European Water Voles Against Magic

Today's Monty features the ever popular rabbit-in-a-hat theme.  This is one of my favorite strips to visit daily.  I've been a fan ever since it was called Robotman and Bill Watterson turned down the chance to draw it.  Jim Meddick is known in the profession as the "cartoonist's cartoonist" and for good reason.  There's a super cool Robotman fan site here.

I Seem to Have This Rabbit

James Thurber was a writer, cartoonist and general all-round wit who basically invented the New Yorker magazine style before becoming a curmudgeon and going blind.  His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 when another famous writer, E.B. White found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can at the New Yorker office and submitted them for publication.

Sticker Festival!

Unless you happen to be in Buenos Aires between 23rd September and 2nd October you won't be attending this week-long exhibit but you can certainly admire the awesomeness of the poster.  I believe the artist here is the always fantastic Liniers.

Book Review

A haughty shout out and shameless plug for "Dewey Defeats Truman" by my fellow Tall Tale Feature creature Lucas Turnbloom who draws the most astoundingly excellent Imagine This (mentioned numerous times on this blog before and once again today).  This is the second collection of Imagine This strips (although somehow I seem to have three books) and it includes a whole bunch of slick extras including a new seventeen page never seen before story, a bunch of guest strips by other illustrious and famous artists plus a foreword from the legendary Richard Thompson of Cul-de-Sac. I just got my copy in the mail and it oozes wonderfulness. Get your copy here.

One of the guest strips is by yours truly, which eerily foretold the book title on the newspaper in the last panel. Lucas talks about the book on this weeks episode of Comic's Coast to Coast.  And while on the subject of guest strips, I've been busy! Keep an eye for Irma Eriksson's much anticipated new Imy collection coming soon.

Déjà Viewed

It's a strange world in the universe of comic strip ideas.  Every day about 400 cartoonists in the US try to come up with an original idea and very often they unintentionally come up with the same, or very similar jokes. In the past I've pointed out some other synchronicitous cartooning coincidences. Over at GoComics today, someone pointed out that my strip  resembled a The Dogs of C Kennel strip from February 6th 2008.

The most excellent strip is drawn by the Mastroianni brothers Mick and Mason and I hadn't seen it before although the resemblance seems to be only in the fact that an animal other than a hamster appears inside a plastic ball.

It's been an interesting week of unintentional coincidences.  Check out Bizarro from Monday:

And here's a Rabbits strip from December aught eight.   It makes me feel good to know that I came up with the roughly the same joke as this years Reuben Award winner and excellent all-round nice guy Dan Pirarro.

Then a couple of days later came this.

Which is a much better version of my strip from February last year.

And just to make it interesting here's the Tundra strip from Monday.

I was thinking migrating ducks back in July, 2006.

Obviously my big mistake was leaving out the "Wheeeee!"

DeFur

This delightful picture is from my new favorite blog Tiny Bunny Woman.

Yowp!

Apparently the Tom and Jerry franchise wasn't strong enough in 1946 to carry it's own comic title so they had to share with "Our Gang" (a.k.a. The little Rascals).   They did make up for it in issue #50 with a wonderful rabbit in a magic hat storyline that you can see here. Thanks again to the excellent people over at Comicrazys for the scans.

The Rabbit Vanishes

This screenshot comes from my third favorite movie of all time, "The Lady Vanishes" directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1938.  If you've never seen it you're in for a treat.  This delightful rabbit sequence occurs during a fight scene between Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) and Philip Leaver who plays an Italian magician called The Great Doppo. The movie is a wonderful combination of thriller, romance and comedy.  I think I've seen it about ten times now and every time I notice new little details.  This movie also introduces the wonderful Charters and Caldicott to the world. This charmingly obsessed cricket-loving duo unavoidably evoke Laurel and Hardy but their quintessential English eccentricity is probably what elevates the movie from a great one into a classic.

Jumbo Topper

Max Fluegelman with world’s largest top hat.  I'm not sure which would be more impressive, pulling hundreds of rabbits from this super prop or one big one.  Via.

Kool as a Kukumber

I sighed with great pleasure when I read the last panel of today's Krazy Kat re-run over at the Daily Ink.  It's so wonderful in every way,  particularly the pun-crazed multi-limbed Ignatz and the sudden appearance of Krazy's miniature parasol.  I love the cucumber character as well. Herriman's daily strips don't get nearly as much attention as his Sunday masterpieces. Note here his use of panels to help the flow of the dialog with a literal compression and release of frame sizes.  He crams a lot of text into the two central panes and adds a block of black the center to balance the composition of the piece. Pure genius.  I'm probably not supposed to be reproducing it here so I'd better add a plug for the essential Daily Ink site here.

Rechargeable Rabbit

Today's Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog features a magic trick with a rabbit, thus qualifying it for this blog.  Canadian Jonathan Mahood does a fabulous job with this strip which started on Comics Sherpa along with my own humble creation.  I'm a huge fan.

New and Old

Over at the Daily Ink, King Features have just started offering some extra vintage cartoons including the original  Billy DeBeck styled Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, and this little known gem (above) by Jimmy Hatlo called "Little Iodine" who was a female Dennis the menace type character.  I really love the overall feel of the feature which was "ghost" drawn by Bob Dunn.  So much action and detail and excellent use of black.  The character was a spin off from Hatlo's much more well known strip "They'll Do It Every Time" and apparently ran through the mid eighties and was even made into a feature film in 1946.  King Features also just announced the launch of a new feature called "Oh, Brother!" (below) drawn by Jay Stephens (who is responsible for the most awesome Oddville) and written by Shylock Fox creator Bob Weber, Jr.

I'm a huge fan of Jay's clean retro style which will reproduce nicely in today's shrinking newspaper real estate.

Fellini's Fumetti

Not many people know that the great Italian film director Federico Fellini was once a cartoonist.  Before breaking into the movie business to write and direct movies such as La Strada, Satyricon, 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita, Fellini produced a number of comic strips, a lot of caricatures and spot cartoons for various magazines. Fellini also did poster designs for many of his films, storyboarded sections of his movies and caricatured many of his actors. He frequently did cartoons on his sets - many of them apparently quite risqué. The above Geppi La Bomba Atomica strip is from 1940. It has the look and feel of a Happy Hooligan strip.

Fwoppy?

I introduced a new character today.  It's a nerdy female rabbit who visits from the fifties.  She'll be hanging around all week. I don't have a name for her yet so if you have any ideas, let me know in the comments.  The best suggestion will get a signed sketch!  Heck... any suggestion gets a signed sketch.

Now For Some Action

Craig Yoe posted a Super Rabbit strip over on his awesome Itch Blog.  I believe this is a sample from his long awaited Golden Collection of Klassic Krazy Kool Kids' Komics.

Cartoon Mascots

Every World Cup since 1966 has featured an official cartoon mascot.  Apart from the ill-advised "Ciao" for Italy in 1990 and the beyond awful German Goleo VI (and his talking ball Pille) in 2006 they are all pretty good.  Despite looking rather charming I'm not really sure what Germany was thinking with Tip & Tap.  Maybe back in 1974 it might not have looked quite so creepy.  The Stryker character was designed by Warner Brothers Studios for USA 1994. They've done a lot better than the Olympic mascots. Who can forget Atlanta's disastrous Izzy/Whatizit (although Cobi for Barcelona 1992 is perhaps the greatest sporting mascot of all time).

The World Cup mascot for 2010 is Zakumi who is a leopard (apparently).  My guess is they really wanted to do a lion but Germany used one for the previous tournament. 

Zakumi comes complete with his own comic strip written by Rico Schacherl & Stephen Francis, the two creators of the popular South African cartoon, Madam and Eve.
 

There's a bunch more strips here.

World Cup Fever

I make no apologies for being a soccer fan.  Even though I've been living in the US for the last 20 years I still have the sport in my blood.  I did a special World Cup strip yesterday to commemorate the start of the tournament in South Africa. Notice the official flag and ball in the first panel.  It's details like that which raise this strip to the heights of mediocrity. Also, Eightball is holding a vuvuzela, the plastic horn that you'll hear constantly throughout the tournament which sounds like a swarm of killer bees.  I know many people who think that would probably make the game more exciting. 

The Darker Side of Rabbits

When I submit my roughs to my editor I rarely get a strip rejected outright.  The original version of today's strip, however, was deemed "too dark".

While I agree that having one of your characters cut one of his/her appendages off is a bit gruesome, I did want to retain the "finger-in-a-box" joke.  I tried several ways to make it so that Weenus suffered to consequences of being such a sicko but it was still kinda gory until I solicited a cameo appearance form the always wonderful Lio by the prolific and mega talented Mark Tutulli.

Somehow the idea of it being a fake plastic hand is much more palatable.

Enthusiastic Magic

From today's Macanudo by the great Argentinian cartoonist (and one of my big influences) Liniers.  I love the arm in the last panel.

Puff the Magic Rabbit

Over at Cartoon Snap today they posted a full Presto Pete story from 1947. I don't know much about Presto Pete other than that he's a magic rabbit who appeared in the DC series Animal Antics which ran for 23 issues between 1946-1949.  The cover of the first issue features another version of the ol' rabbit pulling a magician out of a hat.