Auctioning the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Two art sales on opposite sides of the world are also poles apart in their artists’ vision of characters from children’s books and cartoons.

PoohsticksKiddy lit at its most innocent is the trademark of next month’s Sotheby’s London “English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustration” sale, where E. H. Shepard’s illustration of Winnie-the-Pooh playing a game of “Poohsticks” on a bridge with Christopher Robin and Piglet, published in The House at Pooh Corner (1928), is expected to bring more than £100,000. Also on the block are drawings by Beatrix Potter and Edmund Dulac.

VillainsPosterSM COMPVillainy, horror and sensuality, on the other hand, are celebrated in Van Eaton Galleries’ “When Good Toons Go Bad: Villains of Animation”, featuring artists’ interpretations of Saturday morning cartoon villains and big screen meanies. The show opens November 15 in Sherman Oaks, CA and runs until November 29.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter and John King Tarpinian for the links.]

6 thoughts on “Auctioning the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

  1. What about Crabby Appleton and Isotope Feeny, villains in the Tom Terrific cartoons of the ’50s?

  2. Every once in a while, I’ll call a long time artist pal, and doing my best Lionel Barrymore, say “Waahhh… I’ll get that Underdog, and his little girlfriend, too…”

    He’ll say, “Is this Simon Bar Sinister?”

    I just showed a TOM TERRIFIC to another pal, on Youtube, and she suddenly began singing along wigh the theme song!

    When I was a kid, I had the Little Golden record with that tune (and “Manfred the Wonder Dog” on the flipside!) Such good fun watching that imaginative Terrytoons cartoon (directed by Deitch?), on CAPTAIN KANGAROO, and sad, when its black and white-ness bumped it from the rotation…

    For years, so much grand monochrome kids stuff disappeared from the ether…

  3. Gene Dietch did the Tom Terrific series, designs which he borrowed from his comic strip TERRIBLE THOMPSON. It was Terrytunes, which CBS owned at that point in the fifties.

    There were comic books of the show. Check out Gene’s Wikipedia entry…

  4. I have dim memories of Crabby Appleton and they blur with Simon Bar Sinister. did they look that much alike, or is it a defect of a memory of something seen only a few times, 60 years ago? I wonder what Google Images might turn up?

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