This article appears on MuskegonOnline.NET and refers to graphics in that article. I appreciate information about your experiences at MuskegonOnline.NET so we can build a very easy to use online experience for you. Comment at the bottom of this article, please.
I'm often frustrated by how complex websites are. Our site is designed simply for easy navigation. Enjoy!
See the chart at the top of this page. This is how the entire magazine is designed, simple to use and easy to navigate.
Always begin at the Contents Page. This is the first page to come up when you enter our site. The Contents Page will take you everywhere in MuskegonOnline.NET!
We don't feature confusing pop up windows or a lot of pages within pages. If you become lost, find this button to return to the Contents Page. It will be at the top left and bottom of every article page.
Click on an article listing. This will lead you to an ad. Many ads feature video and click through to the advertiser's website.
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At the top of every ad is a sentence stating, "Advertisement. Click here to continue to the article." You do just that! Clicking on that sentence will take you through to the article you wanted to read.
When you are done with the article, simply find the "Return to Contents Page" button to return to the Contents Page. It will be at the top left and bottom of every article page.
In fact, you can click on blue, underlined words inside any article to take you to another place on the internet. That website will come up in a separate window, so you can always close that window and return instantly to your article.
You can click on a graphic that has an arrow (below) to play a video.
The volume control is at the bottom of the graphic box. Be sure your own computer's volume is turned up! Click "Full screen" on the bottom right to fill your screen with the video. The control panel remains at the bottom of the graphic so you can return to usual size.
Some readers may not have a fast enough internet connection to play video. It helps to play the video a little, then pause it as it loads. You can see a line graph below move from left to right. When the line graph is nearly to the end, click the arrow to play. A little jumpiness, especially during peak evening hours, is typical of internet video.
I know people who are afraid of exploring websites and the internet. I believe that fear has been fueled over the years by poorly designed, confusing websites. It saddens me that people whose lives would be greatly enriched by internet experiences shy away from this, our modern Library of Alexandria, a collection of the world's knowledge.
Tell them you enjoyed your visit to MuskegonOnline!
We know the web is a crowded place, with many flashy sites maneuvering for your attention. Thank you for coming here monthly, to listen to what some of your neighbors have to say and enjoy the color!
Editor and Publisher Gary Scott Beatty has been working in printing and publishing for over 35 years, including editing Muskegon's On the Shore magazine and typesetting Muskegon Magazine. In 2008 he won a Xeric Foundation Grant to publish Jazz: Cool Birth, a murder mystery in a 1957 jazz club with illustrations inspired by '50s album cover design. This and his other Aazurn Publishing books can be purchased through Amazon.com. Worldwide, he edits and publishes Indie Comics Magazine, 64 pages of the best story and art from today's independent comic book creators.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Jazz: The Tiki Room (February 2012 MuskegonOnline.NET)
A bonus for those who want to discuss Jazz: The Tiki Room from MuskegonOnline.NET below: the artist's statement from my Xeric Grant awarded book Jazz: Cool Birth. This does a good job explaining my thought processes working in this new (for me) Modernist style.
Yes, this style is MEANT to look old. 50 years old, as a matter of fact.
Through study of album cover design, television program title artwork, and common illustrations used in everything from health booklets to instruction manuals from the '50s, I have attempted to pull readers into the late night jazz clubs of 1957, feeling the music through the visuals. Ignoring paint and ink magazine illustration, a left over style from previous decades, I concentrated on the combination of flat and painterly used by artists working with T-squares and triangles, tracing paper, ruling pens and brush, preparing work for rotary letterpresses and similar hands-on intensive printing methods.
Alex Steinweiss and Jim Flora, wonderful craftsmen working on album covers for Columbia and RCA Victor respectively, obviously had a great influence on Jazz: Cool Birth. Little known illustrator Lou Peters and Disney designer Tom Oreb deserve a mention, as well as the great Mark Rothko and the rest of the abstract expressionists. But the look of Jazz: Cool Birth comes, mostly, from unknown, uncredited artists working in a beat style in a decade where nearly every printed piece contained some kind of drawn graphic.
Then there's the typography. Hand drawn, or typeset and carefully kerned and arranged by hand, jazz album type fascinated me from an early age. I have managed to find a font, Hairspray Redhead from Christian Schwartz Design, that approximates the famous Steinweiss Scrawl appearing on so many beautiful '50s album covers. My Futura and Bodoni typefaces are passable, but, like typographers predicted with the rise of desktop publishing in the '80s, the typefaces don't have quite the grace and balance of their '50s counterparts.
My tools are modern and digital, but the process of pushing things around on the page remains the same as 1957. What I learned from studying craftsmen of 50 years ago is to never let the tools dictate where something lays on a page. The modern computer typesetter's practice of distorting type rather than adjusting the letter spacing and kerning is lazy, uninformed and unattractive. Typography is a line-by-line art.
The missing link in this book is, of course, the music. But Monk, Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, Rollins and others are there, in the back, listening, taking mental notes on licks and trends. They don't need bodyguards and an entourage to slip into clubs. This is 1957, when few musicians made more than enough for expenses, studio time was a cost prohibitive dream and, like Dean says, "You know musicians, no gravy, no grease."
Gary Scott Beatty, 2008
Editor and Publisher Gary Scott Beatty has been working in printing and publishing for over 35 years, including editing Muskegon's On the Shore magazine and typesetting Muskegon Magazine. In 2008 he won a Xeric Foundation Grant to publish Jazz: Cool Birth, a murder mystery in a 1957 jazz club with illustrations inspired by '50s album cover design. This and his other Aazurn Publishing books can be purchased through Amazon.com. Worldwide, he edits and publishes Indie Comics Magazine, 64 pages of the best story and art from today's independent comic book creators.
Yes, this style is MEANT to look old. 50 years old, as a matter of fact.
Through study of album cover design, television program title artwork, and common illustrations used in everything from health booklets to instruction manuals from the '50s, I have attempted to pull readers into the late night jazz clubs of 1957, feeling the music through the visuals. Ignoring paint and ink magazine illustration, a left over style from previous decades, I concentrated on the combination of flat and painterly used by artists working with T-squares and triangles, tracing paper, ruling pens and brush, preparing work for rotary letterpresses and similar hands-on intensive printing methods.
Alex Steinweiss and Jim Flora, wonderful craftsmen working on album covers for Columbia and RCA Victor respectively, obviously had a great influence on Jazz: Cool Birth. Little known illustrator Lou Peters and Disney designer Tom Oreb deserve a mention, as well as the great Mark Rothko and the rest of the abstract expressionists. But the look of Jazz: Cool Birth comes, mostly, from unknown, uncredited artists working in a beat style in a decade where nearly every printed piece contained some kind of drawn graphic.
Then there's the typography. Hand drawn, or typeset and carefully kerned and arranged by hand, jazz album type fascinated me from an early age. I have managed to find a font, Hairspray Redhead from Christian Schwartz Design, that approximates the famous Steinweiss Scrawl appearing on so many beautiful '50s album covers. My Futura and Bodoni typefaces are passable, but, like typographers predicted with the rise of desktop publishing in the '80s, the typefaces don't have quite the grace and balance of their '50s counterparts.
My tools are modern and digital, but the process of pushing things around on the page remains the same as 1957. What I learned from studying craftsmen of 50 years ago is to never let the tools dictate where something lays on a page. The modern computer typesetter's practice of distorting type rather than adjusting the letter spacing and kerning is lazy, uninformed and unattractive. Typography is a line-by-line art.
The missing link in this book is, of course, the music. But Monk, Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, Rollins and others are there, in the back, listening, taking mental notes on licks and trends. They don't need bodyguards and an entourage to slip into clubs. This is 1957, when few musicians made more than enough for expenses, studio time was a cost prohibitive dream and, like Dean says, "You know musicians, no gravy, no grease."
Gary Scott Beatty, 2008
Editor and Publisher Gary Scott Beatty has been working in printing and publishing for over 35 years, including editing Muskegon's On the Shore magazine and typesetting Muskegon Magazine. In 2008 he won a Xeric Foundation Grant to publish Jazz: Cool Birth, a murder mystery in a 1957 jazz club with illustrations inspired by '50s album cover design. This and his other Aazurn Publishing books can be purchased through Amazon.com. Worldwide, he edits and publishes Indie Comics Magazine, 64 pages of the best story and art from today's independent comic book creators.
Color Classics: Sentimental Charm (February 2012 MuskegonOnline.NET)
This month we celebrate Valentine's Day with three love-themed Fleischer Studios cartoons.
Don't expect the urban, jazz crazy tales of the Fleischer brothers' early years in these Color Classics from 1935 (Dancing on the Moon and Time for Love) and 1937 (Bunny Mooning). Although their Koko the Clown dominated '20s cartoon popularity and Fleischer Studios' Betty Boop was a household name, the enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934 kept Fleischer cartoons from the racey, dark, city-oriented subject matter that made their early cartoons unique.
The Color Classics, obvious nods to Disney's successful Silly Symphonies series, have their own visual charm, aided by the Stereoptical process developed by Fleischer Studios. If many of the backgrounds look real, it's because they are -- drawn animation cells were positioned in front of scale model, three dimensional dioramas, giving an amazing depth to many scenes.
Dancing on the Moon, below, was one of the last films made by Fleischer Studios using the two-color Technicolor process. Disney had acquired an exclusivity to three-color Technicolor process and it took the Fleischers years to take advantage of that technology. Although Dancing on the Moon does not feature jazz music from Cab Calloway or Louis Armstrong, like earlier cartoons, you will most likely be humming this goofy theme song by Charlie Tobias and Murray Mencher for hours to come. It's catchy!
(Video here at MuskegonOnline.NET)
Bunny Mooning, below, directed by Dave Fleischer. Voices include Jack Mercer, who later became the voice of Popeye for Fleischer Studios, and Mae Questel, the voice of Betty Boop on over 150 animated shorts until the character was retired in 1939.
(Video here at MuskegonOnline.NET)
We leave the Fleischer Studios Color Classics with Time for Love, below. Though the Fleischers would never recover from a disastrous move from New York City to Miami, Florida in 1938, their Popeye cartoons continued to be popular and their carefully drawn, scored and scripted Superman cartoons remain some of the best superhero stories on film.
(Video here at MuskegonOnline.NET)
Those interested in classic cartoons can visit the The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit museum, library and digital archive dedicated to serving the worldwide animation community. A project of ASIFA-Hollywood, the archive receives support from The Walter Lantz Foundation. Go to http://www.animationarchive.org and prepare to be entertained.
These Works are in Public Domain and not Derivative as specified by U.S. copyright law (title 17 of the U.S. Code).
Editor and Publisher Gary Scott Beatty has been working in printing and publishing for over 35 years, including editing Muskegon's On the Shore magazine and typesetting Muskegon Magazine. In 2008 he won a Xeric Foundation Grant to publish Jazz: Cool Birth, a murder mystery in a 1957 jazz club with illustrations inspired by '50s album cover design. This and his other Aazurn Publishing books can be purchased through Amazon.com. Worldwide, he edits and publishes Indie Comics Magazine, 64 pages of the best story and art from today's independent comic book creators.
Don't expect the urban, jazz crazy tales of the Fleischer brothers' early years in these Color Classics from 1935 (Dancing on the Moon and Time for Love) and 1937 (Bunny Mooning). Although their Koko the Clown dominated '20s cartoon popularity and Fleischer Studios' Betty Boop was a household name, the enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934 kept Fleischer cartoons from the racey, dark, city-oriented subject matter that made their early cartoons unique.
The Color Classics, obvious nods to Disney's successful Silly Symphonies series, have their own visual charm, aided by the Stereoptical process developed by Fleischer Studios. If many of the backgrounds look real, it's because they are -- drawn animation cells were positioned in front of scale model, three dimensional dioramas, giving an amazing depth to many scenes.
Dancing on the Moon, below, was one of the last films made by Fleischer Studios using the two-color Technicolor process. Disney had acquired an exclusivity to three-color Technicolor process and it took the Fleischers years to take advantage of that technology. Although Dancing on the Moon does not feature jazz music from Cab Calloway or Louis Armstrong, like earlier cartoons, you will most likely be humming this goofy theme song by Charlie Tobias and Murray Mencher for hours to come. It's catchy!
(Video here at MuskegonOnline.NET)
Bunny Mooning, below, directed by Dave Fleischer. Voices include Jack Mercer, who later became the voice of Popeye for Fleischer Studios, and Mae Questel, the voice of Betty Boop on over 150 animated shorts until the character was retired in 1939.
(Video here at MuskegonOnline.NET)
We leave the Fleischer Studios Color Classics with Time for Love, below. Though the Fleischers would never recover from a disastrous move from New York City to Miami, Florida in 1938, their Popeye cartoons continued to be popular and their carefully drawn, scored and scripted Superman cartoons remain some of the best superhero stories on film.
(Video here at MuskegonOnline.NET)
Those interested in classic cartoons can visit the The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit museum, library and digital archive dedicated to serving the worldwide animation community. A project of ASIFA-Hollywood, the archive receives support from The Walter Lantz Foundation. Go to http://www.animationarchive.org and prepare to be entertained.
These Works are in Public Domain and not Derivative as specified by U.S. copyright law (title 17 of the U.S. Code).
Editor and Publisher Gary Scott Beatty has been working in printing and publishing for over 35 years, including editing Muskegon's On the Shore magazine and typesetting Muskegon Magazine. In 2008 he won a Xeric Foundation Grant to publish Jazz: Cool Birth, a murder mystery in a 1957 jazz club with illustrations inspired by '50s album cover design. This and his other Aazurn Publishing books can be purchased through Amazon.com. Worldwide, he edits and publishes Indie Comics Magazine, 64 pages of the best story and art from today's independent comic book creators.