Toonfest 2010: Plaque and Planteer Ceremonies

There are two ceremonies at Toonfest. The first happens after the parade when each of the honored guests are presented with a plaque which holds a small piece of Walt Disney's "dreaming tree". A large cottonwood, this is the tree under which, as a child, Disney would sit with his younger sister Ruth and daydream. Since Walt made his fortune turning those daydreams into entertainment for the world, his place of inspiration holds a special significance.

Each plaque has a photo of Walt and his brother Roy at the dreaming tree holding a piece of the bark as well as an actual piece of the tree and some words of appreciation.

Past and present honored guests of Toonfest. From left to right: Dr. Robin Allan, Guy Gilchrist, Stan Goldberg, John Hambrock, Marcus Hamilton, Shirley Schmidt, Paul Fell, Albert Schmidt, Mike Edholm, Tom Thornton, and Ken Alvine.

Dr. Robin Allan author of "Walt Disney and Europe"

John Hambrock of The Brilliant Mind Of Edison Lee

John Read - publisher of Stay Tooned and Curator of "One Fine Sunday in The Funny Pages".

Guy Gilchrest of Today's Dogg and Nancy

Marcus Hamilton of Dennis The Menace

Stan Goldberg of Archie Comics

"Marcus the Menace"

I don't know who said what but it must have been hilarious!

Later that night there was another ceremony at the dreaming tree. There were some speeches, including one by "Young Walt" (Colby Sims) and "Young Ruth"(Sarah Kussman).

Each guest was inducted into the "order of planteers" complete with hard hat fitted with Mickey Mouse ears.

They were then escorted down to an arboretum where they each planted a tree in honor of the dreaming tree.

Cindy Thornton played the pipes for the occasion.

Planting the tree (a willow) with a little help from daughter Kate.

Finally, it was time to sign Walt's barn. The original barn has not survived but a replica has been built in it's place. It is supposed to be a place, like the dreaming tree, for reflection and inspiration.

John signing the barn.

Kate is now also officially a "planteer"

There was one more signing ceremony the next day. Debbie Foster has a room in the Uptown with a wall devoted to the famous cartoonists who have stayed there.

John signs the wall.

It's a little hard to see but some of the other signatures on the wall are: Jim Borgman (Zits) Pete Doctor (Monster's Inc), Chris Browne (Hagar the Horrible) Jay Jackson (Little Mermaid) Michael Jantze (The Norm) Tom Wilson (Ziggy) and Tom Baxter (Figment)

As Kris is hoping to work at pixar someday, he thought he'd try tracing some pixar characters. (Settle down - he didn't really!)

Marcus Hamilton's contribution from this weekend.

Another wall - here we have: Jan Eliot (Stone Soup) Dan Piraro (Bizarro) and Greg Evens (Luann) (My apologies to the others - I can't read them and I can't remember them!)

And the inimitable Dan Piraro a little closer up.

Finally, Mark Fiore (Editorial Cartoonist) and Dave Mowder (Hallmark Cards)

Next installment: The Disney museum and the One Fine Sunday Exhibit.

Toonfest 2010: The Toonfest Parade

I'm not going to write much about the parade - it was a great parade, but I think the pictures are pretty self explanatory :-)

Pre Parade Prep (Say that 5 times fast)

Stan Goldberg and Chris Ankeney

Shriner's Ahoy!

Dr. Robin Allan and his lovely wife.

Riding in style!

Just hangin' out - you know, bein' pirates.

I'm afraid I did not get the names of these lovely girls.

John, Kris, Kate and driver Donna Moore

And on to the Parade..........

Spectators line up....

And we begin...

And a great time was had by all! Next Installment - Plaques and Planteer Ceremonies

Toonfest 2010: The Presentations

A big part of Toonfest are the presentations given by the guests of honor. There were two rounds of these; the first on Friday were for high school and college art students, and the second on Saturday were for the general public. It was fascinating to hear all the presenters tell their personal stories about working in comics and show some of their drawing technique. The art students were hand picked by their respective teachers and bussed in from all over the area - some riding as for long as two hours just to get there.

Here's a small recap:

First was Stan Goldberg of Archie Comics. I hate to refer to him that way because, as important as his contributions to the Archie franchise have been, the man is a giant in the industry of comic books and illustration. In a career that spans over 50 years, Mr. Goldberg has held important positions at both DC Comics, Marvel Comics and also spent 15 years drawing Millie the Model. I could use the rest of this space simply to list his accomplishments!

Stan gave a terrific presentation describing the various facets of his career, including getting his start in the business at the ripe age of 16. Something pretty impossible to do nowdays.

A word about the pictures - my digital camera did a dismal job capturing the presentations which is why many of these are dark. Later I switched to good old fashioned 35 mm. And I was unable to get a single decent picture of Dr. Allen that day. You'll see him later in other posts.

Stan reflecting on his career

Stan drawing Archie.

Next up was John. He told the story of his 14 year journey to syndication with King Features, (which you can find archived in his lab notes and also in issues 4, 5 & 6 of Stay Tooned magazine) and how the characters evolved through the development period. He also threw in several humorous anecdotes including a couple involving Halloween costumes for our oldest son who was the original inspiration for Edison.

There were a few issues with the drawing pad :-)

This is Edison without his glasses. The syndicate insisted on a complete redraw of Edison, stating that he needed to look more like a kid and not a middle aged man with a combover. They also insisted his glasses made him look too nerdy. Feeling the glasses were crucial to Edison's character, John fought to have them reinstated.

And here is a version of him before his makeover.

Joules

After a break for lunch, we heard from Dr. Robin Allan, Disney historian and author of the book "Walt Disney and Europe". Dr. Allan gave a charming presentation detailing the years long journey of researching and publishing his book. He faced many hurdles in his research, not the least of which was the fact that the Disney Company steadfastly denied Dr. Allan permission to use a single Disney illustration in the book! It turns out the ultimate way around this was to pursue the research as a doctoral candidate. A doctoral thesis, since it is not for publication, can use the images without permission. Eventually, after reviewing the thesis, the folks at Disney relented and allowed the book to be published.

Next we heard from Guy Gilchrist who currently does the syndicated strip Nancy. Guy is another of those folks who has been working in the comics business for many years. In addition to his work on Nancy, he does a panel strip called Today's Dogg, and spent several years working for Jim Henson drawing the muppets. He is also an accomplished children's book author (his children's books have won at least 2 NCS awards) songwriter and recording artist. Talk about multi talented!

Guy talked about leaving home at 14 and is another who was working in the business at 16. His presentation was probably the most "teacherly" in that he spent much of his time drawing and explaining the process of building figures from the inside out and manipulating them in three dimensions.

Finally, came Marcus Hamilton who draws Dennis the Menace. I was partially aware of his story of taking over the strip from Hank Ketchum, having read it in an issue of Cartoonist Profiles, but had no idea what a godsend getting the Dennis gig was for Marcus. It is such an inspiring story that I would like to devote an entire post just to that. Hopefully sometime in the next two weeks. In short, Marcus was a top level illustrator with several magazine covers (including the Saturday Evening Post) to his credit when the illustration work started to veer away from hand drawn pieces to computer generated images. At an incredibly low point in his life he landed the chance to work with Mr. Ketchum and take over the daily drawing of Dennis The Menace. (The Sundays are the work of Ron Ferdinand)

(I couldn't resist the irony of the gentlemen in this shot)

Mr. Hamilton gave a wonderful presentation in powerpoint that summed up his personal career, the career of Hank Ketchum and the evolution of Dennis.

After the presentations, all the guests assembled on the stage for Q & A.

If there was a theme to the event, I would have to say it was perseverance! Each of these gentleman spent years following their dreams and making a career in comics a reality - a career that can have long odds and be pretty daunting.

It was inspiring to hear their stories, to say the least.

Next installment: The Toonfest Parade and Plaque Ceremonies.

Fiddling with the Blog

I'm fiddling with the design of the blog - at this point I'm restricted to templates. Over the next few weeks I'll change the template occasionally (like I just did) and I'd appreciate your feedback.

See a design you love? Or hate?

Drop a comment in the box and let me know!

Toonfest 2010: Main Street USA and Hayrides

So we got ourselves all settled in at the Uptown and then it was time to head over to Walt Disney's boyhood home for drinks and social time.

The home is now owned by Kaye Malins whose father was once the Mayor of Marceline. Kaye is one of the tireless members of the toonfest team and was actually in the uptown theater the day Walt premiered "The Great Locomotive Chase". She was also our tour guide through the Disney museum and our hostess on more than one occasion.

From Kaye's house we boarded a hay wagon driven by a 4th generation Marceline farmer Willie Ewigman His young son was aboard the tractor and seemed much intrigued by this gaggle of cartoonists.

We rode the wagon through the peaceful countryside during that wonderful time about 40 minutes before sunset when everything looks so sharp and vibrant.

After a couple of miles we pulled into a pasture and spent some time with a herd of the black angus cattle that are such a feature of Missouri. After a while we noticed they seemed pretty interested in us and had actually started following the wagon. While it was flattering to entertain the thought that they were drawn by all our magnetic personalities, the real truth of the matter is that we were riding what is ordinarily their feed wagon and they wanted to know where the heck their food was. We must have been a pretty big disappointment to them.

(I think they're following us.......)

Where's my food?!!!

We then disembarked at the farm of Chris Ankeney and had the first of many delicious meals of the weekend. If I followed all the genealogies right, Chris is related to the Taylors who were great friends of the Disneys when they lived in Marceline. The highlight of the evening for our daughter was hanging out with Chris's 19 cats and kittens. A devoted lover of cats, I don't think Katherine even ate anything - it would have cut into her "cat time"

After dinner it was back to Main Street USA and bed.

A word about Main Street in Marceline. Walt Disney was so taken with this street and its "everyman" "everytown" quality that he used it as the model for the Main Street USA in Disneyland. A few years ago the street was officially christened with the name Walt had chosen for it, so that it now truly is Main Street USA.

The Edison Store is now open!

Buy the first collection of Edison Lee, "The Edison Files: Notes From The Lab" here.