a wo,lcing blueprint to build yorJr lino/ drawing on.

Kffp drawing and using SCOTA,t putting one form on onothe-r and erecting your characters. lt's like playing with blocks when you put th••• aeotn•tric symbols together. Overlapping one form over another your cortoon wlll hove a flow and unified appearance. The four characters at the bottom of this page illustrate this perfedly. S.e how the foundation of SCOTA.rt forms is completely hidden in the flnal completed drawing. Notice the unity of the four people. Jhey ore oil ir, one piece, so to speak, This unity con be orr,ived ot only when th• basic construct/on Itself hos a unity ol lorms. Rea,,emb.r that with o Square, Circl•, Oval and Triangles you con er.ate any and all cartoons you wish.

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START A MORGUE A '"morgue" is merely o morbid word used

by

cartoonists to describe

o Iii ing cabinet. But no matter what you coll it you do need o place to keep the clippings you will cut out of newspapers, magazines, etc., of unfamiliar things you may be called upon to draw.

If you were asked to draw a character wearing a Medieval Costume you might be hard put to remember just what a Medieval Costume looks like. However, if your file was kepi up-to-date you would look under the letter "M" for Medieval Costumes. Under "A" you would hove filed Airplanes, Aard-Vorks, Armadillos. Under "B" Bears, Bees, Birds, etc. Under each letter of the alphabet you could find exactly what you wont. Let the clippings you file away be photographs and realistic draw· ings. 00 H OT SAVE CARTOONS drown by other cartoonists. You might unconsciously imitate their style of cartooning and lose your · own original ity and individual way al drawing.

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Frank Tashlin had achieved recognition as a children's writer when he entered the film industry to work in the animation units at Disney and Warner Bros. Both of these early careers would have decisive import for the major films that Tashlin would direct in the 1950s. This early experience allowed Tashlin to see everyday life as a visually surreal experience, as a kind of cartoon itself, and gave him a faith in the potential for natural experience to resist the increased mechanization of everyday life. Tashlin's films of the 1950s are great displays of cinematic technique, particularly as it developed in a TV-fearing

Hollywood.

They featured a wide-screen sensibility, radiant color, frenetic editing, and a deliberate recognition of film as film. Tashlin's films often resemble live versions of the Warners cartoons. Jerry

Lewis, who acted in

many of Tashlin's films, seemed perfect for such a visual universe with his reversions to a primal animality, his deformations of physicality, and his sheer irrationality. Tashlin's films are also concerned with the ways the modern world is becoming more and more artificial; the films

are often filled with icons of the new

mass culture (rock and roll, comic books, television, muscle men,

Jayne Mansfield, Hollywood) and are

quite explicit about the ways such icons are mechanically produced example, in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, the successful romance of

within a consumer society. For Rita Marlow (Jayne Mansfield)

causes other women to engage in dangerous bust-expanding exercises to the point of nervous exhaustion. Yet the very critique of mass culture by an artist working in a

commercial industry creates the central

contradiction of Tashlin's cinema: if the danger of modern life is its increasing threat of mechanization, then what is the critical potential of an art based on mechanization? Significantly, Tashlin's films can be viewed as a critique of the ostentatious vulgarity of the new plastic age while they simultaneously seem to revel in creating ever better and more spectacular displays of sheer technique to call attention to that age. The Girl Can't Help It, for instance, chronicles the making of a non-talent (Jayne Mansfield) into a star, viewing the process with a certain cynicism but at the same time participating in that process. These films are vehicles for Mansfield as Mansfield, and are thus somewhat biographical. As with Jerry Lewis, serious treatment of Tashlin began in France, especially in the pages of Positif, which has always had an attraction to the comic film as an investigator Andrew Sarris in

of the Absurd. Anglo-American criticism tended to dismiss Tashlin; for example,

American Cinema called him "vulgar". In such a context, Claire Johnston and Paul

Willemen's Frank Tashlin had the force of a breakthrough, providing translations from French journals and analyses of the cinematic and ideological implications of tashlin's work. DANA B. POLAN