Richmond Illustration Inc.
Stooges Week! Larry Fine
November 7th, 2013 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Today’s Stooge is Larry Fine, One of the original members from the Ted Healy vaudeville days. Larry was part of all the Stooges incarnations, and his major stroke in 1970 essentially ended the group…although Moe attempted a comeback in 1975 with character actor Emil Sitka taking over for Larry. That project never got past a few publicity still photos, as Moe became ill before anything was filmed.
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I’ll be the first to comment. I don’t like it. The drawing of course, is impeccable (are there two or three Cs in impecccable?). I think this technique is cool squared and with all the stooges represented will make a beautiful print in the future. What I don’t like is Larry’s angry expression.
Curly and Larry were innocents. Larry was a re-actor. This image depicts a sour Larry. Curly (and the Curly replacements) were children. Larry was just stupid. But he wasn’t angry.
Larry makes that expression whenever Moe is yelling at him. It’s not anger, it’s more like sulking.
There will not be a Stooges print. The Stooges estate is right up there with Elvis and Marilyn Monroe when it comes to litigation over right of publicity. Even if they have little case, they will sue and cost you so much money to defend yourself it’s not worth doing something like that.
http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/supreme-court-rules-three-stooges-t-shirts-are-not-protected-art
Thanks, Tom. I’ll buy your “sulking” Larry. Very nice caricature, by the way. I know the Stooges images are very protected, having worked on some Photoshop colorizations for an outfit producing Stooges stuff. This leads to the question, what’s the deal with the James Bond and Dr. Who images? Did you have to secure reproduction rights before creating prints?
Re: Bond and D Who prints. These are a little different animal. While the first print is of all the ACTORS who played Bond, you’ll notice that neither “007” nor “Bond” appear anywhere in the print, and it is called “Secret Agent Man”. I also editorialize on the personalities of the actors as to how they play the character in the movies. This is pretty securely a parody/commentary on the film franchise, and with no trademarked logos, titles or phrases, and being a limited edition (fine art) print, it would be difficult or impossible to successfully demonstrate copyright or right of publicity infringement. “The Doctor is In” print is the same story, enough editorializing and satire in there to make it a first amendment case, and no trademarked logos or names. I purposefully left out the Tardis, Sonic Screwdriver, etc. for the same reason. I am commenting on the differences in the portrayal of the same character by multiple actors. That theme becomes a crucial element, and by doing multiple prints with that same character/different actors theme, the format itself becomes part of the parody.
This would not be the case with the Stooges. I suppose I could do a lineup with all the different Stooges and it would sort of fit the theme, but how do you parody something that is already a farce by nature? I just am not sure of my legal ground on something like that, and would prefer not to risk any legal entanglements.