the-ink-blog

Story Behind the 1967 "Hockey Night In Canada" Animated Opening

Sat, 13 Dec 2014 12:59:43 +0100

When I wrote about animation and hockey in an earlier blog, I had yet to find out about one of my favourite and least known about, perhaps even the least cared about, if not most mysterious hockey animation of all time.

It was the opening of CBC-TV's "Hockey Night In Canada" for at least one season and it featured a "Field Of Dreams-like" sequence of stylized hockey players soaring on and off camera, around and about one another other on a multi-plane ice surface. The player's heads were black ovals and the mist around their feet obscured their skates. But no such details matter in this piece, as animation is all about movement.

In 2011, I had a chance to correspond with one animator who worked on this piece of vintage TV gold. Known only to me as “ZenLogo”, I found he had been creative director with Mort Lesser Film Studio in the 1950s and 1960s, working under animation guru Bruce Walker. The studio was one of the world’s top private film houses, working with TV producers and advertising agencies. A Clio Award winning spot for Craven M cigarettes was made using the studio’s facilities, which boasted one of the largest sound stages in North America. Talents like Bob Goulet, Colonel Sanders (who impressed ZenLogo as a “miserable old bugger”), Petula Clark and Leslie Nielsen graced the stage there, used almost exclusively for TV and advertising – legend has it, no motion pictures were shot there.

The HNIC opening was Walker’s baby. The first and perhaps most brilliant attempt at an animated hockey game, which he pioneered through the magic of “rotoscope.” Rotoscoping is a technique developed from the early days of film, continuing through great Walt Disney classics into the modern day. Basically, the artist “traces” still frames of an action sequence, then when they are put together, and timed out, the illusion of organic movement is achieved. ZenLogo and the rest of the animation team were duly proud of the pioneering piece of film, which we TV hockey consumers of the age apparently just devoured and ingested.

According to ZenLogo, the original spot was filmed and broadcast in colour, but because CBC had to soothe Canadian taxpayers by conserving costs, recordings of HNIC were kept on the much more economical black and white kinescopes (filmed captures of TV productions), rather than broadcast-quality videotape. Any and all remnants of the amazing clip in existence now are in living, albeit scratchy, snowy and jumpy black & white. Ideally, one could hold onto hope that the original film was safely stashed away in a film archive, however reality and idealism do not often travel the same track.

The Lesser Studio itself had a rich history. Mort Lesser was a fledgling photographer who walked with a camera and donkey up and down Toronto streets, offering to take pictures of people on the beast and profit by selling them prints. Eventually, his hard work paid off and with the advent of TV, his film house became a gold mine for advertisers. Lesser was well positioned to put together his production studio, which was involved in the pioneering of live action/animation for the likes of Kellogg’s and General Foods spots (as alluded to in episodes of AMC’s “MAD MEN”) as well as the aforementioned Clio-winning “Craven M” spot, which boasted impressive ideas and character designs by the talented Bruce Walker. The firm nurtured contracts with all the big ad agencies, such as J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett , etc.

Lesser Studios was located right in the heart of the “Toronto the Good”, just off the corner of Bay Street and Charles Street West. Like all animation studios (it seems), there was a popular drinking establishment nearby. A bar in the Windsor Arms hotel became an after-hours hangout for the talented, hardworking creative folk at Lesser Studios.

Years passed and the halcyon days for advertising began a dank downhill slope. The studio was eventually torn down to make way for an office tower. Mort Lesser eventually downsized his business to an audio/visual production company. He eventually retired to the Pembroke area with his wife Jean, where they quietly collected the impressionistic art of Jackson Pollock, Henry Moore, etc. Mortimer Lieberman Lesser passed away in July of 2012. ZenLogo confided that through all the fluctuation and upheaval, he and Bruce Walker lost track of one another sometime in the early 1970s, never to reconnect again.

The animated Hockey Night In Canada opening appeared on vintage NHL games broadcast on Leafs TV and on YouTube in the early 2010s, bringing back fond memories for folks like me, who were children of the TV age. I feel privileged to have gleaned this wealth of background knowledge about this one small snippet from my wide-eyed youth and would love to chat to anyone with more related stories and memories to share.

Grimsby Public Art Gallery - Home of Walter Ball Permanent Exhibit

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 17:37:05 +0100

Surfing the net can be a great time waster, but it can also cop magical rewards. If you can score one of these a day, your life will end up as fulfilling as mine. Through a routine search one day recently, I happened to learn that Walter Ball (RURAL ROUTE) one of my Canadian cartooning heroes has a permanent exhibition in the Grimsby Art Gallery!

Before I tell you this, I had dropped in to the Cookstown Public Library early in the spring of 2013, to find out what kind of history Walter Ball's "hometown" library kept of their famous native son. I didn't find anything about Ball, "Rural Route", nor did anyone there seem remotely aware of either. If your hometown is apathetic about you, then what is your legacy? I had given up hope of seeing anything to do with Mr. Ball apart from what people post online.

So, with that in mind, that is the route I took. Several Google hits centered on a catalog of Ball's cartoons available to lending libraries across Canada, but none actually had the book in stock. Digging deeper, I began to view information about something called the Walter Ball collection at the Grimsby art gallery. I sent in an inquiry and a few tumblers clicked to result in the following...

Rhona Wenger is the person I was transferred to when I sent an email inquiry about the exhibit. She was very gracious in answering my questions and seemed genuinely glad that I contacted the gallery over the cartoon collection. I also purchased a catalog of Mr. Ball's work held at the gallery and learned as much as I could about the what they have stored there.

I am excited to visit the gallery in person, view some "RURAL ROUTE" strips and find out more about Walter Ball. If you're interested, you can do the same: Email RHONA WENGER, or visit the website at: GRIMSBY PUBLIC ART GALLER Y.

You Can Take The Boy Outta Cookstown, but...

Sun, 26 Oct 2014 15:48:31 +0100

RURAL ROUTE - Walter Ball (Toronto Star Weekly)

Walter Ball was born to a farming family near Cookstown, Ontario in 1911 and grew up with designs of becoming a Electrical Engineer upon reaching adulthood, but fate chose a different path entirely for him. Newspapers & magazines were the most accessible media in the day and Walter's dreams were swept up in ads for mail-order drawing lessons. Often, the first lesson was sent free, costing just a postage stamp on the letter of request for the lesson. Therefore, as was typically the lot of farm families, the Balls weren't likely awash in cash, Walter learned to draw from these free lessons. It led him into a career in graphic arts, which one day got him hired at the Toronto Star.

At the Star, Walter's duties typically included news graphics, which depicted where the body was found, after foul play, etc. While Ball befriended Jimmy Frise, arguably the biggest legend in the largely forgotten (if ever acknowledged) world of Canadian comic strips, he himself only hobbied in the comics field. However, Frise left Toronto for the Montreal Standard in the late 1940s, leaving a gaping entertainment hole in the Star pages.

The legend goes that the editors of the Star Weekly asked if Ball knew anyone interested in creating a comic strip for the publication, which was about to convert to tabloid from broadsheet in 1956. Ball offered a couple of names, but asked also to submit his own work for consideration. They agreed, he submitted some samples and was offered the job. The feature was run weekly and aptly named "Rural Route", featuring the misadventures of a farm couple named Elmer and Myrtle and their nephew, Willy. A reader survey revealed that one month into the format change, Rural Route had emerged into the most popular feature in the paper.

Unlike Frise, Ball continued in his duties as graphic artist, concurrent to drawing Rural Route, when the Star Weekly folded in 1968. In 1970, Ball was promoted to Art Director and continued in this capacity until retiring in 1975, He and his wife resided in Richmond Hill until his death. I did some investigating about the story from there and learned that Ball's wife moved in with her sister and the two ladies lived busy, vibrant lives through the early 2000s.

Ball himself was very quiet, charming and self-effacing. It seems he never bragged about being one of the few published Canadian cartoonists of his day, probably because he wasn't overly well paid for it. He did it for a little extra spending money, as many of us have done (and continue to do) in the Canadian comic strip industry. Fellow cartoonist Arn Saba talks about this in an interview by Don Harron of "Morningside" found in the CBC Radio Archives.

In the late 1980s, I taught night school cartooning classes in the Grey and Bruce County area. One local was John Diefenbaker Secondary School in the small town of Hanover, Ontario, During one of these sessions, I was fortunate to have a student with a unique connection to Ball.

In the 1950s, or 1960s, the Star Weekly held a contest that invited readers to submit strip ideas for new Rural Route strips that would be drawn by Ball and published. It seems this student had once won the contest and still possessed the original Walter Ball artwork featuring her gag, which the Star Weekly awarded her as a prize. One night following a class, this lady invited me to her home and kindly showed me the strip. I was thrilled for her, that she once had the opportunity so few will ever enjoy in life and while she suffered some health challenges, you could almost feel her robust youth return to her, when she spoke of winning the contest and getting this special comic strip in the mails.

I am sure there are others out there reading this, who enjoyed a similar experience, as the contest ran for many months. This lady seemed saddened that times had changed so much that the strip had been almost completely forgotten. I hope others didn't feel this sadness, but if so and they wished to share the strips with others and get a little bit of notoriety again, I'd be proud to publish them, with any other details deemed noteworthy in upcoming editions of the Ink Blog. The email address is jeffwil@rocketmail.com

UPDATE - October 26, 2014

I had taken a photo of a Rural Route cartoon at the Grimsby Gallery that I was looking forward to sharing in my blog, but it turned out very blurry. I was quite upset about botching the photo, because I loved the cartoon. I have considered returning to the gallery to get another shot of it, but my time has not allowed me this luxury. In late September 2014, I was going through some old newspapers someone had given me over 10 years ago and found this very cartoon (see below) in print! Walter did a lovely job with the colour on this one. Thanks to whoever or whatever caused all this to come to pass!

Depression-busting is our business...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:41:07 +0100

With the world economy tumbling around us, we couldn't blame one for being mindful of a time when our ancestors faced these challenges in the 1930s, the deepest days of the Canadian depression.

There seems not much specific about where the present crisis may take us, nor has it reached a point where anyone has given it a name, but the warning signs of depression are clear. We hear about it in the news internationally. However, the rubber test is when things are affected locally. More real estate is on the market, but no one seems to be buying. The retail market has gone soft, if not flat. Money is not moving. Blank expressions fill the faces of people we pass on the street. The general feeling is doom and gloom, Very little hope to build on. A dark time may already be upon us.

How did our parents-grandparents-great grandparents cope in the 1930s, when the Great Depression hit?

According to longtime Toronto Star columnist Gregory Clark, the only point of mirth in the Star Weekly were the two pages, where Jimmy Frise's "Birdseye Center" and single-panel cartoon appeared. To many readers of the Star Weekly, these two pages represented the only bit of hope to be found. They revered the levity and clinged to the pages passionately. The Star, either accepting social responsibility, or recognizing opportunity, offered to pay Frise to illustrate humour columns composed by Clark. He accepted and a new phenomenon was born.

The two became close friends and sporting buddies. The lightness raised moods, until the end of the second world war, when Frise jumped to the Montreal Standard, just before his untimely passing. Clark and Frise books are still around today and if you sit down and read one, still joyfully entertaining.

Jimmy Frise (left) the great Star Weekly hope of the Depression years
and author Gregory Clark (right).

Where is the mirth coming from in publishing today? Just as it was 80 years ago, no one wants to always read about economic downturns and market collapses. Perhaps the future belongs to they who can restore confidence in the hearts of the people. So where are the comics? For whatever reason, newspapers in recent years consider them a necessary evil. Due to a number of reasons and public pressure points, the material of today is watered down, compared to the fare of the post-war years. The most popular newspapers of the late 1940s were full of comics and illustrations. More importantly the tone was upbeat and full of promise.

Could we use that in 2011 and beyond? The answer is obvious and right in front of us. History does repeat itself. Whether it comes this year, next year, or within the next five years is immaterial. But, it IS coming.

At this point, it would be remiss of me not to mention that I am a cartoonist. Making mirth is my business. My colleagues and myself are primed, ready and open for business.

Inquire within.

Tiniest Legacies Linger Longest

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:40:28 +0100

    There are very few things in life that we do at a moment's notice that will linger in someone's memory for a lifetime, but there are one or two things that do. I have been fortunate to have found one thing that I did, that lives on in people's scrapbooks, their personal files, a basket in their living room and most importantly, in their hearts.
    A personalized cartoon greeting card.
    You may ask, how this could possibly happen. The personalized greeting card is a customized snapshot of life. Maybe something someone was doing, or thinking. Maybe hopes, dreams and plans at a certain finite time of your life. Maybe a situation in your life that changed from that point on and you vowed never to go back there again. Perhaps, the memories are more pleasant than the present and your suffering makes it hard to to go back to that simpler, happier time.
    My first personalized greeting card was one shown below. I drew it for my parent's anniversary. I am guessing I was about 14, or 15 years old. I didn't even know how to do crisp easy-to-reproduce black lines, such as most professional cartoonists do. I obviously was going through a "Don Martin" phase, judging by the drawing.
    Let's not forget how hard it is to draw a card that rivals Hallmark, or Carlton Cards. You need something more personal to wrest back the advantage. And this is precisely why my parents kept this card, over one of the "Today, I had a feeling it should wish you happy anniversary....but then I laid down until the feeling went away" ilk.
     Probably someone else gave them that one that year.
    The way these cards would come about was surprisingly simple and usually would be last minute "after-thoughts." It was either my Mom, or wife saying "Its so-and-sos birthday tomorrow. I bet they'd love a homemade card. Jeff, can you whip off something?
    So, I'd take about an hour, maybe two and toss one off. It would be quick and often looked rushed. I would incorporate something I knew the person was doing. Whether that was training horses to rollerskate, reading the entire works of Harold Robbins, or coaching minor lawn bowling. It was fodder for that card!
    The funny thing is that most people who received them, still have them. For example, I found out recently that my 30+ year-old nephew still has a card I gave him at age five. I know of at least four, or five other people who kept theirs framed and hanging on the wall. A great many have them in a drawer, or safe box. My mother has hers in a basket in her living room, They often go through them, when feeling nostalgic. When I visit, I often do too, because so many good memories come back.
    I had such aspirations for writing and drawing greeting cards. I created my own homemade lines: "Jeff Wilson CARD-toon Collection" and "The Jeff Wilson Art Service Flatts Farm Collection," when I was creating and submitting that feature to newspaper syndicates. I can even remember contacting Hallmark and sending them ideas, when I heard they paid someone for the ideas. A number of cartoonists whose I read daily worked in greeting cards. However, that wasn't to be my destiny. Somehow, for me there is adequate satisfaction in the fact that what I did lasted and had staying power, over that which was cranked through power machinery, fuelled by the almighty buck.
    The past is good for us. When it comes right down to it, we all have a past. Its a safe place. Safe, because we have already been there and survived it. I didn't make a lot of money making these cards. You probably won't either. On most of them, I didn't make a cent. However, in your twilight years, see if these little sketchy pieces of paper don't linger like nuggets of gold to someone.
    Maybe even to you, if you were smart enough to do some of them.

The Kids Of Johnny Canuck Come Marching Home

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:41:33 +0100

Fifteen year-old Toronto youth Leo Bachle had just been dismissed from the Canadian army for lying about his age and through a chum, had taken a job delivering lenses. During one delivery at the Percy Hermont building, Bachle came across a stack of comic books in front of an office for Bell Features. He began to thumb through several, when a middle-aged man stormed out of the office and confronted him. A heated exchange ensued, which led to the gent challenging Bachle to do a rehearsal drawing for him. By the end of the encounter, Bachle was challenged to draw a complete comic strip by the next day, which he did. The new star of DIME Comics, “Johnny Canuck” was born!

Toronto signmakers Cy and Gene Bell started up their fledgling comic book empire when a wartime trade embargo caused a hold on the sale and distribution of U.S. comic books in Canada. Later known as “The Canadian Whites”, due to the black ink, white pulp format, dozens of all-Canadian titles were created by several publishers during the embargo, which only lasted from 1941 to 1945. Such characters as “Iron Man”, “The Penguin”, “Freelance” and “Nelvana And The Northern Lights” emerged on the scene. But, the brightest of them all was Leo Bachle’s “Johnny Canuck.” The feature had become such an important national symbol, that when the embargo ended, the Canadian government wouldn’t allow Bachle to get his visa to work for better-paying U.S. publications, until he’d fulfilled all his contractual obligations on “Johnny”.

America opened up a whole new world of possibilities for the enterprising Bachle. He worked for New York comic book publisher Marvel Comics, meandering into standup comedy and acting. He created one novel nightclub act called “Quick On The Draw”, where he entertained audiences with a stand-up comedy routine and drawing with an overhead projector. As a performer, he routinely travelled across the country and on cruise ships. Developing into something of a celebrity, Bachle changed his name to Les Barker and performed with stars like Marlene Dietrich, Eartha Kitt, Tony Orlando and Loretta Lynn. “Les Barker amazes everybody, including yours truly,” said Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney in a showbiz blurb. “One of the best entertainers I’ve ever seen and had the pleasure of working with.” About this time, he met and married singer Lucy Loring. Their union lasted 49 years and was blessed with two children, Suzanne and Danny.

In 1995, Canada Post commemorated “Johnny Canuck” in its superhero stamp issue and the honour, in Barker’s own words, “thrilled me to death.” By 2003, Barker’s 40-year battle with diabetes landed him in Scarborough Grace Hospital, coincidentally at the same time as the historic SARS outbreak. Without family visiting privileges at the hospital for over two weeks, it was here where the 79 year-old Barker died in May of 2003. No one knew that when this chapter of “Johnny Canuck” ended, yet another was to begin.

Whatever the circumstances, the charming, attractive Barker seemed to enjoy his fair share of love trysts with women during his many travels. About the time of his death, at least 12 children ranging in age from 44 to 66 and raised by 8 different mothers, came forth claiming to be Barker’s offspring. It was suspected there were others, so a website was created for these siblings to connect. For them, the home page of “The Kids Of Johnny Canuck” declares “…it is expected there are many more children.”

“The Kids Of Johnny Canuck” contains pictures and biographical data on Bachle/Barker and site contact info. As is typical of Canadian celebrities, its unlikely Barker died a rich man and there don’t appear to be any estate issues to be settled. The site is mainly a vehicle for the established Barker children to connect and/or reconnect.

In the words of Johnny Canuck, “…Germans (in other words, all opponents) had better start making stronger rope if they want to hold Canadians captive…”

Leo Bachle obituary (Jun 30, 2003 Toronto Star)

"The Kids Of Johnny Canuck" website

Aspiring to Syndication - Paul Curtis

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 04:40:04 +0100

     In my brief, but enriching cartooning career, I got to view some great cartoons and meet many talented people. Of these, I got to know one or two very well, through sharing the road of discovery of the craft. One such person, is someone I have great admiration and respect for: Paul Curtis, creator and artist of a comic strip I hope to have permission to share and talk more about, one day.
     I met Paul during my two years at Sheridan College's Cartooning and Graphic Story Arts course, in Oakville, Ontario, amid a class that also produced Marvel Comics artist Peter Grau, children's book illustrator/writer, Bill Slavin, the one-time Toronto Sun editorial cartooning team of Michael McDonnell & Tim Cerantola, cartoonist/animator Keith Milne, as well as television performer/writer Gary Pearson.
     During the course of our classes, Paul did a strip in the style of Walt Kelly featuring a great character, that everyone in the class loved. Paul's goal was to create a comic strip of this character and syndicate it in newspapers. I had similar aspirations for my own fledgling comic strip, the basis of which I had created in my pre-teen years. With this in common, we hit it off very well.
     When I left Sheridan in 1979 my first full-time job was working under another fellow Cartooning classmate, Paul McCormack, as a screen-printer for a t-shirt transfer print company in Strathroy, Ontario. When that business grew enough that another printer was needed. We learned that Paul Curtis was seeking work in his hometown of Dundas, so we contacted him and he joined the crew in the fall of '79. It was a pleasure to get to know both Pauls during this time of hard, hot and humid work. Following work hours at the t-shirt factory, Paul was hard at work drawing his strips, while I pinned my hopes on mine. When I moved back to my hometown of Markdale to get married, Paul and I continued to correspond and trade stories of our cartooning exploits, as we moved toward our goal of newspaper syndication.
     We used to trade stories of the rejection letters we'd get. It was always frustrating to get one, but when we discovered we got the same ones, the blows didn't seem so harsh. One day, Paul got a letter from a syndicate that seemed like there was interest in his strip. Paul telephoned me, excitedly describing what had happened. I was jealous for an instant, but that later gave way to hopefulness. "If Paul makes it, maybe there's still hope for me", I thought.
     The letter from Chicago Tribune Syndicate made much of the fact that Paul's style reminded them of Walt Kelly, but later correspondence criticized his storyline and subject matter. Unknown to either of us at the time, Paul had jumped several hurdles of the business to a wonderful opportunity. Paul asked me what he should do, so I naturally said "whatever they ask you to do...this is your chance!" So, Paul created another 2 weeks of strips and re-submitted. We both kept our fingers crossed. I had seen the strips Paul had done and we agreed, they just didn't reflect the "joy" of his original strips, but they were still excellent. A month later, Paul received the strips in the mail, with an attached rejection letter. It was rejected and we were both DE-jected. Only a bit of confidence IN-jected through the experience.
     Paul later got a university campus newspaper to carry the strip and ended up doing editorial cartoons in the periodical. He ended up being paid to do editorial cartoons in a local community newspaper for many years afterward. He never gave up on the original character, though his chance at national syndication was long behind him. Regardless, it was a wonderful experience and led him to meet a beautiful woman, get married, have two wonderful sons and enjoy a fulfilling career, where he got to use his creative skills over and over again.
     Thanks to this quirky industry called "cartooning", I got to meet Paul Curtis, be inspired by his talent and enjoy his friendship, even until this very day. Its not the success story you'd expect to read here, but such things are infinitely more valuable than material wealth. May all in this industry end up so wealthy.

HERBIE, by 'Bing' Coughlin

Thu, 19 May 2011 17:46:52 +0100

    Yard sales are a great place for cheap history lessons. Recently, I browsed at a community yard sale in my local area and came across a book by a Canadian cartoonist who was hitherto unknown by me.
    The book was a 1959 reprint of "Herbie!", by William Garnet "Bing" Coughlin, published by Nelson and Sons from 1946. The material in the comics seems best suited for those with military background and inclination, so most of the humor went over my head. I was a bit surprised at the raciness of some of the cartoons, but understand cheesecake images were a large part of military newspapers, or other documents printed for military digestion in this time.
    William G. "BING" Coughlin was born in Ottawa on October 7, 1905 and when his widowed mother remarried, moved with the family south of the border to Philadelphia in 1923. There, he enrolled in the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, graduated and entered the world of advertising art. He met and married Margaret "Peg" White, then returned to Canada to enlist wih the Canadian military.
     Promoted to Sergeant, Coughlin served with the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards, stationed in Sicily, during the Italian campaign.
     In 1944, veteran newspaperman J. Douglas McFarlane sought him out to contribute a comic feature to the "Maple Leaf", the official daily newspaper of the Canadian military. Coughlin's work appeared with cartoons by such Canadian cartooning legends as Les Callan and Merle "Ting" Tingley, both of whom went into editorial cartoons following the war.
     It is alleged that it was at detailed advisal by McFarlane that Coughlin's legendary character "Herbie" was both created and named. He suggested Coughlin draw one soldier, give him a name, and thus, an identity. McFarlane suggested "Herbie" be the title, Herbert being a hated middle name given McFarlane at birth, that he later removed.
     As a character, Herbie had a very simplistic look, bearing a strong resemblance to "Kilroy", of the "Kilroy was here" graffiti of the time. It should be noted that a Kilroy-looking, toque-wearing, mustachioed French-Canadian character made common appearances alongside Herbie in Coughlin's panels. The cartoon became very popular in the war years and the term "Herbie" is still applied to Canadian military figures even today. Besides the "Maple Leaf", Herbie ran in 30 non-military Canadian newspapers.
     In 1946, Coughlin was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his war cartooning and unlike Callan and Tingley, steered clear of political cartooning in the post-war years. Coughlin did advertising art for the Canadian National Exhibition, until 1950, when he returned to Philadelphia and worked as a designer of exhibits. He died at age 85 in Springfield, Pennsylvania, survived by five children . While not very well known, "Herbie" was the subject of a 2007 publishing effort by Algrove publishing of Almonte, Ontario.

I wondered how I could miss such a valuable piece of cartooning history, but perhaps not being involved, or even remotely connected to the military, I guess it simply eluded me. Such cartoons occupy as valid a place in the history of cartooning in Canada as any other contributors at the time and while his training and much of his life was spent south of the border, I am proud of the career of "Bing" Coughlin and how he helped shape our Canadian cartooning industry.

Do You Want Frise With That?

Sun, 01 May 2011 19:17:05 +0100

     Jimmy Frise was a living, breathing phenomenon. Once as close as it was possible to be a living legend in the world of Canadian publishing. A genuine character. A twinkling star that shone so bright, one could even catch a glimmer of his light, in a sullen, self-absorbed pubescent daze.
     It was probably the winter of 1971. A 13 year-old kid from the farm rides shotgun into town with his mom to get away from his perceived dreary rural existence. She shops for groceries and clothing, while the boy sits in the car, steaming up the windows from breathing as he reads comic books in the Centre Grey County cold. One Saturday, his mother comes back to the car with a surprise. She has gone to the library and borrowed a book called "Birdseye Center" and thought he'd enjoy it. The boy puts down his comic book and begins to read...and is amazed. His first taste of Frise!
     Other than cartoons in a book, the boy doesn't know anything about Jimmy Frise, born in the Scugog Lake area, near Port Perry, Ontario. A veteran artillery soldier from the "Great War", losing part of his left hand in a munitions accident. Mailing in a cartoon to the Toronto Star and inadvertently delaying his illustrious fate by many weeks, because he neglected to include a return address. Jimmy Frise did elevate himself to "the master of cartooning" in the boy's eyes.
     Frise was a simple man of simple means. He loved people and animals and had a love-hate relationship with his work. While a tight deadline loomed, it wasn't unusual to hear of Frise either hunting, fishing, or at the racetrack playing the ponies. It drove the tightly-wound Star Vice-President and Editorial Director H. C. Hindmarsh to distraction. This brief passage in the 1965 McMillan and Stewart book, "Birdseye Center" said it best.
     "There was that great conglomeration of giant presses, engraving departments, stereotyping departments, pressmen in their little square paper hats, mailers, delivery trucks, all waiting. Hindmarsh walked gravely down to the sanctum of the publisher J. E. Atkinson. Putting his earphone to his ear, Mr. Atkinson listened to the tirade. Already, the overtime was in the hundreds of dollars. Did Hindmarsh have the authority to put the law on Jimmy Frise? Anything to bring him to time? Mr. Atkinson took the hearing aid from his ear. "Harry", he said to the great Mogul, and he crossed his arms in a characteristic gesture, "The Star Weekly does not go to press without Mr. Frise. J. E. Atkinson told me this story himself."
     Such was the gentle force of Jimmy Frise. With the power to bring the world to a standstill, a few hours at the artboard permitted it to resume - and in a better place.
     Oh and that young pubescent boy? He was me. I can attest to the fact that then, just as now, there was nothing like a feast of Frise. Do yourself a favor and have Frise as a side to the following links:

Jimmy Frise Online Archive
Jimmy Frise as remembered by Greg Clark
Jimmy Frise Biography at Lambiek.net

Hockey & Cartoons: From Peter Puck to The Guardian Project

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:43:28 +0100

    Canadians have watched their game flogged and marketed like soap, ever since the game was introduced to Americans. The game just never reached the level of football, baseball and basketball, despite the sports greatest efforts.
    One of the techniques explored has been comics and cartooning, with varying and variable degrees of success. Animation icon Walt Disney, (whose father actually lived in Goderich, Ontario briefly), produced a couple of the earliest hockey cartoons: "The Hockey Champ" (1939), starring Donald Duck and Hockey Homicide" (1945) featuring Goofy.
     One later attempt came about through the efforts of CBS and Hockey Night In Canada broadcaster Brian McFarlane. In the early 1970s, McFarlane contracted Hanna & Barbera studios (creators of the Flintstones,Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and more) to invent a character who would make learning about the Canadian obsession fun and entertaining. Onto the scene skated Peter Puck. The series has also been embraced throughout Canada, where the character is arguably more popular, than the American fans he was originally created for. Although sources conflict over who actually created Peter Puck, its clear the series would never have been made without the driving influence of McFarlane.
     While the original series remains popular on DVD and YouTube, Hockey Night In Canada has recently shown all-new episodes of the series, with the talented all-Canadian creative team of Gary Pearson (writer) and Philip Street (animator). As a side note, Street is the creator of the Globe & Mail comic strip, "Fisher", while Pearson once published the hockey comic strip "Sour Play" in his hometown newspaper, the Tilbury Times.
     Culminating with an introduction at the 2011 NHL All-Star Weekend in Raleigh-Durham, N. C., is the NHL's latest attempt to captivate the U.S. sports fan base. "The Guardian Project", created by Marvel Comics icon, Stan Lee.
     Featuring ultra-macho superheroes representing each of the 30 franchises, the league is clearly targeting the young male audience to catch hockey fever. While the introduction came with much fanfare at the All-Star Weekend, what the league will do with the ambitious project remains to be seen. Obviously, there is the possibility for crossover merchandising in the area of scale model figurines. Of note is the fact that hockey comic books in Topps and O-Pee-Chee bubble gum have done well historically.
     How successful the Guardian Project is, becomes critical to the NHL's future, as it turns a somber gaze to the troubled Nashville and Phoenix franchises, with Winnipeg, Quebec City and Southern Ontario chomping at the bit for new teams.

Links:
Peter Puck on CBC:
The Guardians Project: