Feb 2, 2006

a Fred Moore mystery drawing


I found this odd sheet of animation paper at the San Diego ComicCon several years ago. It isn't much of a drawing, but it does appear to be a sketch done by the person whose name appears to the right--signing their real, full name: Robert Fred Moore. The technique, and some of the handling of the figure(those thighs!)say "Fred", but why would this master of the fluid, graceful girl draw such a rigidly upright and especially faceless outline of a woman like this?
One person suggested that the rough outline of the woman's body looked like an old-fashioned candlestick telephone to Fred, hence the added word. Well...possibly.

But then a few days ago I happened to get a copy of an obscure 1946 Disney short, never meant for general public viewing: "The Story of Menstruation". It's pretty dull stuff, not even much good for a bit of kitschy fun, but one shot caught my eye. Here's a screen grab:

Eureka!

There's very little actual animation in the short, but there are several tableaux of girls standing around that look as though they're based strongly on Fred Moore's familiar style of posing his own girl drawings; if Fred did work on this, he likely designed the silhouette as seen here.
If anyone has any thoughts, drop me a line, won't you?



1 comment:

Uncle Phil said...

Your blog makes me want to dance. Thanks. Seriously.
-phil