A JONNY QUEST GRAB BAG

I'm not sure if this is Doug Wildey's work, or Alex Toth's or Warren Tufts -- all of them comic book legends, but I love this frame grab from the pilot episode of JONNY QUEST, Mystery of the Lizard Men.

The great assured lines and strong faces of these two pilots about to "spot a man floating on wreckage" is exactly the kind of artwork that made me fall in love with comics as a kid -- and especially JONNY QUEST as a show.

Hey everybody. Chris here, and I have a few minutes here so happy to type a few words to all my fellow Questites out there.

I like to include a few goodies in each blog that can be easily downloaded and talk a little bit about the show and share some of the Quest stuff I come across on my adventures on the web.

One thing I found, and I'm not quite sure where it came from, was this great original ABC Promo for JONNY QUEST. I would guess it ran alot the summer of '64 on the network. I posted it on YouTube and also here:



It's amazing the artwork that keeps showing up on the web referring to the show's original broadcast in 64. Here is a TV Guide from Australia, showing what looks like Doug Wildey artwork that I have never seen before or since.

This rare little ditty below, someone sent to me. A piece of artwork from the advertising campaign to promote Jonny Quest, "The Jonny Quest Adventure Club". The winner of the contest, sponsored by the network, would be a boy and girl who get to fly around the world -- or something like that.

It might be safe to say that the people working on the Adventure Club promotion had little reference material about the Jonny Quest series to work with, since Jonny looks almost nothing like himself in this picture.

One thing I have found in seeing so much Quest artwork and merchandising over the years: you can sure tell when the artwork was generated by Doug Wildey and his team and when it wasn't.

I also found some more wonderful original artwork from the series, including several backgrounds and cels. Remember, any artwork on this blog you can copy onto your own computer simply by double-clicking on it (on Macs anyway)

This will pull up a page with the full sized artwork. Then just drag it or save it onto your desktop depending on how your operating system works.

This is a background from SHADOW OF THE CONDOR episode.

And below, is one use of this background from the show. It looks different from the background above because for this scene, the shot has been color timed for night, but this is one of the best shots in the episode, where under the cover of dark, the sinister Baron, sabotages the Quest's jet Dragonfly:

While we're on the subject of Doug's personal favorite of an episode, here is some more original artwork from that show:

This doesn't look like an original background from this scene but it is certainly the original cel of the Baron driving the Quest party to his stony abode in the land of the condor.

I have been told by experts that while the car and it's party is a detailed cel, there was probably only this one, while the smoke and exhaust from the car were laid over it as a separate cel, and was the moving part of this animation.

That and the background moving behind them.

Again, the background for this cel is not the original, but it is one of the dazzling originals cel of Race Bannon's fighter plane, from the climatic finale of the SHADOW OF THE CONDOR episode.

Someone also sent me this via email: an original cel and background from the TURU THE TERRIBLE episode that really showcases the rocketbelts or jetpacks:

A version of this series of cels was also used in the end title of every episode.

I share this original artwork here, but know there are a bevy of these beauties at the greatest JONNY QUEST website of them all, CLASSIC JONNY QUEST.COM.

No I am not affiliated with them or have friends there, I am just another of the very appreciative fans of the site, which caters to those of us who hold the show in such high regard.

They have the most comprehensive collection of original Quest stuff anywhere, and the documentary thanks them for inspiring the whole making of program that became a two hour plus documentary.

Here is the link for the website: http://www.classicjq.com/

Those of you who have contacted me through this blog, or sent me things to post, thank you so much. It's a thrill to meet other Questites and to be able to share the things you have with the rest of the small blog community here.

It would be great to get some fan fiction and of course, lots of artwork, original or fan art, it's always great to be able to pepper this blog with pictures and music that harken back to this great show.

Saw this and it gave me a great giggle. This gag cover for an imaginary comic book:
Pitting the Quests against the latest inspiration/reincarnation of the stars of the original series. The Venture Bros. continues too be one of the smartest and coolest animated series on TV today, and I am still waiting for the finish of the next season, which seemed to end abruptly months ago on Cartoon Network's ADULT SWIM.

Some time ago, while Doug Wildey was still alive, COMICO COMICS created a comic book series based on the original series. While the artwork rarely rivaled the great work of the TV series (too bad Alex Toth, Warren Tufts and Doug didn't jump in and do this series) the writing was often good, and I thought, for someone dallying in the mythology of the original Quest, didn't do half bad.

Doug Wildey did some of the covers of this COMICO series, as well as a dynamite one by Dave Stevens, another master and Quest fan in his own right. But they did a series of comics at the same time called JONNY QUEST classics, where Doug took some of his favorite episodes and did contemporary comic book versions of them.

Just having Quest comics done by Wildey was terrific. I wish they had given him more pages, so the artwork in the panels could have been bigger and more detailed, but they are still treasures in the JONNY QUEST world, because they are created by the creator.

I recently found some that had been posted online as PDF files. Meaning you can read them on your computer. I will post one, here and if you like it, let me know and I post another.

The one I am posting here today is in keeping with this blog's entry focus on Doug's favorite episode, SHADOW OF THE CONDOR.

http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/8c1h9h

MORE FROM THE JONNY QUEST GRAB BAG

There is also some music I found that you may or may not already have. One is a suite of music that starts with the Main Title and includes the Speed Boat Chase from the pilot episode and the End Title music as well:

http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/kmo6jm

The other cue is also an extended cue that is classic action Quest, and we heard it in just about every Hanna-Barbera action series since. The title given is "Action Everywhere", though I don't know if all hundred or so cues written for Quest were actually given names.

In the movie/TV music biz, I know that usually cues are assigned numbers rather than titles. Here is "Action Everywhere":

http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/ynrlf1

One thing you have to say about Hoyt Curtin's music. There's no way to listen to it and not feel good. And that is certainly true of many of the action and just cool jazz cues that make up the musical horizon he created for the coolest TV animation ever. (Almost called it the coolest cartoon ever -- but I sensed Doug Wildey cringing -- he hated having JONNY QUEST called a cartoon)

INCREDIBLE FAN ART

As always it is my great pleasure to share fan art based on the original Quest show with you. I don't own the copyright for any of this great work but, it deserves to be show, and I always get a thrill out of the amazing work that is still being done out there as a tribute to those twenty-six episodes from 1964.

Let's start out with this way cool black and white of Jonny under the watchful eye of Dr. Zin's mechanical arachnid:


Look at this dazzling rendition of a certain doctor and his certain Robot Spy:


Or this way cool shot of Jonny fighting a mechanical terror that makes me wish there was some fan ficiton to go with it.Comic artist Chris Samnee has a terrific knack for Quest art:

How about a little (very little) stylized Jonny here:

Well, that's about all I have time for right now. My day job beckons. So I'll I'll just say so long from the small guest cottage behind the Shed with the undersea prober out on a Palm Key.

And doctor, could you warn me the next time you're gonna run the Para Power Ray Gun? It really screws up the TV reception back on my little corner of the island. Oh and if you could get Jonny and Hadji to pick up a little after Bandit, that would be great.

The beach is so nice and clean, and we all have to live here after all. Oh, and if you can devise something and get it down to the Gulf where people and wildlife are being devastated?

Come on, if you can blow out an oil well fire, I think your attention is desperately needed to cap an oil spill that is already doing generations of damage to our world.



Cheers everyone, till next time.

Chris