OBERON CARTOONS: 01/11/14

Saturday 11 January 2014

Lamarr and Hogarth

One of the most beautiful women to ever grace the screen, Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna in 1914. Hedy was also a talented inventor who developed a spread spectrum technique , without which the modern wireless communication would be impossible.
No wonder that even comic book artists, consciously or not, took her as a "model" for their comics. It seems that Burne Hogarth (1911 – 1996), the famous American cartoonist, illustrator, educator, author and theoretician, best known for his Tarzan comic strip, fancied the gorgeous looking actress and depicted her in his comics.

I have not been that wise. Health I have taken for granted. Love I have demanded, perhaps too much and too often. As for money, I have only realized its true worth when I didn't have it.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/hedy_lamarr.html#fEaCWjXSHv12LkT2.99

Hedy: I have not been that wise. Health I have taken for granted. Love I have demanded, perhaps too much and too often. As for money, I have only realised its true worth when I didn't have it.

Hedy: I advise everybody not to save: spend your money. Most people save all their lives and leave it to somebody else. Money is to be enjoyed.

Hedy: American men, as a group, seem to be interested in only two things, money and breasts. It seems a very narrow outlook.

Hedy: The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true.

Hedy: I would tell anyone who wants something from someone else to feign not wanting it. People are perverse. If you show great affection to them, they'll run the other way.

More quotes from Hedy: Brainy Quote

Cooper and Luke

There are many examples of comic book heroes which were inspired by the particular movie characters or/and actors and vice versa. Sometime in the 60's, the comics magazine "Kekec", that I had following regularly, started publishing hilarious western cartoonish comic titled "Talični Tom". Later, some Croatian magazines published the same comic strip under the name "Srećko Munja". Only later I have learnt the comic's real title was: "Lucky Luke".
It was created by the Belgian cartoonist Maurice De Bevere, alias Morris, and often written by René Goscinny, scenarist of the Asteryx comic. Luke's name was inspired by that of Luciano Locarno, an Italian American sheriff who lived between 1860 and 1940. However, the real inspiration for the character and his looks was probably Gary Cooper. Just like Luke he was basically nice and benevolent, but tough and a sleek gunslinger when needed. Cooper was a chain smoker and a tuft lock of hair was sticking under his hat.
Later, when the animated cartoons were produced, Lucky Luke was dubbed with the characteristic deep Cooper's voice.
When smoking became unpopular in media, the cigarette in the comic was replaced by a straw sticking from Luke's mouth.
Together with The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix, Lucky Luke is one of the most popular and best-selling comic-book series in continental Europe.

The comic often features the characters which are in fact caricatures of the famous actors or the real people from the old wild West, like Jesse James, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, etc. The funniest "villains" are the Dalton brothers, the fictional "less successful" cousins of the real Dalton gang.

Grey and Cooper

One of my favourite western actors was Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; 1901 – 1961) who wanted to be an editorial cartoonist, but thankfully, failed in that goal of his. He choose to pursue an acting career. Cooper together with my favourite western writer, ex dentist Pearl Zane Grey (1872 –1939), joined forces in a way, to put one of the Grey's novels on the silver screen in 1931. The western movie was"Fighting caravans". This film costarred Lily Damita. It is still a well produced and amusing old movie.