Zailo.Com!

So John Villalino and I went out to the Hammer Museum tonight to see the second part of the comic master exhibit. We had previously went to see the other half at MOCA . For dinner we hit the Applepan. It was all counter seating. It looked like an American diner that you might see in a Humphry Bogart movie. A restaurant that has been in business since 1947. Almost sixty years and I don't think that they have changed much about the place in all that time. Except maybe that they have taken down the coat hooks in the corner. John thought he recognized the guy waiting on us from his days of attending UCLA. Soon after some other customers asked him how long he has worked there. His answer? Forty two years. And I got to watch Alan Ruck wolf down a piece of pie.
Then off to the Hammer. It was pretty cool I have to say, to see some Winsor McCay cartoons that are a hundred years old. I also noticed that a few of the spot blacks were a little washy as if the ink wasn't black enough. I know the ink formula has changed in the last century and not for the better. You still have to put several coats down to get it none more black. One of the artists displayed was someone I had never heard of before. Lyonel Feininger . An American born German and was part of the Bauhaus movement. He drew for American newspapers in the Twenties. His style was weird. A lot of it reminded me of undergrounds from the sixties. Since I was not familiar with him or his work if someone told me it was from an underground I would have believed them.
The other highlight for me were the Segar popeyes . Too much fun! Looking at the Schulz original were fun too. Man that guy drew big. I never knew that his originals were so huge. I know that later in life he drew bigger because of failing eyesight but many of these were from the fifties and sixties. Monstrous.
Chester Gould's Dick Tracys in parts reminded me of Golgo13 manga because the backgrounds and props were done in a fairly realistic style but the characters and especially the faces were highly exaggerated.
We wandered around the other parts of the museum checking out some of the other exhibits. There were a few Monets as well as some Van Goghs. I was glad that we did. I got to see a few paintings that I have liked but have only seen reproduced in books before. Such as the awesome Salome Dancing before Herod by Gustave Moreau.
Then we thought we would swing by MOCA on the way back. Finally found parking and walked on in. We almost made it. Apparently the museum was closing a little early tonight. We actually got all the way into the exhibit floor before someone spotted us and told us the bad news. If only we could have rounded a corner before they saw us. We could have been locked in all night. I know that would have made for a much more interesting blog entry. I can just see it now;
MY KIRBY MY ENEMY!: A night with the king.

posted by zailo @ 3:25 PM

Friday, March 10, 2006