|
||||||
| Contents of this Chapter: | ||||||
| Part 1: Pre-Telegoons... (1) Telegoonish sketches made by the Goon Show cast during the 1950s... (2) Shades of the Telegoons? The record cover art of Rex Morston... (3) The Goons' first records were devoid of sleeve art... Part 2: Post-Telegoons... (1) The Telegoons-Inspired Goon art of Hunt Emerson... (2) The Telegoon art of Bill Titcombe... (3) Peter Clarke's Telegoon-like Goon Cartoons... (4) Goon Sculpture...  |
||||||
Part 1: Pre-Telegoons...
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Henry Crun by Peter Sellers |
 Ned Seagoon by Peter Sellers |
 Spike Milligan with his drawing of Eccles |
 Front |
 Back |
The
Goons SIDE 1 |
|
|
|
Label
art from a rare New
Zealand pressing of one of the early Goon 1) MY SEPTEMBER LOVE Recorded early September 1956, published December
1956. Both tracks were reissued in 1980 on Dark Side of the Goon--solo
classics by
|
|
Part 2: Post-Telegoons...
|
Of the artists who have drawn the Goon Show characters, well known underground comic artist Hunt Emerson is my stand-out favourite. Emerson's Goon Show pictures show a highly developed sensitivity to both the cast and the characters they portray. It is no coincidence that Emerson's Goon Show characters look a lot like the Telegoon puppets, for they were his primary inspiration. Since the puppets in turn were based on the cast's own sketches of the Goon Show characters, Hunt Emerson's pictures capture the essence of both The Goon Show and The Telegoons. Emerson watched The Telegoons on television in the 1960s, and then twenty years later created artwork for the Goon Show Preservation Society (GSPS), as well as sleeve art for two BBC Goon Show LPs (Goon Show Classics, Vol. 10, and Vol. 11). In discussing the genesis of his particular style of Goon art, Hunt had the following to say,
"My involvement with Things Goonatic was a long time ago...I always liked the Telegoons--my memories of them, that is, from seeing them on early steam television when I was a kid. Then seeing photos of the puppets brought back strange memories, and d?ja-vu thoughts...they have the same other worldliness as photos of DW Griffiths and George Meli?rs--the early silent film people, almost from another forgotten age. My drawings for the GSPS were based on those Telegoon memories (when they weren't caricatures of the Goons--amazingly difficult to do!), and I always thought the puppets captured the voices better even than Sellers' and Milligan's sketches."
Hunt Emerson's cover art on the BBC LP Goon Show Classics, Vol. 10, is a remarkably detailed montage of Telegoonesque scenes from The Whistling Spy Enigma (G.S. Series 5, #1; T.G. Series 2, #9):
|
|||||||||||||||
Hunt Emerson's cover art on the BBC LP Goon Show Classics, Vol. 11,
captures the essence of Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes' Orwellian comedy masterpiece Nineteen-Eighty-Five
(G.S. Series 5, #15) like never before:
|
||||||||
Hunt Emerson's non-Goon work includes his well known Calculus the Cat comic strip, his comic book versions of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (both Eclipse Books), as well as his illustrations for the Fortean Times. One of my favourites is his cartoon cover artwork for the Earth vs The Wildhearts CD (Eastwest Records America, Warner catalogue number 92315-2). A cross-section of Hunt Emerson's work, both old and new, can be found at his web site which is named LARGECOW. There you'll find, "Lots of cartoons, full comic strips, fun and laffs."
| Some examples of Bill Titcombe's original artwork from THE TELEGOONS in The Ascent of Mount Everest A Story and Colouring Book ? Tonwen Ltd. Published by The Galaxy Press, c. 1964. 26 pp. (Plot based loosely on the first Telegoons television episode, The Ascent of Mount Everest) The Merchandise section has more about this book. |
||
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 (click for larger picture 50K) |
For further examples of Bill's Telegoon art, also see the TV Comic, merchandise, and F.A.Q. sections.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.
Use
cross-eyed viewing method
