The great Mort Drucker drew this ad for Burger King in 1990:
There are 40 different faces in this riot of a drawing.
Most cartoonists rely on a basic template of four or five facial expressions, but Drucker is able to conjure up an endless cavalcade of faces. Note how he never seems to repeat the same mouth twice in this drawing. Note all the different angles; very few people stand up straight.
Drucker packs his creative choices together densely, which gives the drawing a feeling of generosity. His lively, bouncy line helps us feel his joy at the infinite variety of humanity.
And that's before we even begin to talk about his trademark hands.
To appreciate the sensitivity of Drucker's line, drill down on the smallest details.
Note how he varies the thickness of his line to convey 3-dimensionality, or shadows, or conceptual emphasis. When a feature is less significant (like the shadow on the tip of that nose) Drucker's touch can be as light as a feather.
One lovely drawing indeed!
His drawings for the Mad movie parodies were the best.
ReplyDeleteSuch a great drawing.
ReplyDeleteBut... someone somewhere somehow decided that they had to add a "Hip" kid in there and pasted it in over Mort's drawing.
The space-goggle wearing kid third from the left holding the fries high was obviously added by someone else. Look at the hair! Look at that mouth! It's a clanky note for sure.
Wonder how often they did that kind of thing to "add some pizzaz!"
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ReplyDeleteDrucker is Awesome!
ReplyDeletegoldencalgarian, that visor character is called Kid Vid and was part of Burger King branding in the 80s and 90s.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I find interesting about this drawing, in contrast to what passes for much of commercial illustration today: the specificity serves the concept of diversity! A drawing like this (even with the lame Indian-with-a-feather stereotype in back) celebrates the variety of Americans. Different ages, different races, different class and social signifiers without judgement. To me this is a positive message, and it must have been to Burger King corporate too.
Today, an illustration of this rough concept (if it's not outright AI-generated) will be drawn in a kind of blobby naive style with only the slightest hint of genuine human physical diversity. Coloring one of your blobs blue and one purple alludes to the notion of racial diversity, but how tepid and underwhelming compared to what real skill can convey about our world. Removing almost all distinguishing features from human forms, as the recent design languages do, is a step backwards in the very pluralistic values that artists and their corporate patrons wish to signal.
The reactionariat of this comments section like to complain about woke virtue signaling or what have you, but skillful use of form serves these ideals better! Yes to representation, yes to inclusion, yes to diversity, and yes to good draftsmanship I say.
The best. What's striking me this time is the ease with which he gets the texture of all the different hair styles.
ReplyDeleteThe reactionariat of this comments section like to complain about woke virtue signaling or what have you, but skillful use of form serves these ideals better! Yes to representation, yes to inclusion, yes to diversity, and yes to good draftsmanship I say.
ReplyDeleteIf the more tasteful Maoists want better-drawn propaganda I'm all for it.
However, Drucker isn't making propaganda. He's incapable of it; he's too human. And he isn't signalling his virtue.
Those of us who have grown up in New York live real diversity. And we don't think about it. People are people, and Drucker can draw anybody like the back of his hand. It is all perfectly natural to him, the look of every race, every creed, every socio-economic strata, every physiognomy. He penetrates down to the minute foibles of everybody. He doesn't struggle to portray diversity, because it is his natural habitat.|
The problem with virtue signaling is that it is so very performative and unnatural... so very self-serving and scripted; so very unworthy of the attention it seeks. And as amateur political theater shoe-horned by otherwise uninteresting people into every conversation, it becomes obnoxious and divisive. The room becomes divided into theatrical people who want to be seen as politically moral and are willing to bend any conversation to that end, and those who just want those people to shut up so a more honest and interesting conversation can be had.
No artist today can draw the way Drucker did. He is so under appreciated because he only appeared in Mad.
ReplyDeleteJSL
Agreed on most of your points, kev. You're right that us city-folk take all that diversity stuff for granted, but for a national brand like Burger King, every advertising choice is a statement. Millions, billions are spent on the ineffable qualities of brand image, trust, and emotional valence. Drucker himself isn't making propaganda, but his work is being used for advertising, which isn't too far off.
ReplyDeleteNowadays when companies make mawkish statements affiliating themselves with social causes, it is as you say "performative and unnatural...self-serving and scripted". BUT I think it's still valuable to consider the political subtext of media, as creators and as the audience. No less a figure than Rockwell found himself stifled by his corporate patrons' racial politics. I don't think the political dimension is the ONLY important thing--as the Marxists of today seem to argue--but there has also never been a "simpler time" when artists could elide the place of our work in broader society.
Power corrupts; concentrating power concentrates corruption. And there is no greater “soft” power than taking the reigns of information dissemination and yoking it utterly to your own moral-political dreams.
ReplyDeleteThe poison of Maoism is coming to understand everything as a possible opportunity to, en masse, brainwash people to behave themselves as you wish. The trope is that of the overbearing mother; believing that the apotheosis of compassion is to control everyone in order to bring about some perceived ideal dynamic of comity and fairness. Which is in reality an emotional tyranny – stemming from a kind of self-righteous mania.
There is no current crisis that either requires or justifies information absolutism. Life is messy and human relations are messy. Politics are messy. Art and humor is messy. There are all kinds of people and all kinds of thoughts. All kinds of visions. And it will always be so among free and spirited people.
As people become more and more sensitive to psyops and risible political theater, mass propaganda efforts become more and more a thuggish din in the distance; obvious, hated and ignored. Presumably, eventually, corporations will move on as they realize the Maoists cannot be fan-serviced indefinitely.
The truths Art affords are restorative and hard won. And they actually bring people together. It is not 'simpler' to yoke yourself to them. Rather it is far far harder than merely translating today's oafish activist programming into visual or cinematic form.
MAD surely had the best:
ReplyDeleteDon Martin
Harvey Kurtzman
Al Jaffee
Wally Wood
John Severin
Jack Davis
Kelly Freas
Paul Coker
Will Elder
Sergio Aragon’s
And Manny Moore.
Movieac-- I agree, Drucker's movies were unparalleled. With all the great talent in MAD, I think those movie parodies became the centerpiece of the magazine.
ReplyDeletegoldencalgarian-- I think it's interesting that there are usually so few paste ups in Drucker's drawings. In the late 50s and early 60s as he was first feeling his way, he used to cut and paste drawings or paint out and correct elements-- especially when he felt a likeness didn't work well enough. By the 1970s, he could draw an entire 7 page story without a single correction or paste up. In this drawing he occasionally made corrections, not because there was an error in the underlying drawing but because he thought he could attain an even wider variety of faces.
Moran-- agreed!
zoe-- Thanks for the update on "Kid Vid." I confess I had no idea. And I sadly agree with your description of "much of commercial illustration today." If we compare commercial illustration from 50 to 100 years ago with much of what we see online or in magazines and newspapers, the collapse of standards is daunting. Most of all, I heartily endorse, "Yes to good draftsmanship." Nothing is more persuasive than that.
ReplyDeletekev ferrara-- "Ease" is an excellent adjective for Drucker's work (and not just for the way he draws hair). Despite all the effort that must go into his drawings, they never look labored. They're always light and springy and look very intuitive.
Anonymous / JSL-- Drucker didn't only apear in MAD, he did a number of movie posters, Time magazine covers and other ilustrations (but I take your point).
Even as a 13 year old kid, I could see the genius of Drucker. MAD was the only magazine I had a subscription to as a teenager, and the first thing I'd look for when it came in the mail was his latest parody of whatever society found important. The spoof of Star Trek was the acme of his revolutionary art -- especially the panel where Kirk's trip in the beamer resulted in his head coming out of his waist and a hand out his ear -- a perfect spoof of science fiction, a dig at science and technology, and the hammy acting of William Shatner. There probably not a funnier panel in all of 20th century cartooning.
ReplyDelete"There probably not a funnier panel in all of 20th century cartooning."
ReplyDeleteThat particular panel is burned into my brain as well. But 'funniest panel'? That would be quite a horse race. There are scores of panels by Will Elder that kill me. I love Harvey Kurtman's cartooning. Jack Davis. Don Martin. There are so many that come to mind.
It would actually be a great thing for cartooning if there was a giant contest for funniest panel of all time.
Agreed. Its impossible. But even after nearly 60 years, I crack up when I see that panel. Not much else seems as funny to me.
ReplyDeleteThe other MAD genius is Don Martin -- his "One day at the butcher shop" layout is hilarious -- mainly because I was a butcher for 20 years, so I get it. If you can find it, its a gem.
Wes and kev ferrara-- It's funny you should mention that particular panel. In 2013 I curated a museum exhibition with the work of Phil Hale and Drucker. Hale paints large, dark, foreboding oil paintings which he exhibits in fine art galleries, and I didn't know how he'd react to being teamed with a cartoonist. So I called and told him and he replied, "Mort Drucker? I LOVE Mort Drucker. When I was growing up, my dream was to go work for Mort Drucker. I still remember his drawing in MAD's parody of Star Trek, where he shows Capt. Kirk after he comes out of the teleportation machine..."
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ReplyDelete". . .scores of panels by Will Elder that kill me."
The 2nd panel of the Will Elder panel is priceless genius -- who can do that now? The last panel -- HILARIOUS!
The consumer version of GPT-4 got an upgrade this week to allow it to "see", so I fed it two of the images and asked it for some thoughts:
ReplyDelete"Alright, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of these images by Mort Drucker. In both, there’s a wonderful chaos of characters, each buzzing with personality, thanks to Drucker’s magical linework.
Starting with the broader image, it’s like a carnival of faces. Drucker brings a universe of different characters into this one scene. The crowd is diverse, with people young and old, each with unique, exaggerated facial features and expressions. They’re all here for one thing: to enjoy some Burger King. You can see the enthusiasm in their faces, hands clutching burgers, and fries, eyes wide with delight.
Now, zooming into the closeup, you really get to appreciate the mastery of Drucker’s technique. There’s a duo in the center, likely sharing a joke, both clutching burgers, their faces creased with hearty laughter. Their expressions are a testament to Drucker’s ability to capture emotion and humor. Every wrinkle, every curve plays a role in bringing these characters to life.
In the closeup, the texture of the lines, the shading, and the cross-hatching are more apparent, giving volume and depth to the characters. Notice how the lines curve around the cheeks, foreheads, and chins, adding a roundness and fullness to their faces.
Both images are a testament to Drucker’s ability to fill a canvas with stories, emotions, and a sense of dynamic motion. The closeup, however, lets you really appreciate the detail, the finesse, and the artistry that goes into creating each character and making them as lively and expressive as they are. It’s not just about the broad strokes, but the little details that make each face, each expression unique and memorable."
Nothing earth shattering, but not too shabby either. Happy Halloween all
Thanks Richard,
ReplyDeleteThose are some of the most derivative banalities I've already forgotten today. Which means AI can now replace museum tours given by members of the Quilting Guild.
But then what will those earnest sweeties do during normal business hours, sit home and buy air fryers from QVC?
Also, remember this more generally... when CGI fixed Godzilla, the character was finished; because nobody was having any fun anymore.
(By the way, going back to a previous tête-à-tête, a phrase/term I was looking for but failed to recall was the Nodes of Ranvier.)
Indeed, but banalities are both the necessary sustenance and produce of a healthy public.
ReplyDeleteDrucker was my influence. I used to draw my own Mad Magazines as a kid for my classmates when I was 10-11. That's how I got started. Good post. -de Adder
ReplyDelete"Indeed, but banalities are both the necessary sustenance and produce of a healthy public."
ReplyDeleteBanalities are a byproduct not a product. The actual product is the birdsong, the accidental carrier-wave of the banal content; birdsong being how birds feel and express communion with each other. So they don't defenestrate themselves from their boughs out of sheer loneliness.
The birdsong model of banalities both underestimates and overestimates the public body.
ReplyDeleteIt underestimates in the sense that it makes it sound as if the public does not mean the content of their banalities, that it is in some sense disingenuous. It overestimates because it implies that the public does not find those banalities to be useful or compelling information.
When the little league coach/accountant at the water cooler starts talking about this weekend's weather, he's not just making "niceties."
His big plans for this weekend are to mow the lawn; his wife has been talking about going apple picking, and his kids have two games and a practice. He has some fresh firewood seasoning he's thinking about. He takes his car to the car wash every other week and is considering whether he'll need to go next week. He's been thinking a lot about a skiing trip this winter with his daughters and their friends and is passively trying to gauge whether we'll have a cold winter.
The weather is key content in his life.
When he gets older, retired, and his kids leave the house, he bothers the checkout girl with some banalities about the weather because he assumes that this is key to her life too. He's trying to be helpful and relevant to her.
His wife has a friend who considers herself something of an art expert. Thinking it might be nice to soak up some 'high culture,' they take a day trip to the city to visit the art museum.
When Agnes tells them, "In both, there’s a wonderful chaos of characters, each buzzing with personality, thanks to Drucker’s magical linework," that's new information. They've never actually looked at a piece of art before, never thought about art for a second, and this is helpful and relevant to them.
When Agnes tells them, "Notice how the lines curve around the cheeks, foreheads, and chins, adding roundness and fullness to their faces," she's getting too theoretical for them. They can't even comprehend what it means for a line to create fullness. They have no sense of how this magic trick works at all, breaking down an image into its technical constituent parts is beyond them, no different than if Agnes had started to hint at the underlying quantum mechanics of a supercollider.
I think banalities are, by definition obvious, utterly basic and/or dully quotidian, and not actionable. That is, if you are at all aware, have a memory, or are paying attention, you do or could already know them or would easily find them out. And, nevertheless, you really can do nothing new and useful with the information anyhow. Which is just why it must be so that the information cannot be the point, adaptively speaking.
ReplyDeleteSo an actually banal discussion of the weather wouldn't be related to any upcoming event...
Agnes: "Some weather we're having. I had to wear a sweater the other day and its only mid-September. The leaves are turning and they'll fall off soon. I'll have to get out the rake myself. I don't know if Murray can rake anymore."
Nancy: "I like this kind of weather. And I like sweaters. Murray sometimes wears sweaters, doesn't he?"
Agnes: "Oh yes, he wears sweaters. Did you see about the cat on the news? The one that meowed about the hurricane?"
Nancy: "No, but I did see a show about apples. The history of apples and all the different kinds. I did once have a cat though, but it fell asleep on the windowsill during a heatwave and that was the end of that. My niece Sylvia has two cats. One is named 'Mounds' after the candy-bar and the other I forget the name of."
Regarding "lines curve around the cheeks" ... it is surely the case that what is banal to some is novel and possibly "interesting" to others, and that is not always to do with the fact that people have different levels of mental acuity and awareness. People have different interests and concentrate on different things.
To an artist or art aficionado, however, the "lines curve around the cheeks" observation is utterly banal. To a casual observer, it is a different kind of banality: a momentary distraction that attaches to nothing, soon forgotten. Visual birdsong.
The only person who would have actual actionable benefit from the observation would be the artistic child, who would, however, already have learned this in fifth or sixth grade art class.
Having said that, it is worth pointing out that your AI brogram never actually made this observation about Drucker's linework. It is just cribbing from observations already made by humans about Drucker or other artists, and how people use words to offer observations, imitating and concatenating the behavior surfaces. A sociopathic parasite to the last.
Having said that, it is worth pointing out that your AI brogram never actually made this observation about Drucker's linework. It is just cribbing from observations already made by humans about Drucker or other artists, and how people use words to offer observations, imitating and concatenating the behavior surfaces.
ReplyDeleteIt is not merely copying old observations about Drucker.
Let me illustrate. I uploaded a doodle of mine which it has never seen and about which nothing has ever been written.
Here is the picture and the prompt I input:
https://imgur.com/a/FI08uhx
Based only on that picture and input, it provided the following observations:
The image presents a character whose costume is an amalgamation of historical and fantastical elements, rendered in a stark, expressionistic style. The use of black ink against a white background eschews mid-tones, resulting in a high-contrast visual that emphasizes the silhouette of the warrior figure and the details of the armor. The artistic method, reminiscent of woodcut techniques, employs bold strokes and solid black areas to define shapes and forms, creating an almost abstract quality that focuses on the symbolic rather than the literal.
The helmet, detailed with a crest, suggests a ceremonial significance, while the segmented cuirass and layered pauldrons emphasize a designed functionality. The armor's embellishments and size exaggerate the figure's silhouette, creating an imposing and authoritative stance. The gauntlets and the halberd-like weapon reinforce the character's martial aspect, with the weapon's design indicative of versatility and lethality.
In the arms, the rerebraces, vambraces, and the absence of visible couters or elbow joints point to a selective portrayal of the armor, highlighting certain features over others for visual or thematic effect. The stark contrast of the image does not allow for the texture or intricacies of chainmail or underpadding to be discerned, aligning with the overall expressive approach.
The lower body armor, including tassets and greaves, is depicted with less detail, maintaining the image's focus on the upper body and weapon. This compositional choice directs the viewer's attention to where the action and character's strength are most evident. The feet, while not detailed, complete the image, grounding the figure and giving a sense of stability and weight.
This artwork's aesthetic approach, with its bold contrasts and absence of a detailed background, places the character in a timeless void, emphasizing its archetypical nature. The armor design, while grounded in historical references, takes liberties that cater to a more fantastical interpretation, indicative of a genre that values visual impact and the evocation of power. The image, by employing these techniques and stylistic choices, communicates its themes through composition and form, and is a testament to the use of contrast and silhouette in visual storytelling.
I challenge you to explain how the AI was able to produce this paragraph in specific without observation:
The lower body armor, including tassets and greaves, is depicted with less detail, maintaining the image's focus on the upper body and weapon. This compositional choice directs the viewer's attention to where the action and character's strength are most evident. The feet, while not detailed, complete the image, grounding the figure and giving a sense of stability and weight.
The machine doesn’t know old body armor from underarm odor, Richard.
ReplyDeleteIt gets you the words by derivative associations . Associations to word usages matched to other associations to word usages. And shape to shape to word usage associations. It is all a network of associations which it then associates to how things have been said about the associations it has found.
The body is a shape, legs have a certain shape. That shape is modified by boot shapes. And by armor shapes. There is a long stick with an axe shape at the end in your near-silhouette image. That tends to be a weapon. Weapons tend to be carried by warriors. Warriors tend to wear armor. Armor makes certain shapes, and shapes like that appear on your figure. Within the context of an armored warrior figure, certain shapes around the waist area indicate tassets, particularly if other associated shapes appear on the arms. And so on. All associations concatenating to resolve – in a Boolean way - which word probabilities are to be used to impress you the end user that understanding has happened.
Whereas when you think of body armor, you know it is hard in an aesthetic sense, you have whacked against a metal object at some point in your life, or met with hard leather padding as with football shoulder pads or shinguards. You have learned sensorily, you can feel these things. You have run your hands over the bas relief of ornament on some metal item which might be akin to a fancy breastplate. You might be able to, if you’ll sit still for a moment, even imagine the smell of metal or leather. You might imagine ancient Rome or Persia or Japan. A machine imagines nothing, smells nothing, remembers nothing, feels nothing.
Detail attracts attention. Find the detail via some algorithmic analysis of contrast and intensity, and that is the area that ‘attracts attention’ (it has been said). A silhouetted shape has no detail, and ‘no detail’ is associated away from pictorial focus, especially because it is not associated with the head area, where focus tends to be located.
Then call this ‘composition’ because that’s what it keeps being called when somebody says ‘attention’ is ‘directed’ somewhere and not somewhere else in a piece of art.
You are being fooled by a system of word-association tricks and edge detection tricks. The latter being akin to WWII airplane spotter cards. Which, in the form of radar cross-sectioning, has been part of aeronautic detection tech for half a century.
Without sensory feeling there is no thinking. Because the feelings reality affords through real experience are the fundaments of content.
The language model was able to produce meaning because that is what language does.
ReplyDelete"The language model was able to produce meaning because that is what language does."
ReplyDeleteIf the osteoporotic sun bribes the node, and the outright recipe of patronage collects the vanity, whence shall attempts bake the splitting? Certainly, the winding table shames the preponderance, and everybody knows that heirs trace swivel hairs and bears bare Magistrates when no defect fancies the concatenation of surprises. At least not due to defensive flavor.
(Thanks Half-Wittgenstein!)
Knowledge can be housed in material which does not itself know that information -- a Dead Sea scroll in a desert cave holds information about the Second Temple period that no one any longer knows. A deep space probe and a weather modeling equation can synthesize a piece of knowledge about the weather on Venus that no one yet knows.
ReplyDeleteNeither the weather probe or the scroll can experience, sense, or understand that knowledge. Yet, the knowledge contained by one and generated by the other are real.
When we discover the scroll or read the probe's output we learn knowledge that we do not have the necessary facts to synthesize ourselves. This knowledge must come from without, it is "learned" not "created", because we do not have the necessary prior information to synthesize that knowledge ourselves.
Similarly, a person who reads the compositional analysis of my doodle (without having seen the doodle) have acquired observations about my picture from without which have no aware observer. If no observations existed, then reading GPT's compositional analysis of my picture and reading your "osteoporotic sun bribes" text should inform the reader to the same degree about the contents of my picture. This is not so.
“Knowledge can be housed in material which does not itself know that information” “Neither the weather probe or the scroll can experience, sense, or understand that knowledge. Yet, the knowledge contained by one and generated by the other are real.”
ReplyDeleteAn equation is only as good as its consistent relationship to reality. And any modeling using good equations is only as good as the total correspondence of the entire dynamic system of equations to the dynamics of the complex reality being modeled. And since the only accurate model of reality is reality itself, all models are highly lossy and deserve immense skepticism. (This does not apply to games we invent, which can be modeled. Because models themselves are based on game-like thinking.)
Knowledge is always signified in material which does not itself know that information, unless we are speaking of something with both experience and memory, like a mind.
Communication is an entire system of signs, reference-symbols, culture, experience-memories, and understandings all working together. Thus knowledge isn’t ‘housed’, it is a distributed emergent system for signifying that manifests through the complex interactions of multiple domains.
Any break in the system wounds the system. For example, connotations fall away when a culture changes, and words morph in meaning. Making historical decryption harder, even when the same basic language is being used. But if the mind part of the communication system goes, the whole meaning-manifesting machine collapses.
Thus if an ancient scroll makes references that no longer have a mind that can decode them, the signs lose their meaning entirely, and the meaning that once was can no longer manifest. Thus code symbols and code systems don’t ‘house’ meanings. (This point includes equations.)
Which is also to say, that knowledge is always from without and within.
“a person who reads the compositional analysis of my doodle (without having seen the doodle) have acquired observations about my picture from without which have no aware observer.”
You can’t acquire visual observations from words. You can only activate the meanings of the words as contained in your own mind. If you give any artist that AI ‘compositional analysis’ of your drawing and ask them to make a picture out of it without having seen yours, nobody will recreate yours.
What AI is doing is not observing, but decrypting across symbol systems. It no more understands your picture than Turing’s ‘Bombe’ machine understood what the Enigma codes were saying.
WOW---i've never seen this one before---------------- stunning - - - - - makes me want to ---either QUIT--- because i'll never achieve his level of awesome---or--- doble down and REACH for his level of awesome!
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