The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Mozart's Birthday, Part 2


Here's a nicer drawing of Mozart than the rodenty-looking thing in the previous post. Still, it's not too reverential. I've always thought that if you got a chance to actually bump into any of these mighty pre-photography historic geniuses, like Mozart, Beethoven, Shakespeare or whoever, you might be disappointed by how unpreposessing they were. And they might've smelled a bit unusual, too.

8 comments:

David King said...

All I can say is WOW! and thanks for posting such huge scan so I can look at the pencil marks and everything...

Kid Shay said...

If you ever do a second comic strip, it should definitely star classical composers. I'm thinking a buddy comedy with lots of car chases. Beethoven and Mozart: the original odd couple!

Mike Lynch said...

Ha ha! David stole my thunder -- so let me just add that I also love the supersizing of the images.

here today, gone tomorrow said...

That is a really cool drawing/painting. I love being able to see the detail as well.

1/28: Not to change the subject, but I just read today's strip with Alice staring. Cracked me up big time because it reminded me of an "I Love Lucy" episode I caught on TV this weekend. They've just arrived in Hollywood and decided to go to the Brown Derby to hunt movie stars. Poor William Holden ends up in the booth next to Lucy, Ethel and Fred. Staring, hilarity and spaghetti snipping ensue.

paul bowman said...

I've got a little paperback of items* Mozart devotee Karl Barth wrote about him, sitting here on my desk. (Sitting here for months — in that revolving collection of stuff I pick up every so often & decide I will finish reading soon.) Cover illustration is an 18th-cent. engraving — probably the same you worked from (or from same original maybe). Funny to pull your page up here, and have immediately at a glance the 'real thing' and the Thompson twist for comparison. — I kind of wonder which version the man himself would've preferred.

richardcthompson said...

Thanks, David. Yeah I like this one ok; it was up on my easel taped to a board for about 2 years under a pile of unfinished stuff and I finally took it down.

Kid, I could add another composer, maybe Brahms, and have a Three Stooges set-up. Boy, the syndicates'd sure go nutes over an idea like that.

Hey Mike, it came out bigger than I'd intended; I haven't figured out how to reliably set the sizes yet. The original's only about 8 x 10.

I remember that one, HereToday; Lucy ended up wearing a rubber nose that caught fire, and the next episode in the series features Harpo Marx. Was it Mark Twain who said that a close familiarity with old I Love Lucy shows is a sign of a misspent childhood? Ok, probably not.

Paul, I've got a pile of books like that, a Good Intentions pile. It's tall enough that if it ever falls over somebody's going to get hurt. On the floor next to my drawing table I've got Michael Palin's Monty Python Diaries; the entries are just long enough, a page or two, that I can read some while I should be working and not feel guilty about it. If all books had shorter chapters I'd be better read. More pictures would help, too.

paul bowman said...

Elijah Wood — were you thinking of him by any chance? It came to me a little while ago. Somebody should get up a new lurid biopic about Mozart starring ex-hobbit Elijah Wood. This would be the poster.

Barbara Canepa said...

Amazing!! ^____^
I love your design.Classic and modern..
You are very talent artist....