Vintage Kids' Stuff
September 9, 2009 8:18 AM Subscribe
Illustrator Glen Mullaly archives hundreds of vintage illustrations in his flickr stream.
Featuring work by Alice and Martin Provensen, Robert J. Lee, Charley Harper, Jack Tremblay, Jerry Smath and Dan Lawler, among others.
Featuring work by Alice and Martin Provensen, Robert J. Lee, Charley Harper, Jack Tremblay, Jerry Smath and Dan Lawler, among others.
It pains me to see the Dillons' work called "vintage", because it makes me feel correspondingly old as well.
But this is a nice find. Thanks!
posted by ardgedee at 8:34 AM on September 9, 2009
But this is a nice find. Thanks!
posted by ardgedee at 8:34 AM on September 9, 2009
Does that technique have a name?
Hmm. I always assumed that it had something to do with the block printing technique (either of the illustrator or the publisher), but I could be wrong.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:44 AM on September 9, 2009
Hmm. I always assumed that it had something to do with the block printing technique (either of the illustrator or the publisher), but I could be wrong.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:44 AM on September 9, 2009
Look at the cowboys in the image I linked to. Just a big blob of peach covering 75% of the shirt and face. Did the illustrator decree the color and blobbiness and leave the placement up to the printer? Did the printer take line drawings and attempt to gussy them up? Did the illustrator carefully create the offset? After all, newspapers of the time were able to print photos OK (I assume). Granted, not a block printing process, but still.
(Negative words above are affectionate--I like that style, but there's no other way to describe it.)
posted by DU at 9:06 AM on September 9, 2009
(Negative words above are affectionate--I like that style, but there's no other way to describe it.)
posted by DU at 9:06 AM on September 9, 2009
If you like this, you might also like A Journey Round My Skull.
posted by ericost at 9:35 AM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by ericost at 9:35 AM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]
> Does that technique have a name?
As a printing term it's called misalignment.
That Tremblay image is a two-color print (brown and black, each screened to simulate tints), and the grey pigs have misaligned shading, as do the brown pigs. Since the grey values are part of the black plate, that means the artist shifted or overlapped the boundaries on purpose, for effect. Note that you couldn't line up each pig's shading perfectly within their outline anyway.
Since highly accurate multi-color printing was awfully expensive at the time, Tremblay's technique was kind of pre-emptively forgiving of printers' errors, but if the printer erred too much, it'd still be noticeable.
Tremblay's craftsmanship is subtle but excellent - he makes two colors look like six or seven and they work beautifully with the overall composition, a giant swoop along the left from background to foreground. Not what you'd expect for a drawing of some stocky pigs and three guys in a hole.
posted by ardgedee at 11:39 AM on September 9, 2009 [2 favorites]
As a printing term it's called misalignment.
That Tremblay image is a two-color print (brown and black, each screened to simulate tints), and the grey pigs have misaligned shading, as do the brown pigs. Since the grey values are part of the black plate, that means the artist shifted or overlapped the boundaries on purpose, for effect. Note that you couldn't line up each pig's shading perfectly within their outline anyway.
Since highly accurate multi-color printing was awfully expensive at the time, Tremblay's technique was kind of pre-emptively forgiving of printers' errors, but if the printer erred too much, it'd still be noticeable.
Tremblay's craftsmanship is subtle but excellent - he makes two colors look like six or seven and they work beautifully with the overall composition, a giant swoop along the left from background to foreground. Not what you'd expect for a drawing of some stocky pigs and three guys in a hole.
posted by ardgedee at 11:39 AM on September 9, 2009 [2 favorites]
cowbellemoo: Fucking awesome.
That's so going on my tombstone.
posted by Kattullus at 5:00 PM on September 9, 2009
That's so going on my tombstone.
posted by Kattullus at 5:00 PM on September 9, 2009
My friend Glen also runs the Growing up Star Wars group.
posted by joelf at 7:48 PM on September 9, 2009
posted by joelf at 7:48 PM on September 9, 2009
Yeah, I noticed that someone linked to a picture of him dressed in Star Wars gear as a kid in a comment once, but I wasn't sure if that was relevant enough to warrant a "previously"!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:19 PM on September 9, 2009
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:19 PM on September 9, 2009
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posted by DU at 8:27 AM on September 9, 2009