I had this book as a kid -- and flipped it a million times. I also had the "big little" books with flippable pink panther, bugs bunny and popeye animation. these are responsible for getting me into the biz for sure.
That's neat. I also remember one of the Hi & Lois book collections having a flipbook of Trixie bouncing up and down (IIRC the animation was done by one of Mort Walker's assistants).
I spoke with Ron Ferdinand and he mentioned this little flip book saying that when the paperbacks came out, Hank was not thrilled with the large amount of white space on each page and decided for one book to do the flip book. It must have been time consuming as it was the only one he ever did for the paperbacks.
October 15, 2015 9:02 PM
[Image]This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time.
The 1976 paperback collection, Dennis the Menace: Short Swinger, contains a flipbook that appears to be done by Hank Ketcham. The registration, however, is horrible. I bought a cheap copy of the book on Ebay and pulled it apart, registered it to the best of my ability and then shot it. The character is less than an inch and a half high and the pulp paper was surprisingly hard to see through on my lightbox, so the registration still leaves something to be desired.
Here it is exactly as it is in the book, on 2's.
Here it is with my retiming to make it read better:
Ketcham got his start in the animation business, working for Walter Lantz and then Disney before he enlisted in the navy during World War II. After the war, he concentrated on magazine cartooning before selling Dennis the Menace to newspapers.
After the war, Ketcham really blossomed as a designer. His style, using a pen, was expressive and elegant. With Dennis, he handled the daily panel while handing off the Sunday strip and the comic books to assistants such as Owen Fitzgerald, Al Wiseman and Lee Holley, terrific cartoonists all. Ketcham's influence is still felt in Jaime Hernandez's work.
The animation above shows that Ketcham remembered the basics, but there are weak spots. The stitching on the ball doesn't rotate when it rolls farther from Dennis. I focused on registering Dennis and discovered that the position of the ball isn't controlled well. The timing works for a flipbook, but it needed more room than the 63 images in the book for the timing to work on screen.
I wonder what motivated Ketcham to try animation again? Was it an attempt to help sell a Dennis animated series? Was he influenced by Walt Kelly, who animated a short for Pogo? Or was it just a lark? In any case, I hope that the video versions of the flipbook show off the animation better than the print version.
"Hank Ketcham Animation"
7 Comments -
I had this book as a kid -- and flipped it a million times. I also had the "big little" books with flippable pink panther, bugs bunny and popeye animation. these are responsible for getting me into the biz for sure.
December 06, 2011 8:23 AM
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December 06, 2011 12:12 PM
In 1970/71, Ketcham worked with Chuck Jones on an animated segment of Dennis the Menace for the Curiosity Shop. Perhaps that rekindled his interest.
December 06, 2011 12:14 PM
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December 07, 2011 10:15 AM
Nice work. I'm delighted you still have a lightbox! :)
December 07, 2011 12:39 PM
That's neat. I also remember one of the Hi & Lois book collections having a flipbook of Trixie bouncing up and down (IIRC the animation was done by one of Mort Walker's assistants).
December 08, 2011 9:35 AM
I spoke with Ron Ferdinand and he mentioned this little flip book saying that when the paperbacks came out, Hank was not thrilled with the large amount of white space on each page and decided for one book to do the flip book. It must have been time consuming as it was the only one he ever did for the paperbacks.
October 15, 2015 9:02 PM