Lately, when I need a bit of cheering up, I re-watch this sublime bit of silliness:
I especially love the finale, starting from when Craig Ferguson grabs his belt buckle, struts toward the camera, and brings the house down with one last let-it-all-hang-out blast of unadulterated fun.
P.S. The song to which Craig and the gang are lip-syncing is Fat Boy Slim’s “Wonderful Night.”
Here’s a revealing process sequence from Jeff Jones’s old Web site — I think I have them in the right order, except for the closeup at the end, which seems to come at a stage before the final shot of the full painting — along with three views of an absolutely first-rate sculpture (dated 1973) by Jones that appears to have been the model for the caveman in the painting, which I believe was created sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s:
I wish the images were larger, but as I’ve said before, beggars can’t be choosers…
BTW, based on the visual evidence alone, I have a hunch that the first photo of the “Neanderthal” sculpture is of the hand-hewn original from which the two “Neanderthal” sculptures in the second photo were cast, but don’t quote me on that. (N.B.: See Patrick Hill’s message in the comments section of this post for the real story on the photographs of Jones’s caveman sculpture.)
Here are three “Jones Touch” strips, all dated 1972, that were originally published in Swank Magazine:
Fantagraphics published a comic-book collection of “Jones Touch” strips in 1993 under their Eros imprint, but the book is long out of print. So if anyone has a copy they would be willing to sell me for a decent price, just let me know, because although I don’t own it, I would very much like to.
UPDATE:
Turns out, I’ve been barking up the wrong trees, looking for the Eros “Jones Touch” collection in old back-issue bins and on ebay.ca, abebooks.com, etc., because Eros still lists the book in their Web catalogue. I was prompted to check the Eros catalogue by a recent post on the Fantagraphics blog, which — thank you very much — includes a link to RCN. I have placed an order, and will report back when the book arrives.
ANOTHER UPDATE:
Well, Fantagraphic’s “Jones Touch” collection is a huge disappointment. It’s in black and white rather than colour, and it simply doesn’t do justice to Jones’s work at all. No wonder copies were still available from the publisher 16 years after the comic was published.
RSS Display: Last 10 Posts