Cute Animals

Incidental Character Designs By Post

As has been pointed out and acknowledged, Warren Kremer created the Harvey comics house style that the other cartoonists followed. This makes it a bit hard to tell the different artists apart. All the main characters are basically the same design. Little Audrey is Casper with ears and clothes and hair. One way to tell the different artists apart is to look at the incidental characters in the stories. Each artist drew the non-regular characters more in their own styles.
Spooky is a generic Harvey character, but the ghost next to him is a very specific design.

Howie Posts's incidental characters are generally more specific and cartoony than the other cartoonists at Harvey.
They are also cuter; they have big heads in proportion to their bodies. Some of the Harvey artists draw really tiny heads and eyes - which isn't very cartoony.







This cover is likey by Warren Kremer. Good looking and well balanced.Here is a stark contrast between the Howie Post comic on the left and the other artist on the right. Bill White says it's Kremer, but then that makes me think someone else did the cover since that's in a different style.

Gnarly Tree Shafts

Here is the dissected anatomy of a tree shaft - it's made of subordinate tubes that cling together to make the bigger form.
Here are some good and rude trees to practice hierarchy on.

2 CONTRASTING URGES MAKE THE TREE'S FORM

Here the sub tubes are wrenched apart. The feeling I get from the form of trees is that they are constructed out of opposing forces. One major force is trying to hold all the sub forms together. For part of the tree that force is strong and binds the tubes tightly. Nearer the top of the tree, the tubes themselves have an irresistible urge to peel apart from each other. They want to escape the domination of the tree, but the power at the center is too massive to pull totally away from.

These tree tumors look fun to draw. They lack shame.
Frazetta's approach to trees and hierarchy is similar to Post's. He doesn't paint every detail. Instead he suggests the major forms and some of the sub forms that crawl along the overall shape of the trees. Also like Post, he uses liberal and pleasing negative spaces to frame the solid objects in the compositions.

Frazetta's details are wrapped around the direction and form of the twisting tortured tubes of tree meat. Smooth buttocks help set off the rugged texture of the trees.
Trees compose around characters.

Howie Post Trees, Cottages and Outdoor Scenes

Howie's details - like the leaves and bark on the trees are swell, but they are subservient to the larger shapes in the composition. Post makes sure he arranges the biggest shapes in relationship to each other first: Tree, sky house, character, ground - all these balance really nicely against each other. Once he has that balance, he wraps the details around the larger shapes.In that big fat solid tree, you can see how the main shaft of the tree is made up of crawling, writhing lesser tubes.
He draws great little compact cartoon cottages too. - made up of 2 major sub-forms: a stone block topped with a thatched roof. Then the windows, doors, bricks, wood frames and such follow the positions of the major forms.







BREAKDOWNS OF HOW HOWIE ARRANGES HIS COMPOSITIONS