Mel Crawford - Magilla Gorilla (Big Golden Book) 1964

I think I first became consiously aware of Mel Crawford's cartoon character themed golden book illustations thanks to Shane Glines and have been addicted to searching out and unearthing as much of this incredibly inspirational material as possible ever since.

Mel Crawford's cartoon character based artwork is pure bliss to behold. His style seems to be an intoxicating concoction made up of equal parts Mary Blair and Ed Benedict, with an added a dash of Sasek to create one of the most amazingly talented golden book illustrators that I have come across. I especially admire his use of simple yet effective shape combinations which create solid and expressive cartoon figures that seem to jump off the page. Top all of this off with his equally unique color sense and use of texture and it becomes even more difficult to find anyone who does cartoon character based childrens books better than Mel Crawford. Looking at these images and their scarcity of linework would also seem to point to a sense of style & design that has influenced the art direction of modern day cartoons like samurai jack.

Click each image for a larger version













As promised here are the rest of the scans...








Please feel free to leave any of your own thoughts, comments, etc.. regarding Mel Crawford and his work by using the comment feature below.

-Clarke