No fear of foreshortening

The earliest career choice I can remember being interested in was that of cartoonist or comic book artist. This was in the era of Swan, Schaffenberger, Sekowsky and a yet-to-be-famous Kirby. Although I was fortunate enough to spend several years as a professional artist (along with several other careers), I never got the chance to do comics. I think the reason I want to draw catfights as sequential narratives is to fulfill that old lust for comics.

Like almost every art student with an interest in sequential narrative, I happened across the series of Dynamic Anatomy books by Burne Hogarth. Hogarth was 26 years old when he took over the immensely popular Tarzan newspaper strip from Hal Foster, who was leaving to create Prince Valiant.

Hogarth realized he needed to draw Tarzan in a variety of poses for which live models would not be available – running, jumping, swinging from vines, leaping from waterfalls and so on. So he began developing a systematic method of understanding and drawing human anatomy. His goal was to understand every aspect of the human body so thoroughly that he could draw it from memory, at any angle, without the need for live models or photographic reference.

He shared what he'd learned in his Dynamic Anatomy books, which included Dynamic Anatomy, Dynamic Figure Drawing, Drawing Dynamic Hands,  and others.

Together with Silas Rhodes, Hogarth founded the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where his students included both Eric Stanton and Gene Bilbrew, along with Stanton's later studio partner Steve Ditko.

And here's how that education paid off. These pages from a French translation of Divorce, at right, represent Stanton at what I consider the height of his abilities. (And the story appears to have been inked by Ditko.)

This is the work of a man whose understanding of the human body is so complete he can draw it in a variety of positions, from a variety of viewpoints, without having to bring actual women into the studio to fight in front of him. (Although if you could get that to happen, I don't know why you wouldn't, for cryin' out loud.)

If you want to draw action/adventure art, whether it's catfights or anything else, Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy books are, in my opinion, essential to your artistic education.

I realize as I write this that I haven't cracked my copies in decades, and I ought to go revisit them.