This one's been stuck in my head for the last few days. That chorus is just about perfect. If it isn't perfect, then I don't want to know what perfect is.
The Hollywood Brats are one of my favorite bands, I need to make a point of listening to the Boys more often...
As per usual, click on the image for a better-resolution look at it!
I was doodling some Woody Woodpeckers in my sketchbook, which eventually led to me trying to come up with my own take on his design as though I were directing one of his shorts back in the day. I liked how this one looked, so I brought it into Photoshop and inked it/colored it/tweaked it slightly there.
It's largely modelled off of his appearance in 1943's "The Screwball", my personal favorite look for the man/bird, but with some little modifications added that incorporate elements from his later designs plus my own stylistic sensibilities. I might play around with this design a bit more just for the fun of it.
A fun, bouncy track from John Cale's Fear album. I should give that one a re-listen sometime soon...
Some news! I've created a Spotify playlist compiling the tracks I choose for this Song o' The Day feature in chronological order. You can find it below. There are only four songs at present, but hey, after a little while it should be somethin'!
Released in 1968, and rock 'n roll or power-pop or whatever you'd like to call it doesn't get much better than this. Two-and-a-half minutes of pure euphoria in the form of hooks and "baby-baby"s.
One of the greatest animated character designs of all time, in my opinion anyway, is Horace Horsecollar's. If the name doesn't ring a bell, a refresher: he was Mickey Mouse's second-banana in the late 1920s-early 1930s, before Goofy and Donald et al. usurped that role. Maybe he didn't want it badly enough. I wasn't there.
Horace's official debut was a 1929 short called The Plowboy. It entered the public domain in 2025, so you may watch it in its entirety without fear of legal repercussions/death right here:
I've always been very drawn to Disney's rubberhose era. It's an art style that appeals immensely to me, and the early Mickey shorts and the Floyd Gottfredson comic strips are prime examples of that design sensibility in execution. This particular entry is by no means one of the best, but it contains some nice drawings to look at. Let's look at them, shall we?
(As always, you can click on any given image for a closer look at it.)
This is Minnie Mouse flirting. The next singles' night at your local bar, I urge you to walk around making that face at people.
This probably wasn't the first cartoon to use this particular visual gag, and it certainly wouldn't be the last, but hell, I like it. It's a little creepy I suppose, but the silliness overshadows that.
Mickey gets licked and makes these faces. This is one of the things I like about this early era of Disney (and this applies to the early era at just about any studio), they're still figuring stuff out. Squash-and-stretch would become one of their trademarks within a few years, but here they're just starting to parse how they'd like to animate that sort of thing. Their process gives us in the audience some great drawings to enjoy. (Reading this over, that last sentence strikes me as potentially sounding sarcastic-- rest assured it is not. I truly love these drawings.)
Horace enters the picture and establishes himself as a presence straight away, getting on Mickey's nerves and not taking the proceedings seriously. His suppressed-laughing animation is a lot of fun.
This title card isn't exclusive to this particular film, but I think it might be my all-time favorite rendering of Mickey Mouse. This was a wonderful design for him. Like I said, I'm just a sucker for the whole rubberhose look, and it fit that franchise perfectly like a four-fingered glove.
That's about it for today! Not a very insightful or in-depth post, but this "Animation Appreciation" series is really just an excuse for me to go through some frames I like in a given work and maybe add some stray useless thoughts. I'd like to spotlight some of the aforementioned Floyd Gottfredson's rubberhose art here someday, I personally feel he was the best artist to work in that style. He was able to give it a sense of volume and form that was rarely matched.
As you may or may not have noticed, I haven't created a new monthly playlist for some time now, and it's largely due to being pretty busy as of late. In lieu of those, here is a new, low-effort feature for the website that I will add new instalments of whenever I feel like it: Song o' The Day. As the title suggests, I shall post a song that is on my mind for one reason or another on a given day. Maybe I will explain why from time to time. Maybe I won't. Fun!
Anyways, the inaugural pick is I'd Do It Again by Gordon Lightfoot, released in 1976.
Why this particular tune? Well, I'm just listening to the album it comes from (Summertime Dream) on vinyl right now. I got a free copy of the recent-ish Rhino Reserve pressing, because it was technically "defective"-- there is a skip towards the end of the first track. That's it. Otherwise it sounds great. Hell, I've dealt with much worse and for more than zero dollars. Consider me grateful!
I chose this track because it's my personal favorite off of the record. And I'm saying that on the record. Wocka wocka.
You may come up with a more intricate reason as to why I chose this song yourself if this is unsatisfactory to you.
Anyways, like I mentioned before-- I've been sort of busy lately! I've been more productive, both at my paying job and in my creative pursuits. I recently organized a decades' worth of rough notes/bits 'n pieces of scripts (mostly for cartoons) that I'd like to make, and I've been re-igniting my passions for animation and writing in general,after depression put a big damper on all that the prior few years. So... hopefully, watch this space!
As always, click on the image for a better-resolution look.
Been getting back into developing my characters after an extended period of burnout. The color schemes aren't necessarily locked in yet, still experimentin'. And yes, I'm aware Sammy's colors are not particularly accurate to that of a trout's... wait until you see my sentient kiwi character who is green on the outside instead of brown. I'm just doing whatever!
