Catspaw Dynamics

John Carter of Mars Covers by Robert K. Abbett

Scott Dutton — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 02:02:56 +0000

In 1963, Robert K. Abbett was commissioned by Ballantine Books to paint the covers for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series. 1965 saw the addition of John Carter of Mars as the 11th book, and Thuvia received a new cover in 1969. Abbett would also paint a Tarzan series of covers.

For the two different editions of Thuvia, I’ve read two stories. The first is that Ballantine accidentally published one of Abbett’s roughs (Thuvia with the banth), and they didn’t correct it until later. The second story is that John Carter helping Thuvia out of the flier was too risque for 1963, what with the skimpy bikini, and going with the more chaste mini-skirt was the compromise until society caught up. I’m sure someone more knowledgable than myself will bring some clarity to this.

Abbett was one of the premier illustrators of his day, eventually leaving the commercial art game to master another field, painting dogs for the print and gallery market.

I haven’t been able to gather a complete set of virgin art to include here yet, but I did find a few of them.

John Carter of Mars : Disney’s Mars and Beyond

Scott Dutton — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:36:50 +0000

Long before Andrew Stanton got the green light to make John Carter (of Mars) for Disney, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars was included in Mars and Beyond, aired as a Tomorrow Land episode of Disneyland on December 4, 1957.

Walt Disney gave top animator Ward Kimball the job of creating a series of scientifically-accurate colour shorts about space exploration. In Mars and Beyond, he took the time to talk about the fascination with Mars and the fictions that had been created about it before moving on to what America could do with the coming space program.

The Burroughs section shows depictions of Barsoomian creatures, accompanied by humourous narration, all of which are shown below.

The episode was collected on DVD in 2004 in the Walt Disney Treasures Tomorrow Land set.

Edgar Rice Burroughs supplied his readers with a complete Martian dictionary.

Barsoomian: Warlike people of Mars. Human bipeds with variegated colour characteristics.

Banth: Martian lion. Dwells in dead sea areas. Is carnivorous. Has ten legs.

Calot: A pony-sized Martian dog with a frog-like head.

Thoat: A dog-sized Martian horse with about eight legs.

Martian Plant Man: Half human. Half plant. Ten feet tall. Has one white-ringed, protruding eye.

A Princess of Mars Cover by Frank E. Schoonover

Scott Dutton — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:39:17 +0000

One of the classic editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars is the first printing, published by A.C. McClurg & Co. in 1917. Frank E. Schoonover, a top illustrator of the day, painted the cover and interior plates. Schoonover was a student of the master Howard Pyle, as was NC Wyeth, and there are definite similarities between the artists.

Taking a scan of the original painting, I explored what we might do today – with classic and modern typefaces – to create a cover.

John Carter of Mars Covers by Gino D’Achille

Scott Dutton — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:25:10 +0000

As I have said elsewhere, my first encounter with Edgar Rice Burroughs was in the elementary school library in 1974. I was nine and I saw The Chessmen of Mars with a cover painted in 1973 by Gino D’Achille.

The eerily casual pose by the headless female figure, her back turned to us and a kaldane (that hideous spider thing) creeping towards her. That was too much for my young mind. I shuddered and turned away. It would be another four years before I ventured into ERB territory, and then to Tarzan with those great Neal Adams covers. It would take the more fantasy-oriented, brightly-coloured Michael Whelan to finally get me to read John Carter when I was in my mid 20s.

But that’s not to put down Mr. D’Achille. The covers were a bit more adult, a little more serious, and perhaps more realistic. And very well done.

I haven’t been able to gather a complete set of virgin art to include here yet, but I did find some of D’Achille’s roughs, and a piece of art direction he received for A Princess of Mars.

The rough was returned to D’Achille with these notes on the back (or he wrote the notes to himself during a review meeting) :

“Dejah must be red skinned and should be more covered – more jewelled harness. Green man must be taller, and skeletally thin.”

Tarzan Covers by Neal Adams

Scott Dutton — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:19:31 +0000

I have to credit Neal Adams for getting me to read my first Edgar Rice Burroughs’ book – Tarzan of the Apes – in 1977.

Having read his DC Comics work, Neal Adams was the epitomy of what comics could be to a 12-year-old boy. That he did some of his best painting work on these covers for Ballantine in 1976 is what drew me to buy the book.

All the covers, except for the first one, were collected in a series of three portfolios published by S.Q. Productions (Sal Quartuccio). In addition, there areTarzan and the Ant Men and Tarzan Lord of the Jungle paintings included that weren’t used on their books. In all, Adams had 12 of the 24 covers with his paintings.

The other 12 were done by Boris Vallejo and were quite different in emotion and execution. While Vallejo’s were painted with the lush techniques of the old masters, distancing Tarzan to some inaccessible romantic past, Adams’ work jumped off the page with the youthful American energy of the now. Adams’ Tarzan was alive, fierce and feral.

Adams sells prints, portfolios and other items through his website, and has a number of Tarzan pieces listed.

And here are a few with a new type scheme, one that puts more emphasis on the power of the image. I did the series up for personal ebooks. You can also see Michael Whelan’s John Carter of Mars covers.

Design © Scott Dutton 2011

John Carter of Mars Covers by Michael Whelan

Scott Dutton — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:10:09 +0000

In 1979, Del Rey/Ballantine Books commissioned Michael Whelan to paint new covers for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars novels, succeeding Gino D’Achille‘s 1973 series.

Following in the footsteps of previous illustration greats like Roy G. Krenkel and Frank Frazetta, Whelan brought his considerable skill in research and detail to give us a more fully-realised view of Barsoomian life than we had seen before.

Collected below are the 11 wraparound cover paintings without text, and three sketches.

Updating the logo to make it dimensional, and using high-quality scans of the original paintings to bring back vibrancy to the Del Rey editions.

And here are a couple with a new type scheme, one that puts the emphasis on the image as opposed to the JCoM branding. I did the series up for personal ebooks.

Design © Scott Dutton 2011

The New CatspawDynamics.com

Scott Dutton — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 06:10:07 +0000

Welcome to the completely redesigned Catspaw Dynamics.

After a number of years where my work and interests were divided among various websites, it was time to streamline and focus my online presence. Whether you’re interested in my design services or if you’ve read my comics, you’ll find everything here on this site.

Redirects from the previous websites are in place to guide you and hopefully you’ve been able to find what you were looking for. If not, let me know about it and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks for stopping by.

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Scott Dutton — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 01:31:47 +0000

I’m just old enough to remember the last of the Moon landings in the early 70s. It seemed normal, like it was what people did. But the Moon missions were soon cancelled, and we haven’t seen a person walking on another planet since. We had to satisfy ourselves with robotic probes like Viking’s mission to Mars. And then the shuttle came, but it never got out of orbit.

It was a much different world than the one that had launched the space race nearly two decades before. Instead of the world feeling larger, full of possibilities, it seemed like we had reached for the stars, found the Sun like Prometheus, and fell back aflame.

Whether the following speech from 1962 was mere rhetoric and drum beating is not something I can judge. I choose to believe that JFK believed in the higher purpose the space program could achieve beyond the competition with the Russians. I believe he thought the best of his people, and that by setting tremendous challenges in front of them, they would focus and advance their knowledge, ability and understanding. In less than a decade, they did, shaping our society in ways far beyond the mere landing of men on the Moon.

By comparison, a decade of fruitless ‘war on terrorism’ has bankrupted them financially, intellectually, morally and spiritually, leaving no legacy other than fear to guide them.

I created the poster a few years back to remind myself that we can look beyond our petty behaviour. That our potential is only limited when we choose to not act in our best interests as a species.

Address at Rice University Stadium, Houston, Texas on the Space Effort

US President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell,* scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen :

I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief. I am delighted to be here and I’m particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this nation’s own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far out-strip our collective comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man’s recorded history in a time span of but a half century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.

Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America’s new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward – and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it – we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the Moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this nation can only be fulfilled if we in this nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world’s leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? (laughter)

We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the Office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man’s history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48-story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade we shall make up and move ahead.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next five years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year’s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year – a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the Moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to Earth, reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the Sun – almost as hot as it is here today – and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out, then we must be bold.

I’m the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. (laughter)

However, I think we’re going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don’t think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the Moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, “Because it is there.”

Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the Moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Thank you.

*Dr. K.S. Pitzer, President of the University; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson; Governor Price Daniel of Texas; Representative Albert Thomas of Texas; Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin; Representative George P. Miller of California; James E. Webb, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; David E. Bell, Director of the Bureau of the Budget.

Source: Public Papers of the President of the United States, v. 1, 1962, pp. 669–670.

Unified Branding Strategy

Scott Dutton — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:08:55 +0000

PTI needed to encompass the many segments of their business in a succinct way. As the company has grown and diversified, there is a conscious effort to focus as one brand with a variety of service offerings underneath it.

This project began as the “Integrated Services Brochure.” PTI needed a piece to support the sales staff in effectively communicating with new contacts.

From there, I went away to create the conceptual framework: the icon system (see top right), introduction copy focussing on the emotional story, and the structure of the tabbed book. Large images grabbed the reader’s attention on one side of the spread, while a flexible, dynamic layout applied to the information sat opposite.

With that approved, the page copy describing PTI’s different segments was drafted by the director of marketing and the marketing lead on the project.

The brochure was a radical departure from previous items and was designed to set PTI above and apart from its competition, which relies upon very literal messaging and show-the-product images.

This piece eventually served as the basis of an overall campaign, going beyond just describing PTI’s integrated service model. Partnering with a marketing lead, we developed the idea that Unified was a symbol of the human story of the people that make up the company.

The people of PTI work together in common goal: to serve their clients. What we chose to describe PTI is this complete focus on the client’s needs. And using that as the basis for PTI’s storytelling in the marketplace has continued to differentiate their messaging them from their competitors.

Individual brochures began to take on the positive character of the mutually-beneficial relationships PTI establishes with clients and communities.

Being people focussed was particularly valuable in human resources messaging, as evidenced by these ads. Investment in photo shoots – both studio and on location at PTI’s facilities – brought their operations to life.

Do Not Feed the Wildlife Posters

Scott Dutton — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 06:25:22 +0000

In remote area workforce accommodations, wildlife is part of the landscape, and it’s always important to remember that we’re in their world, not the other way around.

Inevitably, animals will become curious, and if encouraged to stay by people’s behaviour or scraps of food, the two worlds come into conflict.

PTI’s strategy is two-fold. First, make it standard practice to deny food by using secure waste receptacles. And second, through ongoing education make staff and guests aware of the consequences of blurring the lines between humans and animals.

We wanted something bold and memorable, and less earnest than PSAs usually are. It was okay to be a bit funny while we drove the point home.

Bunny. Bear. Bunny. Bear. The alliteration worked as did the wolf in the middle to complete the food chain.

The original version of this one made the client pause, their eyes went wide and they didn’t say anything. Death had a skull with points of red in the eye sockets and his bony finger was pointing down at the fox’s head. I thought I had cleverly worked in a Monty Python “It was the salmon mousse!” reference.

When the client spoke, he said something like, “That’s a little, um, wow.” Where I saw a bit of harmless dark humour, he saw the cold touch of death as it gripped his heart. And not in a therapeutic massage kind of way. Fair enough. We pared back the image to be simpler and more graphic (while being less graphic, oddly enough).

It’s Bambi. In front of a big truck. This one drew the strongest reaction from our audience (see top right).