Thursday, October 24, 2024

Before They Were Cartoons: Early Sketches of Atom Ant, Jabberjaw, and More!

Concept art really is a fascinating thing. Who doesn't want to see what their favorite characters almost looked like? Not so long ago, I looked at some rough early designs for The Jetsons and Quick Draw McGraw, and I'm back with more! First off is this piece for Huckleberry Hound. As you can see, the Huckleberry sketch really emphasized the "Hound" aspect of his character, which was toned down in his final design. It was also drawn by Ed Benedict, who designed many a Hanna-Barbera character.



Here's an earlier take on Atom Ant, though compared to others, he's not too dissimilar from how he looked in the final product. It's mostly his colors that are different.


Next is this Jerry Eisenberg piece for Dastardly and Muttley, or as it was almost called, Stop That Pigeon! If you're wondering why the main character looks so different from Dastardly, that was because the Hanna-Barbera folk weren't actually sure if they could use him or Muttley for the series, due to its nature as a coproduction with Heatter-Quigley.


The last one for today is this concept art of Jabberjaw. I think this was done by Eisenberg as well, but I cannot say for certain. While I think most others prefer the final designs to the concept versions of every character thus far, I must say, I dig this version of the character way more than the actual version. It's got far more character, and feels right at home alongside the likes of, say, Yogi Bear. Of course, this is Jabberjaw we're talking about, so I guess it wasn't that big of a loss that we didn't see this version. 



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