Friday, August 26, 2022
MAD Magazine is now 70 Years Old!
Thursday, August 25, 2022
Friday, August 19, 2022
THE SONS OF THE DESERT 22nd INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION!
Some personal affairs precluded me from attending the festivities this year but I am crossing my fingers hoping I will be able to partake of the forthcoming event a couple of years from now, wherever and whenever it may be held. (As long as I don't have to take the Oath from our Exhausted Ruler).
Thursday, August 18, 2022
Monday, August 15, 2022
PAUL COKER Jr. (1929-2022)
Animation artist and illustrator Paul Coker Jr., best known for his character and production designs for the classic Rankin/Bass stop-motion specials as well as his long stint illustrating for MAD Magazine, died at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico on July 23 at age 93, after a brief illness. Coker’s stepdaughter, Lee Smithson Burd, confirmed his passing to Deadline and shared that the artist was “lucid and had his remarkable sense of humor until the end.”
Coker was known for his “Horrifying Clichés” panels and film/TV parody spoofs. He also collaborated with MAD writer Don Edwing on the Lancelot and Horace & Buggy comic strips. Coker freelanced for other publications, including Esquire, Good Housekeeping and Playboy.
For Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr.’s iconic studio, Coker also provided character designs for stop-motion specials Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971), Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July (1979) and The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor’s New Clothes (1972) as well as 2D specials and series like Festival of Family Classics and The Wacky World of Mother Goose.
Coker lent his talents to to many of these titles as well, in addition to The First Easter Rabbit, Frosty’s Winter Wonderland, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, Jack Frost, The Stingiest Man in Town and Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, to name a few. Coker continued working the the studio into the early 2000s, on the 2D TV movie Santa, Baby! He also provided character models for Cartoon Network’s Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? (2002). Coker is survived by his wife of 33 years, Rosemary Smithson, and stepdaughters Lee Smithson Burd and Carol Smithson.