COAT OF SMILES, parody art of iconic symbols. A duck's hat, a mouse's ears and a smiling yellow button. Three iconic things brought together in one artwork.
The PAPERWALKER Journal is the personal weblog of DUCKLAND creator and award-winning character designer Florian Satzinger – who worked on characters such as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes (Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Silvester etc.), Pinky And The Brain, A.J.Hogg and Scooby-Doo, for studios such as Warner Bros., Disney, ReelFX and Zanuck Family Entertainment – in which he shares bits and pieces of his character design work, processes, visual development, inspirations and reference materials of current, past and future projects.
©2024 by Florian Satzinger. World rights reserved. | 104,7M VIEWS | Instagram | Page | Bēhance



PLEASE NOTE, the displayed parody artworks of classical cartoon characters are not copies but distinct satiric imitations/caricatures, by exaggerating and transforming the original characters and their related indica (see 'Coat of Smiles') in a way that creates new originals and new meanings, different from the intentions of the originals.

All reference/inspiration material here (i.e. all material not originated by the author of this blog) is solely the property of their respective owners, the use here does not imply that you may use the material for any purpose other than for a similar parodistic, informational or inspirational use. This blog journal is basically dedicated to inspire professional animation artists, animation students and everyone who is interested in the animation art form to use their talents. If you find any content here that belongs to you and you want it down or has not been properly attributed, please contact 'hello[at]paperwalker[dot]com', thank you.


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Monday, February 23, 2015

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Clock Tower, Paris-Gare De Lyon

Monster, Paris, July 2008. Good times :-)

Per Dybvig

Norwegian artist Per Dybvig is one of those very artists who have a special place in my head's "admiration centre". Looking at his work is always an inspirational adventure.

Artwork courtesy of Per Dybvig. All rights reserved.

Friday, February 20, 2015

Michael K. Frith: Fraggles!

Muppets design-mastermind Michael Frith's early sketch of The Fraggle Five, 1981.

Images courtesy of The Jim Henson Company. All rights reserved.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Bert And Ernie: Original Sketches


Images courtesy of The Jim Henson Company. All rights reserved.

Thursday Morning Jawdropper: Josef Sudek, Photographer

"Labyrinth in my atelier" (1960), Josef Sudek (1896 - 1976).

Photos via and Google Image Search, the images are courtesy of their respective owners.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Leaving The Comfort Zone

Leaving the comfort zone.

Ein von Florian Satzinger Paperwalker (@floriansatzinger) gepostetes Foto am

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Harald Siepermann

Yesterday, it was two years since character designer Harald Siepermann's passing. Remembering him with celebration rather than sadness: Look at this little drawing here, utterly remarkable.

Inspirational Illustrations From The Past: Disney's Pinocchio (Little Golden Book)

I think the artist was Al Dempster.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Franklin (Peanuts): The Back Story

by Maryam Laura Moazedi

"I did get one letter from one southern editor who said something about 'I don't mind you having a black character, but please don't show them in school together.' Because I had shown Franklin sitting in front of Peppermint Patty. But I didn't even answer him."
Charles M. Schulz

"I always refer to Franklin as my fourth child."
Harriet Glickman



April 15, 1968
Dear Mr. Schulz,

Since the death of Martin Luther King, I've been asking myself what I can do to help change those conditions in our socienty which led to the assassination and which contribute to the vast sea of misunderstanding, fear, hate and violence.
As a suburban housewife, the mother of three children and a deeply concerned and active citizen, I am well aware of the very long and tortuous road ahead. (...)
It occurred to me today that the introduction of Negro children into the group of Schulz characters could happen with a minimum of impact. the gentleness of the kids...even Lucy, is a perfect setting. The baseball game, kite-flying...yes, even the Psychiatric Service cum Lemonade Stand would accomodate the idea smoothly.
Sitting alone in California suburbia makes it all seem so easy and logical. I'm sure one doesn't make radical changes in so important an institution without a lot of shock waves from syndicates, clients, etc. You have, however, a stature and reputation which can withstand a great deal.
Lastly; should you consider this suggestion, I hope that the result will be more than one black child...Let them be as adorable as the others...but please...allow them a Lucy!

Sincerely,
Harriet Glickman
(full letter: link)



April 27, 1968
Dear Mr Schulz,

I appreciate your taking the time to answer my letter about Negro children in Peanuts.
You present an interesting dilemma. I would like your permission to use your letter to show some Negro friends. Their response as parents may prove useful to you in your thinking on this subject.

Sincerely,
Harriet Glickman
(original letter: link)



On 15th of April 1958, suburban school teacher Harriet Glickman and "father of the Peanuts" Charles Monroe Schulz (1922-2000) started exchanging letters expressing their concerns about the world of Peanuts lacking a black character and how to best introduce one. Glickman contacted her black US-American friends for advice, one of the mothers wrote:
"At this time in history, when Negro youths need a feeling of identity; the inclusion of a Negro character even occasionally in your comics would help these young people to feel it is a natural thing for Caucasian and Negro children to engage in dialogue." (via)


Glickman wanted to send more letters but two "had won the cartoonist over". On 1st of July, Schulz wrote Glickman that he had taken "the first step" (via) and asked her to check the paper during the week of 29th of July: "I have drawn an episode which I think will please you." (via). And there he was: Franklin. Franklin made his debut in the comic strip on 31st of July 1968 (via), "without fanfare" and without any comment on his ethnicity. "He and Charlie Brown struck up a friendship just like any two kids who meet on the beach might do." (via). Franklin appeared for three days in a row and became a regular character. In general, response from readers were positive. Objection came mostly from southern US-states; some papers refused to run the series (via). On 12th of November 1969, the United Feature Syndicate sent a letter writing (via):
Gentlemen:
In today's "Peanuts" comic strip Negro and white children are portrayed together in school.
School integration is a sensitive subject here, particularly at this time when our city and county schools are under court order for massive compulsory race mixing.
We would appreciate it if future "Peanuts" strips did not have this type of content.
Thank you.


"Franklin is thoughtful and can quote the Old Testament as effectively as Linus. In contrast with other characters, Franklin has the fewest anxieties and obsessions."
Charles Schulz

"Franklin’s introduction was part of a five-day sequence featuring Sally tossing away Charlie Brown’s beach ball and Franklin rescuing it. In some ways, this seems an aggressive bit of integration - many American public beaches, while no longer legally segregated, were still de facto segregated at the time. In other ways, the strips suggest what might be seen today as an excess of caution; of the twenty panels of the series, Franklin is in ten panels and Sally is in eight, but never is Franklin in the same panel as the white girl. Franklin would not reappear for another two and a half months, when he came for a visit to Charlie Brown’s neighborhood. He was somewhat lighter skinned here, which seems to be less a matter of trying to make him acceptable to the readers and more a matter of cutting back on shading lines which were overpowering his facial features. Franklin’s job in this series was to react to the oddness of the neighborhood kids, and that was a precursor to what would be his primary role in the strip as a whole. Perhaps due to excessive caution, Franklin was never granted any of the sort of usual quirks that define a Peanuts character, the very sort of mistake that Glickman was warning about when she called for one of the black kids to be “a Lucy.” Schulz may have had more to work with if he had listened to Bishop James P. Shannon, who had marched beside Martin Luther King in Selma; Shannon was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as wondering if the new Peanuts character would be “a believable human being who has some evident personal failing,” versus being “a perfect little black man.” But whatever failings (or problematic lack of failings) Franklin may have had, his appearance drew national media coverage, and made local comics page editors flinch." (literally via)



"Schulz understood the tightrope he had to walk because of earlier offensive portrayals of blacks in the media. So he made a deliberate choice not to give Franklin any of the negative traits that plagued the other Peanuts characters." Well, nobody said that it would be easy. Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune columnist put it this way (via):
"Let's face it: His perfection hampered Franklin's character development… But considering the hyper-sensitivities so many people feel about any matters involving race, I did not blame Schulz for treating Franklin with a light and special touch. Can you imagine Franklin as, say, a fussbudget like Lucy? Or a thumb-sucking, security-blanket hugger like Linus? Or an idle dancer and dreamer like Snoopy? Or a walking dust storm like Pig Pen? Mercy. Self-declared image police would call for a boycott. If Schulz's instincts told him his audience was not ready for a black child with the same complications his other characters endured, he probably was right."


Excerpt from an interview by Michael Barrier (via):

BARRIER: Have there been occasions when United Features has sent back a strip, or said, "We're really worried about this one?"

SCHULZ: Yeah. There were only two occasions. One was a long time ago; Linus's blanket suddenly took on a life [of its own] and began to attack Lucy. Larry Rutman called; this scared him to death. He thought for sure that it would frighten children, that the blanket doing this would frighten the child reader. Which was ridiculous, when you think of the things that they see in other places. I remember I finished up the little series and let it go at that. Later on, when Franklin was introduced into the strip, the little black kid - I could have put him in long before that, but for other reasons, I didn't. I didn't want to intrude upon the work of others, so I held off on that. But I finally put Franklin in, and there was one strip where Charlie Brown and Franklin had been playing on the beach, and Franklin said, "Well, it's been nice being with you, come on over to my house some time." Again, they didn't like that. Another editor protested once when Franklin was sitting in the same row of school desks with Peppermint Patty, and said, "We have enough trouble here in the South without you showing the kids together in school." But I never paid any attention to those things, and I remember telling Larry (comment: Larry Rutman, president of the United Features syndicate) at the time about Franklin—he wanted me to change it, and we talked about it for a long while on the phone, and I finally sighed and said, "Well, Larry, let's put it this way: Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How's that?" So that's the way that ended. But I've never done much with Franklin, because I don't do race things. I'm not an expert on race, I don't know what it's like to grow up as a little black boy, and I don't think you should draw things unless you really understand them, unless you're just out to stir things up or to try to teach people different things. I'm not in this business to instruct; I'm just in it to be funny. Now and then I may instruct a few things, but I'm not out to grind a lot of axes. Let somebody else do it who's an expert on that, not me.



images via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via
PEANUTS © Peanuts Worldwide LLC. All rights reserved.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Inspirational Illustrations From The Past: Professor Ludwig Von Drake

This here was a souvenir postcard from Disneyland (ca. 1960).

©Disney. All rights reserved.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Inspirational Illustrations From The Past: By Jack Davis, Again

Beautiful YAK YAK cover art by Jack Davis (ca. 1961).

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

John Paul Lowe: Foundations in Comic Book Art

Apropos Hans' new book, check out this lovely review of an indeed excellent book @ Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder: CLICK HERE

Saturday, February 07, 2015

Hans Bacher: New Book!

This is splendid news! Hans' SKETCHBOOK is printed and will be on the shelves within the next 4 weeks, as well available through Amazon.

Friday, February 06, 2015

Paint (A Lego Short Film)

I'm in awe. This is beautiful! (Thanks, Laura)

Duck, Wolf And Vessel

Some random rough concept stuff from my drawing desk.

Rough concept stuff. Duck, wolf and vessel.

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Humanism

So well thought, so well expressed.

WW II Millenium Falcon, Sort Of

I can't call this an inspirational photograph, well, of course, nothing Nazi can be inspirational, but it's generally an interesting reference. This is a Blohm & Voss BV 141, a World War II Nazi German tactical reconnaissance aircraft, notable for its uncommon structural asymmetry, which reminded me of the Millenium Falcon a little. (images via Gizmodo and Google image search)

Thursday, February 05, 2015

Souvenirs

Here're some of my favourite souvenir snapshots of the Paperwalker show @ Kunsthaus Graz, designforum. (Photos via/© Huckleberry Games, Gembit, Jose Lopez, Christian Klepej and Paperwalker)

Monday, February 02, 2015

Duckø And The Sword Of Light

This is a quick rough fan art piece for my pal Bobby in support of his animated show 'Niko and the Sword of Light'. Please watch and rate: CLICK HERE

BTW, this was supposed to be way larger (see below) but I did run out of time.


BTW, the piece from the last posting was supposed to be way larger but I did run out of time...

Ein von Florian Satzinger Paperwalker (@floriansatzinger) gepostetes Foto am

This is for my pal Bobby Chiu

Ein von Florian Satzinger Paperwalker (@floriansatzinger) gepostetes Foto am