Comments on: Cartoon Cavalcade

By: Mitchell Freedman

Mitchell Freedman — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 06:17:47 +0000

Gmoke, nice summary of Brother George. I was privileged to have met George Seldes, twice, once when he was “just” 99 years old—and where he read parts of one of his books without reading glasses and was fairly sharp—and once a year or two later when he was starting to fade. He died at age 104 or 105.

As for the main topic, I am okay with UPA style, and less okay with the Sixties Hanna-Barbara style. The key age of cartoons are the 1930s and 1940s, with the Fleischer Brothers, Warner Bros and Disney studios. Even the H-B work under Tex Avery is outstanding, which is quite amazing considering how H-B found a way to do things more cheaply, the writing, the drawing and the design.

By: gmoke

gmoke — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:23:34 +0000

Gilbert Seldes’ brother George Seldes was one of the great reporters of the 20th century, the first American to warn us about Fascism in the form of Mussolino and Il Duce tried to have him killed for it. Seldes’ book on the Italian was called Sawdust Caesar. He became an independent journalist with his newsletter “In Fact” which was publishing about the link between tobacco and cancer in the 1940s. It became the model for IF Stone’s Weekly and Stone bought his initial mailing list from Seldes. His autobiography is very well worth reading and he was an active writer into his 90s.

The Seldes brothers grew up on a Jewish cooperative farm in NJ, part of a movement that is all but forgotten in our history.

By: Substance McGravitas

Substance McGravitas — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:17:09 +0000

I give up—what is the UPA style?

This.

By: Dave Weeden

Dave Weeden — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:14:54 +0000

There are a couple of interesting things in the last panel. One is the ferocity of the attack on the President (Teddy Roosevelt?) , which seems rather timely. And I didn’t realise anti-hunting sentiment was so strong that early. And indeed, shooting harmless animals is wrong.

There used to be a Sunday afternoon children’s show on STV (S for Scottish) called ‘Cartoon Cavalcade’ for what’s that’s worth.

By: Gene O'Grady

Gene O'Grady — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:08:54 +0000

I give up—what is the UPA style?

By: kid bitzer

kid bitzer — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:59:14 +0000

so you made a bad purchase—do not repine.
at least you expressed a pious resolve to do better.