Month: November 2004

Mike Lynch – Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio

andertoons

This week’s Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio features not only a great gag cartoonist, but a good friend. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Mike Lynch!

1) If you were to cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters, what movie would it be and who would star in it?

There are already so many good answers by so many good cartoonists on the Andertoons blog. Other than making a wretchedly offensive remark (the Li’l Abner cast of characters in “Shoah” was an idea — but, Mark, I’m sure you’ll edit that out), I can’t think of anything. Oh — no, wait. How about replacing Jim Varney from those “Ernest” movies and replacing him with a series of droll Charles Saxon New Yorker cartoons?

2) You’re a syndicate editor launching a new comic strip. What’s the worst possible title you can think of?

Lynch Mob. Every once in a while someone says if I had a strip, that should be the title. They’re sooo wrong.

And Dykes to Watch Out For is another one. But Ms. Bechdel seems to be doing OK without syndication.

3) A light bulb over a cartoon’s head signifies an idea, while a string of random characters denotes swearing. Invent a new cartooning icon and what it means.

Yeah, this is the tough one because so many other cartoonists have answered with so many funny remarks. I would suggest the head of Art Spiegleman (or is it “art spiegelman?”) hover over a character’s head in its cloud of omnipresent cigarette smoke whenever the strip becomes so opaquely esoteric that no on knows what’s going on — therefore: it’s art!

Thanks Mike for giving us some great answers! (The five bucks is in the mail!) Be sure to check out his website, www.heykidscomics.com and keep an eye out for him in publications everywhere!

Attention please – Mike Lynch has left the building. I repeat – Mike Lynch has left the building.

“In the Shadow of No Towers” by Art Spiegelman – Review

andertoons

The sky was indeed falling.

Like most Americans I remember September 11, 2001 with complete clarity. I had come into work early and was sitting at my computer planning my day. My supervisor arrived and while taking off his coat remarked that he’d heard something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center in New York.

At that point no one here even knew what kind of plane it had been and I made a comment akin to “How do you miss the World Trade Center?! I mean, for God’s sake, there’s two of them!”

Of course they weren’t trying to miss.

Myself and the rest of the staff spent the morning holed up in either the owner’s office or the kitchen staring at televisions showing images more and more tragic as the day wore on.

That evening my wife and I cried and held each other and wondered what the future held.

Three years later, Spiegelman’s “slow-motion diary,” In the Shadow of No Towers now sits in my pile of books to be returned to the library. And while it was interesting and beautifully realized, I find myself trying to figure why this book didn’t touch me.

The book, which structurally is very much like a gigantic children’s board book, has ten large pieces, each of which spans the book’s fold mimicking full page newspaper comics of old.

Spiegelman chronicles witnessing the disaster, searching for his daughter afterwards and his attempt to return to some sense of normalcy.

Each spread is beautifully illustrated, the writing is honest and uncompromising, and I even enjoyed the reprintings of early comics that make up the final third of the book. (“The Upside-Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo – The Fairy Palace” was especially fascinating.)

So why didn’t the book touch me?!

Maybe I’m not clever enough to see some symbolism that Spiegelman intended. Perhaps it’s that I am, as Carrie Newcomer puts it, “hopelessly Midwestern” and am unable to grasp the New York-iness of it.

But, having discussed this with my wife at breakfast, I think the problem is that my own strong memories and emotions connected to September 11th simply don’t allow me to connect fully with Spiegelman’s vision.

The tragedy, while so very public, is also very personal to each of us. It’s very much like the Kennedy assassination – everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when it happened. But when it’s brought up in conversation, you’re never really as interested in hearing other people’s experiences as you are in telling your own.

Lots of people smarter than I like this book very much calling it an “artful rant” and “powerful and quirky,” and I didn’t dislike it per se, but I think in the end that what I brought to the book somehow wouldn’t allow me to fully surrender to it. Is it wrong to say I wish I’d enjoyed these tragic musings more? I don’t know.

I really miss those towers though.

“The Best of Zagreb Film – Nudity Required” – Review

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Apparently Croatian animation company, Zagreb Film, has been busy over the past 40 years or so. According to the film’s opening they’ve “produced 600 animated films, winning more than 400 international awards” and coined a style known as “the Zagreb school.”

OK, being the ugly American I am, I had no idea any of this was going on. So, in an effort to broaden my knowledge of animation, and indeed the world, I added “The Best of Zagreb Film – Nudity Required” to my Netflix queue.

I felt so worldly when it arrived and I meant to dig in and see what this was all about. I mean, come on, it has the word “nudity” right in the title! How bad can it be?!

About two weeks later (I’m a busy guy, what can I say!) I’ve finally found the time sit down and really give this collection some time and attention and here’s what I’ve come up with:

Wow. This is some really weird stuff.

It’s not as if I was looking for Disney-esque animation with singing forest animals or anything, but this was outside even my broad expectations.

I’ll review each short individually, starting with:

“Way to Your Neighbor” by Nedeljko Dragic

This odd little film portrays a rotund character showering, applying deodorant and playing his genitalia like a bass before dressing in a tux and driving an X-8 tank out of his garage.

That’s the cartoon.

Apparently it’s very funny, but I don’t get it.

“Satiemania” by Zdenko Gasparovic

Set to the music of Erik Satie, this set of five odd vignettes includes 1) Lots of characters walking, 2) Panning over static images of various faces, 3) Reflections in the rain (the best of the five in my opinion), 4) A woman undressing and falling into bed, and 5) A lot of random violence and a male character with a penis for a head dancing.

I didn’t get this one either.

“Album” by Kresimir Zimonic

This was another surreal short revolving around a young woman perusing a photo album. Then a dog bites her and steals her pants and more weirdness ensues. There’s a lot of horse imagery that if I was smarter I’d probably remark “Aha!” to and smirk appreciatively.

I’m not that smart.

“Plop” by Zlatko Pavlinic

“Plop” chronicles the exploits of an overtly suave male and the woman he seduces at the local bar to come and clean his apartment. She gets her revenge, however, by sucking him into the vacuum, but in the ends finds she can’t get her love out of the carpeting.

The text at the beginning of the film describes this as “zany.” I found it odd at best.

“The Match” by Kresimir Zimonic

I’m going to review this look at soccer as a metaphor for war by simply listing the notes I typed while watching below:

Rock music

Space war

Smoking

Soccer players stretching

News report

Crowd

Weird images and jazz

Tiresome

Back to soccer

Woman and dragon

Knight comes to save her

More soccer

Space war again

Robot

Soccer players sure are smoking a lot

Avant garde jazz

Players are nude women, then not

French kissing

Space war yet again

Player takes part of other players leg – what the…

Roman gladiator

Chicken soup

Soccer with tanks

Man smoking then puking

Praying for this to end

Knight gets girl then kills her

Man burns up

More with the space war

Globe turning

Thank god it’s over

“Dream Doll” by Zlatko Grgic & Bob Godfrey

This cartoon is the classic boy meets blow-up sex doll story. Of course the doll is later raped by thugs prompting some sort of flying sex doll mass exodus that I can’t explain.

“Mouseferatu” by Darko Cesar

A takeoff on the Dracula legend, this time the vampire is a cute little mouse that uses kung fu to gain entry into his victim’s abode. Once inside he finds the sexy naked she-cat and bites her, only to find himself in a cage when dawn comes.

Really the only clever part of this piece is the title.

Well, that’s all of them. In general the animation was good, if a little too artsy for my tastes. The stories (where applicable) didn’t really resonate with me, but maybe the cultural and geographic divide was just a bit wide to connect.

It was pretty easy (fun too!) to make light of this stuff. Some of the visuals really lend themselves to mockery (at points I was reminded of the “Worker and Parasite” cartoon Krusty was forced to substitute for Itchy and Scratchy), but it’s not really entirely fair either.

I’m no animation expert, and I really don’t have any organized art training, so take my comments with a grain of salt. I have to believe that the “Zagreb school” has its fans, and that somewhere someone is watching this DVD and really digging it.

I draw gag cartoons for a living and I have to believe that, in general, the Zagreb crowd doesn’t think I’m a genius either. “The Best of Zagreb Film – Nudity Required” just sort of left me confused and annoyed. I can’t say I’m glad I saw this, but I’ve decided to co-opt Nietzsche’s idea and end with this thought – “That which does not entertain me, makes me stronger.”

Do Comics Strips Need Shaking Up?

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USA Today ran an article not too long ago about Berkeley Breathed’s new collection, Opus: 25 years of His Sunday Best in which the cartoonist complains to reporter Kathy Balog that “it’s hard to push the envelope anymore. If Bloom County were starting now, I could never get away with what I did then. I’m getting my hand slapped more than I ever was in the ’80s. It’s a genre that doesn’t want to get shook up.”

Is he right? Are newspapers and syndicates too worried about (gasp!) offending someone that they’ve effectively stifled the funny pages?

I’ve been thinking lately about breaking out of the normal comic strip niceties and trying to really create something more Adult Swim in tone and irreverence. Possibly even some casual swearing!

Is there room for something new and, dare I say it, adult in the comics? Whatcha think?