Bugs Bunny and Art

 The way I see it, there are three things that were the biggest influence on my art: comic books, animated cartoons, and historical art.  All were referenced in a piece I did in 2008 called "A History of Art", which was about my own historical development as an artist, including all the things that seem to have influenced my art, either in terms of style or subject.  It took the form of a tower, based on one of Bruegel's Tower of Babel paintings, though for my print, built out of all the things I felt influenced the art I have made over the years.  I printed, colored, and framed two copies of it, one of which is wrapped in the basement, and one of which hangs on the dining room wall where I live now.  That piece can be seen below:

This piece was on my mind because an artwork I referenced I saw tonight, namely a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The print does include some black and white things, including animated cartoons (Felix the Cat, Popeye), as well as other black and white things (Oscar the Grouch on the black and white tv I grew up with, and Spy Vs. Spy from Mad Magazine) which I believe is as much an influence on my love of black and white art as are the numerous historical prints I have seen.  But color animated cartoons were big, too, and that includes the whole of Warner Brothers animation.  As a child, I had great admiration for the artwork that was found in the cartoons, whether it be the background paintings, or the characters and foreground stuff painted on cells.  This was definitely the kind of thing that made me want to be an artist.   And one of the cartoons that I particularly liked was a Bugs short called "Little Red Riding Rabbit", which has a plot much like you'd expect.  Of course, being from 1944, there were many World War II references (Granny is not home because a note on her door reads that she's working a swing shift at Lockheed), and much of the humor comes from an obnoxious girl who is bringing a rabbit as a present to her Grandma, but there is a wolf dressed in the nightgown, even though he is far more interested in eating the rabbit, and keeps throwing the girl out of the house.  However, I was very impressed with this cottage in the woods that Granny had- it was huge, with plenty of wood grain accents, slightly cracked plaster walls, all painted and drawn by professionals who knew what they were doing.  That's what I wanted to be.

So I had to put something from this short on the second level of my tower (reachable by the living room staircase from our old house) and what I chose was a scene by the fireplace, where Bugs hides under the  wolf's nightgown, and burns the wolf with a coal he retrieves from the glowing fireplace, then later tortures the wolf with a shovel full of glowing embers.  I replaced the wolf with a Bugs peaking around the doorway, and I didn't include the grain on the green chest on the floor, but I think I made my point.  Below you can see the original cartoon version and my woodcut and hand colored version.  

The cartoon version a little better, but I never had a job working in the Warner Brothers animation studios.