Potrzebie
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Paint it Google
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Zoom to see brush strokes at Google Art Project. But wait... can you see the brushstrokes in Roy Lichtenstein's Brush Stroke (1965)? I once ran into Linda Sampson in Times Square and asked her what she had been doing. She said, "Oh, I have a job painting Roy Lichtenstein's dots."
Below Google shows how they did it. The videos in this series look superb in HD and full screen.
Zoom to see brush strokes at Google Art Project. But wait... can you see the brushstrokes in Roy Lichtenstein's Brush Stroke (1965)? I once ran into Linda Sampson in Times Square and asked her what she had been doing. She said, "Oh, I have a job painting Roy Lichtenstein's dots."
Below Google shows how they did it. The videos in this series look superb in HD and full screen.
Labels: google, Lichtenstein, Linda Sampson
¶ 3:19 PM 0 comments
Friday, September 10, 2010
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Death of Newspapers #5: Barney Google
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In contrast to the miniature Albert's Candy Comics, let's approximate the way comics once looked in newspapers. Here's a Billy DeBeck strip from November 3, 1940, two years before DeBeck's death at the age of 52. Barney Google was introduced in 1919, and Snuffy Smith came along in 1934, although neither character appears in this particular episode. After DeBeck died, his assistant Fred Lasswell took over and began to create new characters for the strip. Lasswell was also one of the first cartoonists to experiment with computer lettering.
With an enlargement so each panel of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith almost fills the computer screen, we can attempt to recreate the excitement of Sunday mornings in the 1940s. In the mid-1940s, when I opened the Sunday comics section on a hardwood floor, it filled so much floor space that I would lie with my belly on top of the huge pages while reading the strips. I merged with the magic. Notice how the enlargement lets us examine relaxed ink lines, by DeBeck or Lasswell, we don't know. It also brings small details into focus, such as the pig next to the barrel and Jasper's hatchet with a red triangle, added without a black trap line for the color.
Maybe years after all the newspapers are gone, someone will say, "Hey! Why don't we print a giant-size comics section and distribute it every Sunday? We could even put some news items on the last page."
In contrast to the miniature Albert's Candy Comics, let's approximate the way comics once looked in newspapers. Here's a Billy DeBeck strip from November 3, 1940, two years before DeBeck's death at the age of 52. Barney Google was introduced in 1919, and Snuffy Smith came along in 1934, although neither character appears in this particular episode. After DeBeck died, his assistant Fred Lasswell took over and began to create new characters for the strip. Lasswell was also one of the first cartoonists to experiment with computer lettering.
With an enlargement so each panel of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith almost fills the computer screen, we can attempt to recreate the excitement of Sunday mornings in the 1940s. In the mid-1940s, when I opened the Sunday comics section on a hardwood floor, it filled so much floor space that I would lie with my belly on top of the huge pages while reading the strips. I merged with the magic. Notice how the enlargement lets us examine relaxed ink lines, by DeBeck or Lasswell, we don't know. It also brings small details into focus, such as the pig next to the barrel and Jasper's hatchet with a red triangle, added without a black trap line for the color.
Maybe years after all the newspapers are gone, someone will say, "Hey! Why don't we print a giant-size comics section and distribute it every Sunday? We could even put some news items on the last page."
Click in the labels box below to read the earlier entries in the "Death of Newspapers" series. The mystery remains: Did newspapers hasten their demise by ignoring and diminishing and downsizing comic strips?
Below are some superb, fluid DeBeck sketches, possibly for a 1930s strip he never fully developed, one that might have been titled Continental Hotel. To see the full set of sketches, go to Rob Stolzer's Gallery.
Below are some superb, fluid DeBeck sketches, possibly for a 1930s strip he never fully developed, one that might have been titled Continental Hotel. To see the full set of sketches, go to Rob Stolzer's Gallery.
Labels: barney google, billy debeck, death of newspapers, google, snuffy smith, sunday strips
¶ 8:56 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Mars Is Heaven
Control click heading to hear the X Minus One adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Mars Is Heaven (May 8, 1955).
©WMG and Ray Bradbury
©WMG
Labels: BBC, bradbury, google, heaven, mars, martians, nasa, wood
¶ 2:27 PM 2 comments
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Life itself
The new Google service of the Life magazine photo archives has been active for the past two months, and it is quite impressive. To go there, click here. The subject at hand is a good excuse to borrow the title of Elaine Dundy's autobiography for our heading at top. There's also the life.com site, which we wrote about last March. It now has a link to the Google page.
Google claims it is offering "millions of photographs" from Life, an eventual total of ten million pictures from "dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints." However, it's the "never published" angle that's the real attention grabber. According to Google/Life, 97% of these images have never been seen by the public.
I made a search for Dagmar, the first major female star of television (after Imogene Coca but before Lucille Ball). In 1950, she was hired by brash comedian Jerry Lester to appear as a dumb blonde on NBC's Broadway Open House, but when magazines and newspapers devoted pages to Dagmar and ignored Lester, he was furious. He was caught in a trap he had created. His only way out was to walk off his own show--which he did. Viewers could see the truth: Dagmar was quite clever and intelligent, while loudmouth Lester was the one who was not too bright. His trademark bit was to turn his glasses on his face at a 45-degree angle.
I've made successive screen captures to show the progression which eventually reveals 200 photos of Dagmar by Alfred Eisenstaedt and others. As some have noted, there seems to be a 200 limit on any subject; for instance, Dagmar gets 200, but so does Marilyn Monroe. I've never seen that July 16, 1951 cover story on Dagmar, but it must have displayed only about ten or less photos. Now we see her autographing still photos, on a Manhattan rooftop, in rehearsal, returning to her hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, riding a bicycle and more. It's evident why some of these photos never made it into print, with blurred movements (as in the autograph session above) or poor lighting, but even minus captions, one can connect synaptic dots to find a narrative thread throughout. Google astonishes yet again, this time unlocking a treasure trove of forgotten images. More info at the Official Google Blog.
Photos ©2009 Time
The new Google service of the Life magazine photo archives has been active for the past two months, and it is quite impressive. To go there, click here. The subject at hand is a good excuse to borrow the title of Elaine Dundy's autobiography for our heading at top. There's also the life.com site, which we wrote about last March. It now has a link to the Google page.
Google claims it is offering "millions of photographs" from Life, an eventual total of ten million pictures from "dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints." However, it's the "never published" angle that's the real attention grabber. According to Google/Life, 97% of these images have never been seen by the public.
I made a search for Dagmar, the first major female star of television (after Imogene Coca but before Lucille Ball). In 1950, she was hired by brash comedian Jerry Lester to appear as a dumb blonde on NBC's Broadway Open House, but when magazines and newspapers devoted pages to Dagmar and ignored Lester, he was furious. He was caught in a trap he had created. His only way out was to walk off his own show--which he did. Viewers could see the truth: Dagmar was quite clever and intelligent, while loudmouth Lester was the one who was not too bright. His trademark bit was to turn his glasses on his face at a 45-degree angle.
I've made successive screen captures to show the progression which eventually reveals 200 photos of Dagmar by Alfred Eisenstaedt and others. As some have noted, there seems to be a 200 limit on any subject; for instance, Dagmar gets 200, but so does Marilyn Monroe. I've never seen that July 16, 1951 cover story on Dagmar, but it must have displayed only about ten or less photos. Now we see her autographing still photos, on a Manhattan rooftop, in rehearsal, returning to her hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, riding a bicycle and more. It's evident why some of these photos never made it into print, with blurred movements (as in the autograph session above) or poor lighting, but even minus captions, one can connect synaptic dots to find a narrative thread throughout. Google astonishes yet again, this time unlocking a treasure trove of forgotten images. More info at the Official Google Blog.
Photos ©2009 Time
Labels: archive, broadway open house, dagmar, Eisenstaedt, google, life, photo, time, tv, west virginia
¶ 12:28 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Etidorpha (1895)
It's now possible to embed from Google Books. So here is the contents page from the allegorical science fiction novel Etidorpha by pharmacist John Uri Lloyd. (The title is "Aphrodite" spelled backwards.) Control click on a chapter, and a separate page will take you on this near-psychedelic voyage.
Etidorpha Or, The End of the Earth. The Strange History of a Mysterious Being, and the Account of a Remarkable Journey, as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury, who Promised to Print the Same, But Finally Evaded the Responsibility, which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd. With Many Illustrations by J. A. Knapp By John Uri Lloyd
Etidorpha Or, The End of the Earth. The Strange History of a Mysterious Being, and the Account of a Remarkable Journey, as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury, who Promised to Print the Same, But Finally Evaded the Responsibility, which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd. With Many Illustrations by J. A. Knapp By John Uri Lloyd
Labels: aphrodite, embed, etidorpha, google, google books, science fiction
¶ 3:23 PM 0 comments
