Please enjoy this sketch from Rutland Weekend Television. Featuring David Battley and Eric Idle (with the offscreen voices of Terry Jones and Neil Innes.)

I was driving home from Beverly Hills last night. I hadn’t had supper, and I belatedly thought that I should have stopped at one of my favorite haunts from the old days. I’m speaking of the Formosa Diner at the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Formosa. When I got home I checked the internet to see if it would’ve been open, and I discovered that it had closed permanently last December.

The Formosa Diner had been there a very long time by the time I started eating there in the eighties. It was next to the original United Artists studio (The Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin United Artists studio!) The first time I ate there, an elderly waitress overheard me joking to my luncheon companion that silent film star Elmo Lincoln had eaten there. With slight irritation she said, “Don’t laugh...”

The diner itself was a black and red vinyl lounge-type restaurant with a full bar, and an old railway car had been grafted to the building to enlarge it. It had an oriental design motif that extended to the menu. There were pictures on the walls of their famous patrons, and there was also a little shrine to Elvis Presley.

So though I’m late, here’s to you, Formosa Diner. You were truly one of a kind.

I haven't mentioned it lately, but I'm always happy to do commissions, so if you have a drawing you would like me to draw, please drop me a note.

Prices are $35 per character for a black & white brush and ink drawing. If there is more than a very basic background (and/or props) they can be done at additional cost, with the cost depending on the complexity. If you like color, Photoshop coloring is an additional $20 per character. Color for more complex settings done at additional cost. If you want the original, physical artwork sent to your home, shipping within continental US is $7. International shipping is $12.

Hey, gang! Another cat video.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. I have been very busy with work for the last couple of months, so I present this cartoon from Christmas past. It was produced by Ken Mitchroney and directed by me. This show was originally padded out with four public domain cartoons. They have been mostly edited out in this video.



Cheers!

MK-

Thank you one and all for all the nice notes and posts. It really brightens my day. Stay tuned, there's more pictures coming your way...

It's 105 degrees outside, and I'm illustrating a "Simpsons" story with snow all over the place...

Christmas films and comics always have to be done by summer/early fall...

2015 marks 2 important comic anniversaries, for me anyways. It was 20 years ago that I had completed the art for "The Suit" , and 30 years ago I drew the first "Captain Jack" stories.

In the run up to Captain Jack, I had become a producer of cheap animated films, and I took to drawing comic books as well. I had, for the previous 3 years tried unsuccessfully to sell "underground" comic stories to publishers. Some 300 pages of stuff. Really, I wasn't satisfied with them, and neither was anyone else. Discovering Captain Jack was like finding my voice, in a manner of speaking. It was something I loved doing, and it changed the way I drew comics forever.

The Suit was written in a short but intense moment in 1989, furiously sketching the story out in a matter of days, then editing the material with a pair of scissors and scotch tape. I waited for a few years waiting for an "ideal" time to draw it, which never happened (meanwhile I drew other shorter stories) and I just started working on the art in dribs and drabs as time was available. 2 years later, it was finished and published.

I enjoyed doing these projects, they were important to me. I'm glad I did them.

Gary Owens was a great friend for many years. Truthfully, so great was Gary's love for cartoons and comics, that he was a friend to every cartoonist. There aren't enough superlatives in the dictionary to do him justice.

Here's one of the commercials we worked on together. I was the animator. Gerry Woolery was the director, and Scott Shaw did the storyboard and layouts....

It's time for a new journal entry, so here's three minutes and some change of Tawny the cat set to music...

I can't make it to Anthrocon this year. I had a fun time the coming out there the last two years, and it was nice to see some of you folks in person. Maybe next year...

Today is my third year of posting on FA. I wish to thank all you folks out there for making it a fun time.

My friend and mentor Gerard Baldwin made a film for himself that was eventually distributed to schools and libraries. For years, he asked me if I'd seen it. For years I hadn't. Well, I finally have a 16mm print. Now you can see it too.



It's a beat up library print in faded Eastmancolor, but it's all I got.

Hot on the heels of Lou Scheimer's death, It seems that Hal Sutherland had recently died as well. Hal and Lou were very close friends, so I should hardly be surprised.

I thought Lou was a very nice man, though I spent a lot more time with Hal while I was working at Filmation. He was a somewhat grumpier boss than Lou. Still, he was the one that gave me the job in the feature department, and for that I owe him a debt of gratitude. The job allowed me stay in LA and learn more about how "the big guys" did things, and I got to work with some very fine and wonderful people as well. Some of them are still friends to this day.

I was (and still am) very immersed in the manly art of film editing. I studied film technique and spent many hours in the cutting room. Sometimes while I was working at Filmation I would spot some editing gaff, usually involving hook-ups. I felt it was my duty to bring them to Hal's attention, and I did so often. Hal would either dismiss my concerns with a wisecrack, or he would ask me what I would do about it. In those cases I would tell him what I would do. A couple of times he actually took my advice. In retrospect, it must have bemused my jaded boss to see the eager young greenhorn so worried about the cutting, especially since that wasn't my department.

Hal was a stickler for punctuality, so I would be sure to arrive on time, and that lunch hour never went over an hour. He had one of those parabolic parking mirrors set up in the hallway outside of his office so he could see people coming and going. He had signed his name to his parking space with the same signature that you'd see at the end of a Filmation cartoon. Hal drove a 1984 Thunderbird with a vanity plate that read "Fun Car". One lunch break I while I was visiting a nearby Toy-R-Us, I spotted a Hot Wheels T-Bird stocker that resembled Hal's car, and bought it for him. When I gave it to Hal he looked at me strangely, and asked what the heck was I doing in a toy store.

So here's to you, Hal. And to you too, Lou. I can say with all honesty that working for you guys was a life-changing experience.

I have recently re-uploaded the image files for several of my submissions. Mainly, these were scans of artwork that had been in color, either paintings or printer's proofs. I've been learning more about how to use Photoshop to compensate for scanner error, so I tried to apply what I've discovered to the old submissions. The intention was to make the images appear as close to the original art as possible. Please enjoy the new more vibrant files. Thanks!

I met Lou Scarborough on my first week working at Filmation. We'd been close friends ever since. He's gone now, died last night. Even knowing how dire his condition was doesn't make this any less of a shock. Much sadness...

I'm back from Anthrocon, and a stop in Detroit as well. I'm beat. More later...

I will be heading to Pittsburgh next week to attend Anthrocon. If you're going too, please stop by and say hi.

I'm feeling sad. I just found out that Kim Thompson died this morning. I met Kim in 1985, and worked with him for the next eight years. We used to socialize whenever I came out to the Fantagraphics office, and I always enjoyed the many parties Kim and Gary Groth used to throw. Even after they were no longer publishing my books, Kim and I would keep in touch with occasional phone calls and later e-mails. I haven't had contact with him in a couple of years, not for any particular reason, it just happens sometimes that you loose touch with somebody. That's one of the things that makes me sad.

Between 1988 and 1993 I used to do freelance layout work for Rick Reinert Pictures. Here's one of the pictures I worked on. If you have 22 minutes to spare and like O. G. Readmore, give it a look.



Rick Reinert was a very nice man, and I enjoyed working with him and his right hand man Dave Bennett.

I had to look for an old but very important paper today. I still haven't found it, but I found lots of other stuff. There was a massive pile of contracts and check stubs from studios and publishers. A few of them have since been absorbed into the belly lining of much larger companies, or more likely they have gone out business entirely. There was some personal correspondence. And then there were the letters to Stimpy. Stimpy? Let me explain.

In one of our early Ren and Stimpy comic stories there was a drawing of a postman getting knocked over. Among the letters that went flying was a letter addressed to Stimpson J. Cat. It was written in very small letters, but still legible. The address was actually that of my pal Jerry Beck. Well, letters to Stimpy started showing up at Jerry's house. Nice letters from kids who wanted to say hi. Some of them even had drawings on envelope or letter. I wrote every one of them back, as Stimpy. I wrote them all by hand in what I meant to be Stimpy's handwriting. I'd like to think that the kids enjoyed hearing from him.

The temperature was in the 90s here today. If this is March, what will summer be like?

I'm mostly caught up with work, so I can go back to my normal level of chaos.

My old pal Milton Knight has a brand new comic-on-CDR for sale starring his character Hugo. Click on the link for a preview (the preview, as well as the comic book are NSFW) and ordering details. http://miltonknight.net/previews.html

I'm still doing the deadline dance. Things should free up in a week or so.

I've been super busy with work this month. There's more to come, so stay tuned. Thanks to everyone for watching and commenting.

Most years we buy a ton of candy to pass out, and this year was no exception. Every year up to now we've ended up with a lot of leftovers, but this year, so many kids showed up, we actually ran out.... and they were still coming! I went into the garage and got out a box of "Wacky Package" stickers and started handing them out. Things are finally starting to quiet down now.