remember, Doc...keeeep smilinggg...
Bugs Bunny in EASTER YEGGS ( Warner Brothers, director Robert McKimson, 1948)
My 2020 New Year cartoon, actually sent in 2019, was a plea for some Supermen (and a mouse) to help us through troubled times.
I’ve always loved the silent and sound comedies of the Twenties and Thirties, probably because many of them were short films, and comedy is often best when it is brief.
There was a huge uptick in the number of comedy films produced after 1914; theatre owners wrote to the producers demanding more. There were entire studios that turned out nothing but comedy films. (oh, for a time machine).
Charlie Chaplin became an international star in 1914 because he was needed. It is no coincidence that the first big surge in comedy film production occurred as the First World War broke out, and there was a virtual flood of comic short and feature length films after 1920. Many of them are lost or little known today.
I now understand why the people of that time needed to laugh and why the comedy got so good, so fast (compare Chaplin’s Keystones with his Essanays and especially the Mutuals to see how far he came in three years). They had just gone through a horrible war and survived the worst pandemic since the Black Death. It was actually worse since it was truly worldwide and killed twice as many people as the War did. There was a financial depression in 1921 (referenced in Buster Keaton’s THE GOAT, made that same year— a study in paranoia—click on the red text to view it), and other events that are not within the compass of this article. One of the positive developments was that women in the USA finally got the vote, but they couldn’t have a drink to celebrate it.
Humor helps people cope with bad times and bad events. It is sometimes the only defense they have.
“Satire is tragedy plus time.” —Lenny Bruce
I’ve done a lot of analysis of humor, and agree with E. B. and Katherine White that “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the purely scientific mind.” Nevertheless, I will dissect it, because otherwise, I don’t have an article. All opinions here are strictly that of the management. I am not an ‘official animation/cartoon historian’, I just create it. So—
The golden age of ‘funny’ comic strips began with the dawn of the silent film and continued into the Thirties. The golden age of animation began with the birth of sound film because, while many of the Fleischer and Disney shorts of the Twenties are excellent, sound and cartoon animation go together like peanut butter and jelly. It literally added a whole dimension to the cartoons and brought the characters to life.
If you consider the Disney Silly Symphonies and MGM cartoons of the Thirties a bit ‘sweet’, remember when they were made. People had hard lives, and wanted a bit of color and joy, so they went to the movies to escape from daily worries. Those ‘cute’ little films were wildly popular. The brash humor of the Forties cartoons was a reaction to the increasingly terrifying developments in a war which —as people of today must be reminded —was, at first, not clearly being won by ‘our’ side.
So, back to the dissection. What, exactly, is humor, and how does animated humor differ from comic strip and live action humor?
Buster Keaton once hired cartoonist Otto Soglow (creator of the LITTLE KING comic strip) as a writer. Soglow’s strip contained very little dialogue, so this probably seemed like a good idea at the time. This did not work out because Soglow could not transfer the little gags in the LITTLE KING to a live action, long form story. Visual storytelling differs by medium, and I have learned that different types of cartoonists think and work differently.
Comedy arises from incongruity, the juxtaposition of unrelated elements. Much of it also mocks pomposity and authority. The fool speaks truth to power, or maybe just farts at it. One early jester was actually named Roland the Farter, and was richly rewarded for his output. “ Roland the Farter (known in contemporary records as Roland le Fartere, Roulandus le Fartere, Rollandus le Pettus or Roland le Petour) was a medieval flatulist who lived in twelfth-century England. He was given Hemingstone manor in Suffolk and 30 acres (12 hectares) of land in return for his services as a jester for King Henry II. Each year he was obliged to perform "Unum saltum et siffletum et unum bumbulum" (one jump and whistle and one fart) for the king's court at Christmas.[[Roland is listed in the thirteenth-century English Liber Feodorum (Book of Fees).[3]”
Clearly, modern humorists are grossly underpaid, or under-gross.
I think that “bumbulum” is my favorite word of the day. I also like ‘flatulist’. It sounds like it belongs in a symphony orchestra (I never called the flute player a ‘flautist’ and it is probably just as well that I did not.)
To return to the theme of the mocking of pomposity and authority (without bumbulums) here is CARTOONS AND YOU by Mark Newgarden (2000).
If you grew up watching the various instructive, official films they projected in classrooms (nowadays, streamed on school channels) this film will be funny. If you have not seen a public service announcement, the film will be a mystery.
I think that it is funny. Newgarden’s repetitions animation of “Em” (tm) makes the film work. This is years before South Parks’ Terence and Philip, which also featured minimalist animation. I also find South Park funny. It would not be funny if the animation was more ‘realistic’.
I like minimalist art/cartooning/animation when it is funny. It is desperately dull when I do not find it funny. I won’t name names here.
Let’s return to the symphony, with flute players, and without flautus:
Cartoonists are like musicians, but they are not all playing the same score.
Animators are members of a symphony orchestra. They work with a large number of other people, performing one or two parts, with a pre existing score. They follow the conductor/director and create something greater than the sum of its parts.
Comic strip and editorial cartoonists are jazz soloists. They play around a tune, sometimes for decades, and are in charge of their own production.
Now, to wrap this rambling thing up, I will return to my historical theory of humor.
We are in very stressful times. I think we can all agree on this. Comedy helps relieve stress. I think there is adequate proof of that.
I don’t see a rise in comedy and humor today equivalent to that of the teens and twenties and thirties of the last century. Much modern humor is ‘dark’ and some seems to be death-obsessed. I find much of the visual humor unfunny, often deliberately so. Maybe I am missing the point of it for that reason; I like dark humor and irony, but when it becomes the entire show, I lose interest.
So I put my money where my mouth is and created a comic strip that is meant to be visually funny. It may be a sand castle built on a beach that is awaiting the arrival of a tsunami, but at least it makes me smile, and a few other people seem to enjoy it.
Floof runs away from home, inside the home, because she feels no one loves her. She is found in the September 23 FurBabies.
I’ve got to come up with a holiday card design soon. I used to give New Year cards referencing events of the previous year since they are suitable for people of all backgrounds; but I started drawing Christmas cards during the pandemic because every new year was more of a bumbulum than the previous one. Santa and Rudolph and Christmas trees can be very funny. I even used a little ‘dark humor.
The Ruby Slippers were recovered in 2023. One of the few bits of good news from this year. (no, I won’t draw a sequel to this card)
The beaver trashed the store when it found out that the plastic trees were artificially flavored.
2020’s card referenced the Pandemic.
And Bob McKimson’s EASTER YEGGS is one of my favorite Warner Brothers cartoons of all time (along with all the others). Watch it on Blu Ray or DVD. It’s old school, but it works.
Bye for now…
I enjoyed the entire post, and I loved the cards, but I really lost it over the beaver. Hilarious.
You communicate and educate so well, of coarse your artwork does too. I agree completely on the subject of humor thru cartoons and comics. Opposite attract and sad and happy are no exception. I am enjoying your comic strip very much.
Mariana Givens