Following up on my piece about the complete Underdog box set, here’s some more information on the other cartoons that ran with Underdog, produced by Total TeleVision as back-up features. In each half-hour episode, Underdog occupied two of the four cartoon slots. The primary back-ups were Go Go Gophers and The World of Commander McBragg.

Go Go Gophers was set in the late 19th Century in the American West. U.S. Army Colonel Kit Coyote and his Sergeant (named Okey Homa, but his name was seldom mentioned in the cartoons) are tasked with securing the town of Gopher Gultch by wiping out the last two (very clever) surviving Gopher Indians: Ruffled Feathers and Running Board. Ruffled Feathers was the brains of the operation, although he only spoke faux “Indian” (mostly it sounded like gibberish).

Go Go Gophers was blessed with a real earworm of a theme song (“Go Go Gophers, watch ‘em Go Go Go…”), and the series was popular enough that it was spun out into its own series in 1968. Reportedly, it was, at least in part, based on the comedy/western F Troop, staring Ken Berry, Forrest Tucker, and Larry Storch. If you’ve ever seen the show, it was about as close as a live-action show could get to a cartoon. (Well, that and The Great Race.)

The World of Commander McBragg was a very short cartoon (usually lasting all of 90 seconds). McBragg was a pompous braggart (good name, huh?), and the cartoons were pure formula, consisting of McBragg cornering a member of his gentleman’s club and relating a far-fetched or impossible adventure, always concluding with an unlikely escape (and a terrible pun from the listener). Many of McBragg’s stories were inspired by the tales of Baron Münchhausen. McBragg also cameos in a 2006 episode of the Simpsons, “The Seemingly Never-Ending Story.”

Klondike Kat first appeared on the third season of Underdog. (I think… There’s a lot of confusion and misleading information about TTV’s secondary characters floating around, so it’s hard to know what to believe.) Klondike Kat was a Canadian Mountie (leading to speculation that he was a parody of Jay Ward’s Dudley Do-Right), but the real star of the cartoon was the sly and mischievous Savoir-Faire, a French-Canadian mouse thief with the wonderful catchphrase “Savoir-Faire is everywhere!” As a viewer, you always wanted to root for the spunky mouse, but somehow the bumbling Klondike Kat would “always gets his mouse”, which usually meant an unsatisfying ending.

Tooter Turtle was a repeat segment on Underdog, as the series was originally created in 1960 and originally aired on King Leonardo. He was kind of a dimwitted character, who would always call on his friend Mr. Wizard (a lizard) with “another favor to ask” — usually a desire to be transported to some other destiny. Mr. Wizard would always oblige, things wouldn’t work out, and Mr. Wizard would always have to return him, with the magic catchphrase “Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome; time for this one to come home.”

What was bizarre about Tooter Turtle was his impact on popular culture, with references to him (or the cartoons’ many catchphrases — most of which were big hits on childhood playgrounds back in the day) in such places as The Matrix, The Replacements’ album Tim (in which Mr. Wizard’s incantation is a part of a song lyric), a reference in the novel Bright Lights Big City, and an episode of Lost. The cartoon obviously also made an big impact on Tom Servo of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, as he would frequently quote the cartoon’s catchphrases (especially “Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome”).

Underdog v. Rocky and Bullwinkle

I have one last misconception to dispel, this time about Total TeleVision in general. Many people thought that the TTV group and the cartoons of Jay Ward (Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Hoppity Hooper, George of the Jungle) were all part of the same production company. A lot of this was based on how all these shows had a similar sense of writing style and humor (slapstick for kids, inside jokes for the adults) and a very similar animation style (deceptively crude to many adults, but kids didn’t care). The production studios were, in fact, completely separate, but both companies had their animation done at the Mexican studio Gamma Productions, which explains why all the shows look very similar.

The other major connection is that most all of the shows (especially the early ones) shared the same sponsor, General Mills cereal. Since General Mills was footing the bill for many of these shows, they technically “owned” them (or at least controlled them). After many of the shows were no longer first-run on Saturday (or Sunday) morning, they entered the syndication process, And since General Foods controlled both the TTV and Jay Ward shows, they occasionally “mixed and matched” elements between the two animation companies. A Commander McBragg (TTV) segment might air alongside a Rocky and Bullwinkle (Jay Ward) adventure, or a Fractured Fairy Tale or Bullwinkle’s Corner (Ward) segment might appear on the TTV Underdog show, leading viewers to believe there was a connection between the two companies when there was not.

Interestingly, Underdog includes an inside joke about the similarities of the animation between TTV and Jay Ward shows. At the end of most of the four-part Underdog stories, the townspeople would look up in the sky and say (just like in Superman), “Look up in the sky!” “It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” Then an old woman would say “It’s a frog!” And another guy would look at her funny and say “A frog?!?” Then Underdog would charmingly chime in with, “Not bird, nor plane, nor even frog, It’s just little old me… (and then Underdog would clumsily crash into something before finishing, sheepishly) “…Underdog.”

According to Mark Arnold, the frog in question was Jay Ward’s Hoppity Hooper, which debuted shortly before Underdog in fall 1964. Another animation mystery solved. I’ve waited 48 years to find that one out.

More on the Way

There’s more on the way! Also out now from Shout! Factory is a six-DVD collection of Tennessee Tuxedo and His Pals: The Complete Collection. And I’ll be back to review it — just as soon as Mr. Wizard brings me back home… Drizzle, drazzle…

One of the more interesting things about Underdog is the number of misconceptions many people have about him.

Misconception #1: Many people think the the very popular Underdog balloon is still a part of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It’s not. The balloon was retired in 1984 — after debuting in 1965, just one year after the debut of the cartoon show on NBC. There was even a special episode of the TV series that originally aired right after the parade in 1965.

Underdog: The Complete Collector’s Edition

The reasons that people think the Underdog balloon is still active are likely twofold. First, there was an entire episode of Friends that featured the balloon, although it was never seen, except in stock footage. (Episode #9, “The One Where Underdog Gets Away”, originally aired on November 17, 1994, ten years after the balloon was retired.) Second — and more recent — is the great 2008 Coca-Cola ad (first aired on the Super Bowl) where the Underdog balloon battles the Family Guy’s Stewie balloon over a frosty Coke balloon in the skies over NYC. (This commercial, of course, was all done with CGI.)

Misconception #2: This one was primarily known only in animation circles. For a number of years, it was thought that all the Underdog cartoons were lost in a fire (as well as all the cartoons produced by Total TeleVision Productions (TTV), including King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo, and Go Go Gophers).

Happily, this one is not true either, as the recent release of Shout! Factory’s nine-DVD Underdog: The Complete Collector’s Edition proves. Shout! Factory has conveniently divided up this set into three individually packaged DVD sets (by season), so it’s possible that they may sell them as individual season sets at some point in the future.

Underdog: The Complete Collector’s Edition contains

• all 124 Underdog “episodes” (episodes meaning the four-and-a-half-minute cartoons, two of which were shown as part of each show)
• all 48 episodes of Go Go Gophers
• all 48 episodes of The World of Commander McBragg
• the first 14 episodes of Klondike Kat (originally airing in Season 3; the rest would air on The Beagles)
• 12 episodes of Tooter Turtle, which originally aired on King Leonardo
• and 2 episodes of The Hunter, also both originally airing on King Leonardo.

One of the two Hunter episodes isn’t the one listed in the packaging, due to the discovery that the cartoon had no audio — made after the box and booklet went to press. It’s been replaced with another episode. (There are more Hunter episodes on the way on Shout! Factory’s Tennessee Tuxedo box set.) For those keeping score, this Underdog set contains about 21 (or more) hours of cartoon fun.

Rough Spots

Although most of the pieces of the original 1964 Underdog cartoon show have survived, some are in better condition than others, so there is an occasional difference in picture quality due to different sources for the footage. The original series was long ago cut up and rearranged when the series entered syndication, and some of the original material (mostly interstitial and credit sequences) were lost or misplaced for many years. Many of these are presented in a five-minute bonus feature, and it quickly becomes clear why they didn’t put them back into the regular episodes. Most of them are in terrible shape (some are only in black & white) — and watching them over and over again as part of the regular episodes would be very annoying. I am just happy to know that at least we get the opportunity to see them at all, in any condition.

It’s probably a small miracle that any of this footage still exists, in any form. The cartoons were saved individually by subject to be inserted and re-inserted into different syndication packages after the original run of the show. Most of the original bumpers and inserts have been lost in their original state and only exist via inferior sources. Mark Arnold, animation historian and consultant to this DVD set indicates (in comments for the box set on Amazon.com) that even the audio for some cartoons was lost, forcing them to pull alternate audio from bootlegs to match up with pristine (but silent) video prints.

This is the only downside to this collection, and it’s an incredibly minor one. The folks at Shout! Factory have done a fantastic job of reassembling all of the various pieces of the original Underdog to provide a viewing experience as close as humanly possible to seeing the show as it was originally broadcast on Saturday morning in the mid-1960s. As one of those original viewers, I can directly attest to how well they achieved their goals in producing this amazing missing piece of animation history. I had a lump in my throat as I watched — and remembered every word from that first episode I first saw as an eight-year-old in 1964. Granted, I probably saw that episode a lot. Underdog was on the air, bouncing back and forth from NBC to CBS, for an astounding nine-year run, 1964 though 1973 (less a two-year break, from 1970 to 1972). There were a lot of reruns, since the show stopped producing new episodes in March 1967.

Underdog Lore

That Underdog is so beloved is no accident. Despite its somewhat dubious origins — it dates from the era where a single sponsor (General Mills in this case) basically funded the entire show as a place to regularly show ads for their extensive line of sugary breakfast cereal — the show is utterly charming, with one of the best lead characters in TV animation history. As the opening narration reminds us in every episode, Shoeshine Boy (Underdog’s secret identity) is “humble and lovable”. He was. And enduringly sweet while almost always speaking in rhyme.

Underdog was your basic superhero story. He had a secret identity (Shoeshine Boy), a girlfriend (Sweet Polly Purebred), dozens of villains (Simon Bar Sinister, Riff Raff, Overcat), aliens (The Marbleheads, The Magnet Men), and a secret to his amazing powers (The Underdog Secret Energy Pill). That part was all for the kids. Underdog also worked as a parody and satire, not only mocking superheroes, but a large part of society as well. And that was for the adults. At this early stage of TV animation, only Underdog and the Jay Ward produced material — notably Rocky and Bullwinkle — were doing things on this dual level.

It’s also interesting to note that Underdog was around for more than a year before the debut of the live-action Adam West Batman TV show in 1966. Underdog also beat Superman (The New Adventures of Superman) to Saturday morning by two years. It seems only the Fleischer Superman theatrical cartoons of the 1940s, Mighty Mouse, and Popeye preceded Underdog in superheroic animation. Underdog‘s success may have inspired a flood of superheroes (some silly, some not) in the two years following his debut, including Atom Ant, The Mighty Heroes, Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles, Super 6, and Space Ghost.

Amazing Voice Work

Wally Cox

A large part of the character’s charm is due to the voice actor hired to perform as both Underdog and Shoeshine Boy — Wally Cox. Cox was one of the pioneers of early television, starring in the popular television show Mr. Peepers, which ran from 1952-1955. Mr. Peepers was a junior high school science teacher, as well as a bit of a nebbishy bumbler, traits which would carry over to the character of Underdog/Shoeshine Boy. Cox was a natural fit for the character as conceived.

The role of Underdog proved to be a good one for Cox, as it led to him being cast on the popular game show Hollywood Squares. Cox was one of the original “squares” (upper left) from the original pilot until his untimely death in 1973.

Norma MacMillian played Underdog’s girlfriend, Sweet Polly Purebread. She also performed the voice of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Goo in Gumby, and both Davey and Sally on Davey and Goliath. She was an on-screen actress with numerous roles on television shows, but she was probably best known for playing Aunt Martha on commercials for Kraft Foods mayonnaise in the 1980s.

Allen Swift was a former children’s television host before becoming a well-traveled voice actor for an incredible number of animation projects in a very long career. He’s best known as the voice for both Simon Bar Sinister and Riff-Raff, the two main villains on Underdog, although as a utility player for the show, Swift also voiced many of the minor villains, such as Batty-Man and Overcat, as well as many of the alien characters who appeared. Swift was a regular on TTV’s other programs, where he played Itchy Brother, Odie Colognie, and Tooter Turtle on King Leonardo and Tennessee Tuxedo; he was also Tubby and Scotty on The Beagles. Swift worked with Rankin/Bass on many of their projects, most notably as the majority of voices in Mad Monster Party, a 1967 full-length theatrical film (incidentally, co-written by Harvey Kurtzman with character designs by Jack Davis).

George S. Irving was better known as a Broadway character actor in numerous productions, including the original production of Oklahoma!. He’s best known for roles in Irene and Me and My Girl. But he also worked in animation, performing numerous villains and minor characters in Underdog, as well as acting as the show’s narrator. He was the Indian Running Board in Go Go Gophers (the one who talked in fake Indian language and said “Whoopee Doopee!” a lot), as well as minor roles in TTV’s other shows. Millions of people know him best as the voice of the embittered Heat Miser in Rankin/Bass’ The Year Without a Santa Claus.

The Origins of TTV

Total TeleVision was formed by four men: Buck Biggers, Chet Stover, Treadwell Covington, and artist Joe Harris. All four were former ad men. Biggers and Stover originally had the account for the General Mills food corporation, and their job was to create TV animation to sell their breakfast cereals. Around 1960, they all left their advertising jobs to create Total TeleVision (TTV) to produce the cartoon series that would “host” the General Mills commercials. (Usually, that’s the other way around. Back then, shows were created specifically to please sponsors.) TTV had four success stories in King Leonardo and His Short Subjects (1960), Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963), Underdog (1964), and The Beagles (1966). Underdog was by far the most popular of them all.

Special Features

Buck Biggers was the primary creative force of TTV, ultimately writing over 500 scripts, and composing all the theme songs — both words and music. Biggers contributes several commentaries on this Shout! Factory DVD set, as do voice actors George S. Irving and Wally Wingert (a current voice actor, best known as the voice of Jon on various Garfield series, and — my favorite — the voice of MODOK on The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes); Alison Arngrim (actress, best known for playing Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie — and also the daughter of Norma MacMillan, the voice of Sweet Polly Purebread); and Mark Arnold, writer of Created and Produced by Total TeleVision Productions, the definitive history of TTV, and also author of this box set’s informative liner notes on the history of Underdog.

Another TTV founder, Joe Harris, appears in a bonus feature, narrating (and providing simulated voices) for a never-before seen and wonderfully charming storyboard for Underdog. There’s also a new 30-minute documentary on the show — “There’s No Need To Fear… Underdog Is Here!” — featuring contributions from Biggers, Irving, Arngrim, and Arnold.

Not Without Controversy

Unfortunately, Underdog did not escape scrutiny by the parental groups determined to blanderize all cartoons with the goal of “protecting the children” by making sure that everything on Saturday morning was no longer funny or even made sense. Underdog originally got his powers by eating an energy vitamin pill. When taking one, he would always recite this rhyme: “The secret compartment of my ring I fill, with an Underdog super energy pill!” While there was no problem with these scenes during the show’s original run, for a while in the 1980s and ‘90s, these scenes were dropped for fear that children might associate them with drugs. These scenes have been restored for the Shout! Factory DVD release.

It’s so good to see Underdog brought back and reassembled (as best as can be) in a high-quality format such as DVD. Kudos to Shout! Factory for getting this out under what must have been occasionally trying circumstances. (Shout! Factory provided a copy for review.)

Finder: Voice

1. Finder: Voice by Carla Speed McNeil
   I simply adore this series, and yet it invariably makes me feel inferior, because I do not have the language or ability to tell you how incredible it all is.
2. Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge
   I was most impressed this year, visually, by the way Gulledge assembles her pages and the artistic choices she makes in this semi-autobiographical story of a young artist finding herself. This is the kind of book you can return to year after year and find new insight and inspiration.
3. Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol
   What a great year this was for graphic novel debuts! This is one of three on my list (along with Page by Paige and Picket Line). As with the title above, this is a story of a teen girl coming of age, but where Page by Paige emphasizes creativity, Anya’s Ghost is more fantastic and sneaky. The book’s characters scheme, as does its author in how she surprises the reader.
4. Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
   Funny, educational, modern, insightful, unique.
5. Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse: Race to Death Valley by Floyd Gottfredson
   I was astounded to discover that once upon a time, Mickey Mouse comics were really good! And exciting! The EveryMouse battles shyster lawyers and thieves, travels widely, is unjustly imprisoned, and generally acts like a scrappy go-getter during the Depression. Plenty of good background material puts it all in context for the new reader, previously unaware of this strip or Gottfredson’s skill. I haven’t had a better adventure read this year, in sheer “I don’t want to put this down!” desire to find out what comes next. This was the book I was most pleasantly surprised by this year, in terms of comparing expectations to the high enjoyment I got from it.
6. Criminal: The Last of the Innocent by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
   Archie noir, as versions of those classic characters are used in a tale of addiction, murder, nostalgia, and desire. A fascinating example of a story that only works this well in comics, given the allusions to familiar properties and the way the flashbacks are drawn in different artistic style.
7. Picket Line by Breena Wiederhoeft
   This year was full of good surprises, and this is another. I was impressed by how well Wiederhoeft balanced themes of personal responsibility, business decisions, family struggles across generations, and the desire to protect a plot of old-growth forest from development. A substantial, thought-provoking work.
8. Americus by MK Reed and Jonathan Hill
   I was surprised to see some of the quibbles that were made in response to this graphic novel about a certain faction trying to censor a favorite fantasy series from the local library. It seems that some readers found the situation unrealistic in some aspects; on the other hand, I’ve known well people who want to keep others from enjoying anything they disagree with, so I found it an authentic portrayal of a certain kind of small town personality.
9. Love and Capes: Wake Up Where You Are by Thomas Zahler
10. Amelia Rules! The Meaning of Life… and Other Stuff by Jimmy Gownley
    These two are old favorites who never fail to entertain and impress me. It’s easy to get caught up chasing the new and overlook the skill it takes to provide consistent enjoyment book after book in a series.

Honorable Mentions

Here are some additional books, listed in alphabetical order, that were also recommended by me this year, and I wanted to remind you of them.

• Bake Sale
• Blink: So Far
• Ivy
• Just the Usual Superpowers
• Owly & Wormy, Friends All Aflutter!
• Psychiatric Tales
• Same Difference
• The Sugar and Spike Archives Volume 1

I also considered The Influencing Machine, but while the material was great, as a comic, it was too much illustrated lecture. And I haven’t read yet Pogo: The Complete Daily & Sunday Comic Strips, although a little bird told me it’s in one of the packages under the tree.

For previous years’ lists, see my page of must-read comic classics. (And bravo to me this year for getting all the reviews done BEFORE this list was due! That’s a big change from 2006, when it took me two years to finish afterwards.)

The first chapter tackles the question of identifying the first graphic novel. As someone interested in comic history — that’s why I’m reading this comic — I’d already heard most of this information, so I found myself skimming. Various titles, including Gil Kane’s Blackmark and It Rhymes With Lust, are mentioned in a panel or two each. There’s also an odd deviation of style on the second page, an inconsistency in line and lettering font that makes it look unfinished. It may be intentional, but it seems out of place with the rest of the story.

My favorite part was the short history of Classics Illustrated that’s included in the middle. It has little connection to the rest of the piece, but Ryan Dunlavey’s illustrations, especially, capture the sense of humor and absurdity I like best about this title.

As with the first, the second chapter contained material I was already familiar with, the story of Osamu Tezuka, but the cartooning made the history fresh. It was especially interesting seeing the mash-ups of a Tezuka-styled caricature with his creation Kimba the White Lion or meeting a Walt Disney-faced Mickey Mouse. (That’s the stuff of nightmares if you focus on it too much.) This piece really builds as it goes, with the final section pondering differences between Japanese and American comic styles, accompanied by amusing cross-cultural images. That’s when this series is most worth reading, when the creators hit on just the right picture to summarize the history in a visual way that will stick with the reader.

The final chapter attempts to take the series out with a bang, starting with how hard it was to be a comic fan before the direct market. (Fred Van Lente uses quotes from Michael Uslan, but they’re similar to some of the stories KC’s told.) There are fascinating numbers included, tracing the formation of the dedicated comic retailer and the specialty market. Van Lente isn’t shy about blaming stupid (or just short-sighted) business practices for the booms and busts over the decades, and Dunlavey draws a great bearded ex-retailer in a barrel. It’s weird, reading an accelerated list of the events you’ve lived through, from the rise and fall of Image to the distribution wars.

The story ends with six pages on the internet and scanned comics. Van Lente has a clear position, and he doesn’t make an argument to support it so much as appeal to emotion. At one point, he asserts that it’s just “common sense” that free online comics are responsible for declining sales. He’s a writer, so those are the tools he uses to sway the reader — not logic, but assumption that of course the reader will agree with the narrative voice that so far has stuck to the facts. Since this assertion comes after reiterated examples of ever-skyrocketing prices, the attentive reader might draw other conclusions.

He also doesn’t acknowledge that, while the direct market kept the superhero comic alive, it was a horrible thing for other types of books. (An odd oversight, given the previous paen to diversity in the Tezuka chapter.) Still, these are small bobbles in a chapter that’s reaching widely to consider many of the possible futures for comics. I appreciate his overall positive take on the various potential paths. Ultimately, Comic Book Comics doesn’t have the answer. It’s only been telling us where we’ve been, not where we can go, and we learn history so we don’t have to repeat it.

You can read sample stories at the publisher’s website, and find out more at their page of source notes.

Let me know what you think, or whether I should bother continuing.

Same Difference

First Second is bringing Derek Kirk Kim’s Same Difference back into print next month in an attractive hardcover with a distinctive transparent dust jacket. These slice-of-life stories as a young Korean-American are skillfully illustrated. I’m lucky enough to own the older self-published version, and I look forward to comparing the two. I’ve already noticed that this new book has one big improvement over the previous: a readable title on the spine.

Little Lulu:
The Cranky Giant
and Other Stories

I quit getting the Dark Horse Little Lulu reprints after Volume 18 because I was just running out of space for them. I hadn’t realized how long they’d kept going — they’re now up to book 29 in the series! They switched to color reprints just after I quit, it seems, and this book, The Cranky Giant and Other Stories, collects two themed specials from 1958, Marge’s Little Lulu and Tubby at Summer Camp #2 and Marge’s Little Lulu and Tubby Halloween Fun #2 (with Witch Hazel stories). Read over the winter holidays, this’ll provide a reminder of the enjoyment to be had at other times of the year. The kids’ comics are always entertaining and well-told — I think a couple of the stories in here, I’d read as a youngster in digest form.

Nina in That Makes Me Mad!

After a mixup due to a distribution change, I was happy to get the latest batch of Toon Books, including the much-anticipated Nina in That Makes Me Mad! I’m way behind in what was intended to be a monthly Great Graphic Novels for Kids column (that last one was in February), but that means I’ve got a foot-high stack of good reading to tell you about sometime this month. I’ll definitely recommend the Toon line, since their books are always entertaining and sturdy.

Jumping audiences, I appreciate the intent behind Sparkplug’s Gay Genius, an anthology exploring “queer history makers”, but I’ve lost my taste for scratchy, primitive, outsider-style indie art comics. It’s shallow of me, perhaps, but I prefer prettier art, or that with more visible craft. (I also found it a little weird that the review package arrived with a note signed “Dylan Williams” when he passed away two months ago. I’m glad to see the publisher continue, but I would hope they would update their templates.)

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt is an odd but rewarding experiment, a “novel in pictures” that tells its story through captioned vintage images, over 600 pieces of memorabilia in all. The book’s trailer pretends to show the construction of the scrapbook, and the publisher has posted sample pages (PDF). It’s about Frankie Pratt, an 18-year-old New Hampshire village girl in 1920 who wants to be a writer. As she grows up, she attends Vassar, struggles in Greenwich Village, and runs away to Paris to heal a broken heart. It’s great fun to read, with the added thrill of feeling like you’re seeing someone’s diary, with pictures. Author Caroline Preston knows her history, and the glimpses of daily life are illuminating — having to eat only what you grow or raise yourself and making your own clothes in a world that’s beginning to be affected by mass marketing and media-created dreams. Until I read this, I couldn’t imagine what it was like to go to college with a prescribed wardrobe and such restrictive, protective rules. Preston’s next “scrapbook novel” is planned to tell the story of a bride’s first year of marriage from 1959-1960. I’m eager to see it.

Charley’s War: Hitler’s Youth

Charley’s War: Hitler’s Youth reprints a British war comic from the 1980s. This is volume 8 in the series, but I wanted to check it out because it provides strip commentary from writer Pat Mills, and I’m always interested in hearing creators talk about their work, especially in retrospect.

I thought 60 Ways To Leave Your Mother (Alone) might be cute, since it was described as “an affectionate look at childhood misadventures in suburbia”, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to the details. $21.95 for 32 pages is just too expensive for what this is, memories of more significance to the author than the reader. The colors are lovely, but I lost interest in the content — brother and sister squabble over a chair or eat happy meals — even before the book was over.

Breathe Deeply is a thick single-volume manga from One Peace Books, a “medical thriller” about two men inspired by the loss of the woman they both loved. A flip-through shows lots of hospital scenes, attractively illustrated with a bit more shading and detail than used in the typical manga style.

Princess Knight

After Ed’s review of Princess Knight, I knew I needed to read it for myself, so I ordered a copy. I’ve had mixed luck in the past with the work of Osamu Tezuka. I know he’s essential to the history of manga, but that doesn’t make his books good reads for someone today. However, this one sounds like it has enough hooks for me — a girls’ adventure story better suited to Tezuka’s cutesy-pie style than some of his more “meaningful” attempts — that I’ll enjoy it.

I also thought I’d better pick up a couple of the out-of-print Boom! Muppet Show collections before they disappear completely. When my mom and I were at Disney World last month, I got a thrill showing her, on the back of one of them on-sale in the Muppet store, a quote from my website. That one is Family Reunion, so I bought myself a copy. (I think that someone who uses you as a pull-quote should send you a copy of the book, but maybe that’s selfish or greedy of me.) I also picked up the first (and best?) collection, Meet the Muppets.

Per the press agent, here’s the story behind the work:

“Tear Us Apart” is from The Real Tuesday Weld album The Last Werewolf, which was released to serve as a soundtrack to the companion book of the same name written by Glen Duncan. The video explores and complements similar themes of love, loss, and loneliness that are ever-present in the album and book. Alex de Campi explains that when she created the video, she had little knowledge of the book and based it primarily on the song. “I wanted to refer tangentially to the book, however, so I started off with the moon, and the idea of a love triangle — and of a wolf and a doe,” she says. “Out of that, and out of what the noises in the song suggested to me, came the absurdist love story in the film.”

“MY GOSH!! What cheese! If only I had a bottle of beer!!”
–Mickey Mouse (1930)

A few days later, in the midst of the “Mickey Mouse in Death Valley” continuity in the then-freshly minted Mickey Mouse newspaper strip, Mickey’s girl Minnie — held captive by her shyster lawyer and Black Pete — is treated to the sight of a silhouette of a hanged (and obviously dead) Mickey. She screams.

Jeez, this sure isn’t the same Mickey I met at DisneyWorld last year…

Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse

The story in question is the lead story in the new Fantagraphics Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse collection subtitled “Race to Death Valley” — the first of a new series also known as “The Floyd Gottfredson Library”. This 260-page hardcover features the first two years of the Mickey Mouse strip from 1930-1931 — including the early strips not by Gottfredson. (Many of those early strips were by some guys named Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney. I‘m happy to report they got other work elsewhere.)

The book itself is stunning. Well-designed (by Jacob Covey), excellent paper stock and binding, compact size (10.2 x 8.7 inches) for holding, but large enough for three strips per page, amazing reproduction for material of this age — it helps to have the legendary Disney Vault, as well as a network of strip collectors, backing you up — and an excellent, textured cover that works both individually and as part of a series. Fantagraphics is well-known for their quality book projects and this may be one of their best yet.

Long-Overdue Recognition

About 50-60 pages of the book are devoted to documenting the history of the strip — including its origins, biographies of the key creative people, introductions for each of the 14 (or so) storylines reprinted in this volume, spotlights on the cast of characters, galleries of international reprintings of this material (as graphic novels), plus a host of reprinted material from the era such as press kits, teaser ads, rare promotional art and surviving pencil art for some early strips, and vintage photographs of the creators. Amusingly, there are also actual interviews from the era with both Mickey Mouse (who smokes a cigar while being questioned) and Pluto the dog. Much of the modern material is written by co-editor David Gerstein (an animation historian and Disney comics writer) and popular culture historian Thomas Andre (essays on both Gottfredson and Iwerks). The introduction is by Warren Spector, video game designer for Epic Mickey, and Floyd Norman, the artist who succeeded Gottfredson on the Mickey Mouse strip, and it provides a heartfelt appreciation of the man and the mouse.

This material is almost undefinable in its importance, as for decades creators like Gottfredson (and his Duck-Man counterpart, Carl Barks) toiled away anonymously. Finally, in the late 1960s/early 70s, comic book and animation fans slowly deduced the identities of these men who created their childhood favorites. For years, Barks was only referred to as “the good duck artist”, because no one knew his name. Eventually, fans became aware of these great creators, but recognition in the outside world was a much slower process. For a long time, Gottfredson’s incredible efforts paled in the shadow of Barks’ growing fame. This book also goes some way toward putting that right, giving Gottfredson’s work a proper showcase in a popular format.

How It All Began

Since the entire first two years are presented, we get to see the usual growing pains of any new daily newspaper strip — pacing, structure, timely introductions of the cast of characters, and the efforts to nail down their developing personalities. There were a number of personnel changes in the early strips. Walt Disney himself was writing, Ub Iwerks pencilling, and Win Smith inking the first three weeks (18 strips) of the series. It began as a gag-a-day humor strip. Historians note that much of the strip’s early content and gags were recycled from Mickey Mouse (and Oswald the Rabbit) cartoons. There were some continuing story scenarios, but the strip was a slow seller. Quickly, syndicator King Features requested that the strip become more adventure-oriented, based on the recent success of strips like Sidney Smith’s The Gumps.

While these discussions were taking place, Iwerks left Disney to open his own animation studio, and Win Smith took over the full art duties. For a short time, as it turned out. Disney decided to stop writing the strip as well, asking Smith to take over the writing. Smith declined and abruptly left the strip completely that same day.

Thus, recent animation hire Floyd Gottfredson got the call to take over the artistic chores on the strip. He was talked into it thinking that it was just a temporary job until they got somebody permanent. That two-week “temp” job only ended 45 years later when Gottfredson retired in 1975. Gottfredson’s first strip as artist was published May 5, 1930. Disney stuck around for a few weeks to get Gottfredson settled, but eventually, he got involved in other things, and Gottfredson took over the writing as well, scripting an incredible run of high-action and powerful plotting. Many of these stories were later reprinted in the Dell and Gold Key comic books Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, as well as stand-alone albums internationally.

The Strip Itself

The Mickey Mouse strip itself is a hoot — especially in these early days. Mickey’s a feisty little guy in the strips, more so than in most of his animated appearances. He frequently packs heat (gasp!), knows all kinds of dirty tricks, and isn’t afraid to get into some real fisticuffs. No bare-knuckles stuff, though — he always wears his trademark three-fingered gloves! He’s such a rough-and-tumble kinda mouse that he’s frequently wanted by the law! And often deals with some truly adult emotions — in one early, memorable sequence, thinking that Minnie is enamored with another man, Mickey actually attempts suicide, several times. (He’s ultimately saved by squirrels — something you should file away for future reference in your own life.)

Mickey’s also quite industrious. In one early sequence, he designs and builds his own amazing miniature golf course with the help of his neighborhood animal friends — who promptly go off-the-clock at 5 o’clock every afternoon! Later he becomes a boxing champion, a circus roustabout, and a fireman.

Forgotten Characters

Mickey Mouse is also a treasure trove of forgotten Disney characters — most notably Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow. I’m especially intrigued with nare-do-well Butch, first introduced as a grizzled tough in an evil gang that Mickey was trying to defeat. Butch eventually becomes a protector of Mickey, and through the magic of comics, gets progressively younger in appearance as you read through the book, until he’s roughly Mickey’s age. Sadly, Butch seldom appears after 1931. Also notable is The Blot, as a mysterious character. I can say no more. (Other than don’t confuse him with the much later Phantom Blot!)

But my favorite (probably) one-time-only character is the Music Store owner in one strip — a goat named Mr. Butt. Wonder why he only appeared once? He coulda been a punch line to numerous jokes! Whatta great name!

You Should Get This

Even if you don’t care much for Mickey or the whole Disney mouse machine, this book should be on your bookshelf just for the slice of 1930s Depression-era Americana and the amazing joy of Mickey’s flinty “can-do” attitude. It’s kinda the anti-Disney Disney series — no princesses, no domesticity — but Disney folks will love it as well for the little-known Disneyania and the historical presentation. Watch for this wonderful series to do very well in various comics awards next year. This is important stuff.

Volume Two, “Trapped on Treasure Island“, is due in October. If you missed this first volume, Fantagraphics has thoughtfully packaged it with Volume Two in a nicely designed slipcase/gift box. (The publisher provided a copy for review.)

written by Jason Ciaramella, based on a short story by Joe Hill
art by Zach Howard
IDW Publishing, $3.99

I don’t know where to start in describing how repulsive this all is. First, there’s the marketing. This is being advertised as “Joe Hill’s Cape”, from “the writer of Locke & Key”, but the actual credits say something a bit different, as shown above. Second, there’s the numbering — it’s called a first issue, but it actually continues from a one-shot from last December. As I found out after reading, the contents make more sense if you’ve read that previous comic. For example, what I thought was a scene with different characters turns out to be a flashback.

Then there’s the actual content. A loser, still living at home and jealous of his doctor brother, gets a stupid-looking kids’ cape that actually gives him superpowers, so he uses them to murder in gruesome ways those he thinks are against him. Most of the story so far turns on him beating up an ex-girlfriend who dumps him. While we don’t see the violence, we get to hear in lurid details how much he injured her. (And in his fantasies of how she’s bad-mouthing him after their breakup, there’s a gratuitous nude shot, just to reinforce that women are objects to drive the story of what guys do.)

I liked this book better when it was called HERO and written by Will Pfeifer. (Same concept, of regular person given magic powers through a device, same treatment, that they use it for selfish, vengeful purposes.) That version gave hope of a positive ending and didn’t wallow in bad behavior the way this issue does. I miss cover labels, because since the cover looks like a typical wish-fulfillment for the young male comic shop crowd, I fear that this is going to end up in hands of those too young for it. “For mature readers”, given the blood and language, would be appropriate.

Lords of Death and Life

by Jonathon Dalton
Self-published, $10

An intriguing idea — use pre-Columbian Mayan art as an influence — isn’t as well-executed as I had hoped, with a muddled story and uneven pacing. Mol has dreams of visiting the underworld. He travels to a large city to find someone to help him interpret their meaning, where he gets swept up in tribal disputes and discovers the spirit that inhabits him.

It started as a webcomic, which is the best way to sample it, since a page-a-day pace accounts for the stop-and-go storytelling. The art is lovely, though, and it’s pleasant to see such a different tradition reflected. The figure work is particularly strong in expressiveness.

I think I would have rather seen a non-fiction book on the subject of Mayan culture, illustrated in a similar way, but focusing on explaining on the civilization and daily life in it without the spirit fights.

Anne Steelyard: The Garden of Emptiness: A Thousand Waters

Anne Steelyard:
The Garden of Emptiness:
A Thousand Waters

written by Barbara Hambly
art by Ron Randall, Aaron McConnell, and James Taylor
Penny Farthing Press, $14.95

This is the third and final volume in a short graphic novel series that began in 2009. As with many book-author-driven projects, the design of the cover leaves something to be desired. They get Hambly’s name on there, big and bold, but the artists aren’t mentioned. Neither is the book’s status as sequel; that’s included in the back cover text. One might think that the publisher wanted Hambly fans to buy the book without knowing exactly what it contained, or that they would be missing out on most of the story setup by buying the last volume first. (There is a full text page of “story so far” first thing in the book, but it’s somewhat overwhelming, and frankly, with its talk of evil wizards and angels and afrits, silly.)

Anne Steelyard is an archeologist in 1908. Previously lost in the desert, she’s now traveling with a caravan run by Lady Hester. They want to reach Basra to warn British authorities that Germans are planning to attack.

This graphic novel has a problem inherent in having an author new to the medium — it’s not very well integrated when it comes to text and pictures working together. Everyone speaks in copious exposition, so in many cases, you can tell what’s going on without looking at the images. That’s a waste of the medium. The art is competent, with figures posed around the copious word balloons, but stiff.

I was somewhat interested in reading an historical desert adventure, but then the psychic spirit-casting and demon battles showed up, and I was done. The plot was far-fetched enough without turning supernatural. Typical of such tales, Anne wears skin-tight jodhpurs to show off her butt, and when in danger, her shirt rips attractively to reveal plenty of cleavage.

Telling Tales

Telling Tales

by Various
Sweatdrop Studios, $13.99

Sweatdrop Studios, a UK comic collective with manga influences, has assembled a collection of eight lesser-known fables and fairytales illustrated by its members… and one guest, Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon). I always enjoy her work, and the illustrations here are no exception, but I’m left wondering what the point was of the Russian folktale she chose. The message seems to be “beware of strangers, because they could be witches who try to kill you and take your place, but you won’t really die, so it’s ok in the end”. I guess I’d boil it down to “family loyalty”.

Emma Vieceli’s art is also lovely, especially in her story of three princessess with glass hearts, which makes them fragile. It’s a slight tale, pretty and somewhat empty in its traditional romance, like the hearts of the tale. Joanna Zhou tells of “The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage”, who all live together. Her cartoony style is just right for the silly premise, until it turns surprisingly gloomy and gruesome. I like the theme, of not letting others interrupt a process that works for you, but I certainly wouldn’t show this to kids!

Irina Richards returns to another Russian folktale, but I found her over-reliance on manga-style chibi exaggeration and caricature not well-suited for the material. I wanted to see more of a comeuppance for the selfish character, and the pacing dragged.

“The Prince and the Pauper”, by Rebecca Burgess, and “Little Red Riding Hood”, by Marubelle Sinclaire, will be the most familiar stories in the book to most readers. Burgess’ style I didn’t care for; it looked unfinished and resembled an editorial cartoon, which I thought it would be better suited for. The text disappears halfway through, relying on wordless storytelling, which lost my interest. Sinclaire’s work is sparsely illustrated, relying too much on single figure shots or closeups, putting the storytelling work on the text.

“The Snow Queen” by Sonia Leong needed bolder lines, shading, and/or black spots. It looks like pencil work as is, without the sense of weight some shadows would give it. It improves a bit later on with some dark clothing and a raven, but not enough.

“The Three Feathers” is the most accomplished piece, with the most creators. Art is by Faye Yong (who also edited the book and provided the cover) with tones by Nana Li and script by Fehed Said. A simpleton prince meets a frog queen, who helps him win the kingdom his kind heart deserves. It’s got echoes of both Cinderella and the Frog Prince in it, but overall, I found the mix fresh while keeping within a traditional fairytale structure. It was my favorite.

All books were provided by the publishers for review.

The second bananas of the classic Warner Brothers animation family are back with two new DVD releases. Foghorn Leghorn & Friends: Barnyard Bigmouth has 14 out of 15 new-to-DVD cartoons, while Tweety & Sylvester: Feline Fwenzy is a well-chosen collection of 15 previously released favorites.

“What’s the gag – I say, what’s the gag, son? Gag, that is.”

Well, there’s a whole lotta gags in the eight new-to-DVD Foghorn Leghorn cartoons (plus the returning “A Broken Leghorn” — the other six cartoons on this disc star other characters, about which more later). Foggy (Full name: Foghorn J., I say, Foghorn J. Leghorn) got pretty short shrift in the previous Looney Tunes Golden Collections, so it’s great that he gets to spotlight this new collection. Originally created by Robert McKimson, who also directed all 28 of the classic Foghorn cartoons, Foghorn was the big, lumpy rooster who wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. And he loved music — especially the song “Camptown Races”, although you might be hard-pressed to know it, as his version was mostly unintelligible humming, except for “DOO-Dah! DOO-Dah!” (as sung by the great Mel Blanc).

He proved his incredible lack of finesse over and over again in battles with barnyard dawgs, chicken hawks named Henery, weasels named Bill, old biddy hens named Miss Prissy, and genius baby chicks named Egghead, Jr. The latter is my favorite — and represented on this disc in both “Crockett-Doodle-Doo” and the hysterical “Little Boy Boo”. Egghead is a chicken child with a oversized head, striped cap, and huge glasses (?) who remains totally speechless whenever he appears — making him the perfect foil for the loudmouthed Foggy, who must, amusedly, fill in both sides of the conversation.

Henery Hawk was originally conceived for stardom but ended up being a great foil for Foghorn. Henery just could not grasp the concept that the big dumb rooster wasn’t a chicken, so he was constantly trying to catch him and drag him back home to eat. He’s in both “All Fowled Up” and “Strangled Eggs” on this disc.

One gets the sense that the “feud” between the barnyard dawg and Foggy is more just “passing the time” than actual animosity, especially when the two occasionally team up against other foes like a weasley fox (as in the bizarre “Fox-Terrior”, with its magic folding box). This cartoon is written by usual Chuck Jones collaborator Michael Maltese. Most of the latter Foggy cartoons were ably written by Tedd Pierce, while Warren Foster firmly established the character in several early Foggy shorts.

The most (over-) used gag with Foggy and Dawg is the old “Foggy clobbers the dog with a board and runs just beyond the dawg’s collar and rope limit” joke, where the dawg struggles to get free to clobber Foggy in retaliation. But watch closely in these cartoons — generally the dawg only has a rope and collar when these gags are on screen! For the rest of the time, the dawg is shown without a collar, and pretty much has the run of the barnyard! Whoops!

“Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency.”

Foghorn Leghorn & Friends
Buy this DVD

And that’s because in many Foggy cartoons, he done gets blown up real good by something or other and we watch the naked Foggy forlornly gathering up his errant feathers. A naked Leghorn ain’t pretty, let me tell you.

While a lot of animation critics don’t seem to have a lot of love for Foggy (or his director, Bob McKimson), Mr. Leghorn has been a favorite of mine since early childhood — probably because he’s just so fun to imitate. According to Wikipedia, Foggy’s accent is of Central Virginia origin — which is where I live, and yet I have never heard anybody from around here with the classic Foghorn speech pattern. (Maybe I just don’t get out enough.) Foggy has been ingrained in my head since watching him in the early 1960s, where it seemed that he was always on every Warner cartoon show, and I began to think of him in the same status as (at least) Daffy and Porky. When the complete Warner Bros. filmographies began to surface, I was shocked to discover that Foggy was only in 28 (out of over a thousand) classic Warner Bros. cartoons. I coulda swore I saw a hundred of them as a kid.

…and Friends

Foggy only stars in nine of the cartoons here. The rest feature a lot of other Warner “lesser” characters, including the Goofy Gophers (in “Gopher Broke”, a latter period, really unfunny cartoon with “canned” music, a bizarre ending, and the angriest duck (not Daffy) that you’ve ever seen), an Elmer Fudd solo short (“A Mutt in a Rut”), a Honeymousers (do I have to explain this?) cartoon (“Cheese It, the Cat!”), and a one-shot (“Mouse-Placed Kitten”) about a kitty given to a mouse family to raise. The grown-up cat has a voice that Barney Rubble would later appropriate.

The final two cartoons — “Two Crows from Tacos” and “Crow’s Feat” — feature the Two Crows, Manuel and Jose (who may be based in part on the two Mexican cats who pop up in the Speedy Gonzales short “Mexicali Schmoes”). They are almost certainly the reason that the now-ubiquitous Warner disclaimer about racial stereotypes is practically frozen to the screen at the top of this collection, due to the depiction of these two ethnic characters. Bottom line, they are funny cartoons (at least the first one), both directed by Friz Freling, and I am glad to see them here, as I had forgotten that they even existed. The Two Crows are classic “dumb” characters in the same mold as Junyer Bear or Pete Puma, but because they are Mexican in origin, it is possible that some might find them offensive or stereotypical. I somehow doubt that they were created to be that.

One last thing about the disc — it’s the first Warner animation disc to offer a choice between full screen or widescreen for your viewing pleasure. I’m not a super genius on these aspect ratio matters, but it looks to me like the widescreen version cuts off a fair amount of information from both top and bottom of the image. Full screen gives you the complete picture. So don’t be fooled by the bogus “comparison” example on the disc. It appears that Warners has cut down the full frame original to make a faux widescreen version. Once again, most of the classic Warner Bros. cartoons were created in the full frame format.

“Sufferin’ succotash!”

Tweety & Sylvester: Feline Fwenzy
Buy this DVD

The Tweety & Sylvester collection offers up 15 cartoons of the classic cat vs. canary pairing. It should be noted that all 15 have been previously released on the earlier Looney Tunes Golden Collections (most of ‘em on Volume 2). Which has made this a somewhat controversial set among animation fans because of the repetition, especially while there are still Tweety & Sylvester cartoons that have not been released on DVD (at least in the U.S.).

I’m a little more sanguine on the subject. I think this is a fine product and certainly deserves to exist (as long as Warner is upfront about the content duplication). Here are three good reasons:

1. Members of the more general audience (e.g., not hardcore cartoon fans) probably haven’t bought all of the Golden Collections since (at least initially) they were quite expensive.
2. Even if you have the Golden Collections, it’s nice to have a bunch of Tweety & Sylvester cartoons collected all in one place for easy watching. These cartoons were originally spread out over five of the six Golden Collections, making them difficult to locate, especially since the complete title listings of the cartoons are only found inside the packaging. Meaning you have to open up all the Golden Collections to find them, and then keep changing discs to watch them all.
3. Sales of this disc will help fund future restoration of more vintage Warner cartoons. And that’s a good thing.

While I too am frustrated by the stoppage of the Golden Collections and the unsure future of more new collections of Warner classic cartoons, it seems like Warner has put itself in several no-win scenarios regarding future releases — especially since most of the “cream” of the Warner cartoon line has already been issued, and future releases are likely to be less stellar than what we’ve already seen. (As these Looney Tunes Super Stars releases have indicated.) But for now, I’m still supportive of the project, as long as it seems that there is some sort of plan for the future. I’m not sure that’s the case right now. But I don’t think it’s worth crying and moaning about either.

Bottom line for the Tweety set: If you don’t own the Golden Collections, this is a fine set of classic and really entertaining Tweety and Sylvester cartoons that you and your family will watch over and over again. If you do own all of the Golden Collections, it’s a good set for the convenience of having all these great cartoons in one place.

Here’s Foggy with the last word: “Let’s bury — I say, let’s bury the hatchet, but not in anyone’s head, boy.” (The studio provided review copies.)

The first two were, as expected, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but the second wave, now out, goes a little further afield to two of my favorites. Note that the first three discs in this line contain cartoons new to DVD (with the exception of one Foghorn Leghorn cartoon, “A Broken Leghorn”), which is a nice arrangement, but the Tweety & Sylvester disc contents have all been available before.

Foghorn Leghorn & Friends
Buy this DVD

Foghorn Leghorn & Friends stars the giant Southern rooster as well as his nemeses Henery Hawk and Barnyard Dawg. The friends of the title include Elmer Fudd and the Goofy Gophers. Here’s a rundown of the contents with starring characters noted:

1. All Fowled Up (Foghorn)
2. Fox Terrier (Foghorn)
3. A Broken Leghorn (Foghorn)
4. Crockett Doodle Doo (Foghorn)
5. Weasel While You Work (Foghorn)
6. Weasel Stop (Foghorn)
7. Little Boy Boo (Foghorn)
8. Banty Raids (Foghorn)
9. Strangled Eggs (Foghorn)
10. Gopher Broke (Goofy Gophers)
11. A Mutt In A Rut (Elmer Fudd)
12. Mouse-Placed Kitten (Misc)
13. Cheese It, The Cat (The Honey Mousers)
14. Two Crows From Tacos (Two Crows)
15. Crow’s Feat (Elmer Fudd)

And a sample clip, “Roses Are Red”:

Tweety & Sylvester
Buy this DVD

Tweety & Sylvester contains these cartoons:

1. Tweetie Pie
2. Bad Ol’ Putty Tat
3. All Abir-r-r-d!
4. Canary Row
5. Puddy Tat Twouble
6. Room and Bird
7. Tweety’s S.O.S.
8. Tweet Tweet Tweety
9. Gift Wrapped
10. Ain’t She Tweet
11. Snow Business
12. Satan’s Waitin’
13. The Last Hungry Cat
14. Birds Anonymous
15. Tweety and the Beanstalk

With this provided “Admirer” clip, with Tweety’s song:

Consider them for stocking stuffers!

The long-delayed lawsuit issue of Comic Book Comics, #5 (Evil Twin Comics, DEC10 0958, $3.95), is offered again, hopefully for reals this time. Find out more about DC vs. Fawcett (over Captain Marvel), Disney vs. the Air Pirates (over pornographic Mickey Mouse images), the Howard the Duck case, Dan DeCarlo trying to reclaim his Josie & the Pussycats, and much more. It’s a terrific series, making the industry history visual.

The second in Fantagraphics’ manga line (after Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories) is Wandering Son (DEC10 0966, $19.99), an intriguing series by Shimura Takako about two transsexual fifth-grade kids. Do note that in Japan, there are already 10 volumes, so this is a long-haul read, as the subject deserves, to be handled in detail.

Jay Hosler’s true-science comics (like The Sandwalk Adventures, which explains evolution, or Optical Allusions, about how eyeballs work) are astounding, so I have great hopes for Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth, illustrated by Kevin and Zander Cannon (Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards). I’ll buy just about anything Dr. Hosler does.

I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed Ray Fawkes’ Possessions: Unclean Getaway, so I’m glad to see a sequel, The Ghost Table (DEC10 1022, $5.99), coming in March from Oni Press. This little-girl demon and her ghostly friends make for great comedy with a bit of life meaning underneath. But mostly funny.

For anyone interested in Disney animation history, though, it’s essential viewing. It’s really the story of the Eisner era at Disney, or more specifically when it comes to animation, the Katzenberg era, and how the new executive team affected cartoon production.

Waking Sleeping Beauty
Buy this DVD

It’s narrated and directed by Don Hahn, producer of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, with a ton of archive footage and photos covering 1980-1994. At the start of that period, animation was running on autopilot as experienced animators retired, replaced by kids from Cal Arts. See big names like Glen Keane, John Lasseter, and Tim Burton as young men at drawing tables, or watch the generations of artists mix at the premiere party for The Fox and the Hound. Find out when and how Don Bluth left to form his own animation company.

The business aspects aren’t neglected. Roy E. Disney’s resignation was a stunner to many, demonstrating how much a shakeup was needed. Michael Eisner was selected to be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in 1984, accompanied by Frank Wells as President and Chief Operating Officer and Jeffrey Katzenberg as animation head. The kindly old men who used to run the place were replaced with Hollywood executives. Waking Sleeping Beauty follows the many changes of this period and what was produced during that time.

The Black Cauldron was a key touchpoint. Its production was marred by culture clashes between the young kids, who wanted the darker material, and the old guard focusing on story. When it flopped, that was seen as the low point for the animation department. The team was kicked out of the historical Ink and Paint building and put off the lot. The Great Mouse Detective is another point of contention, mainly over its retitling from “Basil of Baker Street”.

Instead of on-camera interviews (talking heads), in addition to mostly archive material (including news reports of the time, which I found fascinating) and interviews from the time period, there are caricatures, art done by the animators, and lots of voiceover. Some of the many changes include revenue streams, when cartoons first came to video, and competition with live-action, where the Disney company’s main attention was focused. Movies discussed include Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Oliver and Company, and of course the marker of the renaissance, The Little Mermaid, including a section covering Howard Ashman and his music work. Pixar first worked with Disney on The Rescuers Down Under, the first digital cartoon, a movie that was undercut by having its marketing budget pulled after the first weekend, before the two companies teamed up on the more successful Beauty and the Beast.

The last section of the film discusses Frank Wells’ death in 1994, which precedes Katzenberg seeking press coverage for The Lion King. His showmanship, which was interpreted as egotism, led to his resignation when he wasn’t promoted into Wells’ position. These final events marked 10 years of that regime and the conclusion of the time period covered here.

Waking Sleeping Beauty covers a significant era with lots of details about several modern classic Disney animated movies in an entertaining, involving way. I very much enjoyed watching it, and I learned a lot.

Special Features

Surprisingly for a documentary, there are lots of extras on this disc:

• “Why Wake Sleeping Beauty?” (9 minutes) — The filmmakers talk about what they were aiming to do, their approach, and how the movie came to happen.
• Six deleted scenes:
  • More information about Aladdin and the deleted song “Proud of Your Boy” (4:40).
  • A 12-and-a-half-minute lecture by Howard Ashman about songs in musicals.
  • “Losing Howard”, almost five minutes of how people found out he had AIDS and handled working with him on Beauty and the Beast while he was dying.
  • Footage (6 1/2 minutes) of recording “Part of Your World”.
  • “Research Trips” (4:20) to Australia (for The Rescuers Down Under), France (for Beauty and the Beast, I think), and Africa (The Lion King).
  • Katzenberg’s goodbye party (“To Sir With Love”, 1:40).
• The Sailor, the Mountain Climber, the Artist, and the Poet (15:26) — about those departed during this period: respectively, Roy Disney (who’s credited with saving Disney animation), Frank Wells, Joe Ranft (Pixar storyteller), and Howard Ashman.
• Studio Tours filmed by Randy Cartwright from 1980 (5 minutes), 1983 (4:17), and 1990 (4 1/2 minutes) — This archival footage walking around the animation buildings showed up as excerpts in the main movie.
• “A Reunion” (2:14) between Rob Minkoff (Lion King director) and Kirk Wise (Beauty and the Beast director), who went to junior high together in the late 70s.
• Six minutes discussing “Walt”, the original Disney, and how cyclical change is.
• Audio commentary by director Don Hahn and producer Peter Schneider.

Barnaby, the much-loved comic strip by Crockett Johnson that originally ran 1942-1952, is going to be collected by Fantagraphics! Thrilling news! As Tom Spurgeon writes,

Barnaby had become in the last decade and a half the great unsigned strip collection. The deal was negotiated by Eric Reynolds on Fantagraphics’ behalf. The first volume will come out in April 2012 to coincide with the release of Philip Nel’s much-anticipated biography of Johnson (The Purple Crayon And A Hole To Dig: The Lives Of Crockett Johnson And Ruth Krauss from the University Press of Mississippi).

You have another chance to order the graphic novels of Paul Sizer, starting with Little White Mouse, a book I recommend. (I also wrote an introduction included in the Omnibus edition.) As Paul writes,

Diamond wants to see the book do some decent order numbers, and based on that, they will agree to also re-solicit my other books (MOPED ARMY and B.P.M.) in upcoming months. So, here’s the favor I’m asking: if it’s within your means, and you like my work, it would be an incredible help for my self-publishing venture to have you place an order for my LITTLE WHITE MOUSE Omnibus Edition through your local comic shop [using order code DEC10 0959]…. It’s an all ages book, so with the holidays coming up, its a great gift for the young (or older) comic reader on your lists! I’m not asking you to order sight unseen either; you can actually sample the book in its entirety online at WebComics Nation.

It’s December, which means it’s once again time for the Comic Book Advent Calendar! Check back daily for a new classic comic cover with a holiday theme.

One Legion of Super-Heroes fan has recreated the statues of the team Superboy had. Check these out — aren’t they amazing?!? More photos at the link.

Walt Disney’s animated classic Beauty and the Beast has been released for the first time on Blu-ray in the new three-disc Diamond Edition, which includes 2 Blu-ray discs and one DVD. (A 2-disc DVD set is scheduled for release at the end of November.) As part of the celebration for this release, Disney hosted a virtual roundtable with animator Glen Keane, the Supervising Animator for the Beast. If you’re unfamiliar with the title “Supervising Animator”, that simply means he not only animated the Beast himself, but he also oversaw all the other animators who worked on the character.

If you’ve never heard of Keane, let me give you a bit of background. Keane is the son of cartoonist Bill Keane, creator of the Family Circus comic strip. Keane emerged in the 1980s as one of Disney’s top animators, bringing his skills to bear on such characters as Rattigan in The Great Mouse Detective, Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tarzan, and many others. His work carries a power, grace, and beauty that make him stand out as my favorite of the modern Disney animators. When the opportunity arises to hear a modern master of animation speak, you don’t pass that up. At least this animation fan doesn’t. This truly was a rare opportunity and one I’m very grateful I got to take part in.

The event was moderated by Disney’s Mindy Johnson and included a look back at the development of the movie and in particular, the Beast; a peek at some of the Blu-ray special features; and an open period for questions. Beauty and the Beast has a long history at the Disney studios as Walt Disney and his crew attempted to develop it. According to Keane, “On the film, at that time as we were working on it, Joe Grant, who was the head of story on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia, was working with us on Beauty and the Beast. He was 90 or close to that anyways, late 80s.

“So I asked Joe about it. I said ‘Did you already work on Beauty and the Beast?’ He said ‘Oh, yes. We tried to crack that nut but it was just too difficult. I mean, the whole story just takes place in one dining room, where the Beast asks Belle every night if she’d marry him. And there’s just not a lot of story in that. We tried to figure it out. Finally we just put it on the shelf.’

Keane continued, “But we waited until there’s a time where we can really focus and crack that nut. In this story, I guess it really needed [lyricist & executive producer] Howard Ashman in a big way. There is something about Howard Ashman’s approach to breaking something down musically and describing story in these tentpole songs that really started to give us a structure to tell that story.”

But Howard Ashman didn’t come along for a while. In some footage from a trip to London that will be included in the special features, we saw the Beauty and the Beast team working with the original director, Richard Purdum. After having developed the film for a couple years, it was decided that things weren’t working out. Purdum was removed as director and the work that had been done up to that point was scrapped.

“Richard Purdum was taking much more of a very classic sticking-by-the-book approach on the story, not wanting to go into too far into the zone of a Disney musical,” said Keane. “At that point, Jeffrey Katzenberg said ‘All right. We’re going to throw out everything and start over again.’ And we found ourselves in Europe with nothing to do except a research trip. So we decided to take advantage of this time and go to the Loire Valley. The Loire Valley is in France, and the Loire River runs through that area. And it was there that we found Chateau of Chambord. It was an ominous, impressive place with all of these spires and just standing there before us. I’ll never forget the morning driving up there through the mist and fog and seeing it there. I thought ‘This is the Beast’s castle. This is where he lives.’”

The Beast’s home had been found, but the Beast was yet to be designed. In developing the Beast, Keane knew he had his work cut out for him. Disney versions of characters often become the definitive version of the character in many people’s minds. In the past, the Beast in the story had been envisioned basically as a man with a beast’s head. Keane wanted the whole body from head to toe be beast. In the end, the Beast owes his look to many different animals.

“You knew that he had to be frightening,” Keane explained. “And as I would do these different drawings of the Beast, I kept thinking, ‘How in the world is Belle going to fall in love with this guy?’ No one’s going to believe this. Nothing seemed to be clicking for me.

“If you would come into my office you would see all sorts of photos on the walls of like a gorilla. What is it about that gorilla that I love? I love the brow of that gorilla. So I would draw some of the brow of that gorilla on the Beast.

“And then there was the lion; the lion’s mane. I loved that. The softness of it, and so the lion’s mane came to be part of the Beast as well as the fangs. And there was the wild boar, the ugliness of that. So I put that onto the Beast with the tusks coming up. It was the sadness of the buffalo. It looks like the buffalo carries around the weight of the world on his head. And I loved that. And then the beard of the buffalo. That went into the crock-pot.

“And then there was the wolf. Every day I would walk to work past the London zoo, and these wolves would walk back and forth, back and forth. So for the structure of the leg, I started to use a wolf leg, and the wolf tail. The way the Beast could swish his tail around gave it a lot more emotion possibilities. Then the body of a huge grizzly bear. There is nothing more massive and powerful. I knew that from The Fox and the Hound and animating the grizzly bear in that.

“All the drawings that I started to do with the Beast, though; I put them on all fours, just as a reminder that this guy is an animal. One day in my office, Bruce Johnson, one of the animators working with me said, ‘So Glen, what’s the Beast going to look like?’ This is after like six months of drawing. I said, ‘I don’t know, Bruce.’ I grabbed a sheet of paper and started drawing. I went through the same thing I just described about all of these different elements except I was drawing it as I was telling him this.

“And suddenly I looked at him, and it was like, that’s him. That’s the Beast. That’s what he looks like. It’s as if the character existed beforehand, and suddenly he appears on the paper and you recognized him. And that was the experience of that moment.”

In a bit of whimsy, Keane adds, “Each day as I walked past the London zoo, I would do these drawings of a mandrill. I remember there was a woman there as I was doing some drawings. The mandrill turned around and showed me that its rear end was all multi colored. And she said, ‘Oh he’s got a rainbow bum, he has.’ I just loved her accent saying that. So Beast actually has a rainbow bum, but nobody knows that but Belle.“

As Supervising Animator on the Beast, I asked Keane how closely he worked with the other animators. “I worked very closely with them. There were some animators that were actually in Florida. I would get their drawings sent to me, and I would draw over top of it and FedEx it back. They’d send me their thumbnails, little sketches, what they were thinking of the scene. I would draw over top of that with lots of notes.

“We’d talk on the phone. Aaron Blaise was a new animator on the film, and I trained him. But I trained him from California, and he was working in Florida. We felt that we could do this as long as we had an ability to draw over top of each other’s work. You can’t just talk it. You actually have to draw for somebody.

“So I had an enormous amount of drawings sending back and forth. Drawing over top of animators at the studio as well. It’s much easier if I can have somebody standing over my shoulder and watching me draw over their work. I did that a lot.”

He also worked very closely with the other Supervising Animators. “We were all very close. Just from often in the offices next to each other, constantly in story meetings together, taking a look at each other’s work. Jeffrey Katzenberg was a very solidifying influence on our team, as well. He would have early story meetings, 7:00 in the morning. We’d all get there, and he’d have his big Diet Coke, and we would talk together as supervising animators with Jeffrey and the directors. I think we became very close together. We knew each other really well.”

The Beast’s voice was supplied by Robby Benson, and Keane was forbidden to meet him until after the movie had been completed. “Robby Benson, for any of you who may be really young, you may not know that when this movie came out, he was a big teenage heartthrob. Or that was his history at that point.

“And Jeffrey Katzenberg was so afraid that I was going to draw the Beast like Robby Benson. So he said, ‘I don’t want you to meet Robby Benson until after this movie’s done.’ I had usually gone into recording sessions, worked with the actors, but in this case I wasn’t allowed to specifically because of this thing with Jeffrey. And I guess that’s something that does happen; you draw the people that you know into the character. I think I could have worked around that.”

Beauty and the Beast
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I have always considered Belle to be the main protagonist in the movie, so I was surprised to hear that for the team working on the film, this is the story of the Beast. After all, he is the character who changes the most during the film. I certainly can’t argue with that, and it adds an interesting twist. I know this film well, but looking at it as the Beast’s story definitely has me looking at scenes in the film in different ways.

As the film progressed, one of the biggest challenges was finding a way to have Belle realistically fall for the Beast. The creators thought they had this licked when Beast rescues Belle from some wolves. “We thought that once Beast had saved Belle’s life, that that was enough to earn this dance, this moment with her falling in love. And so the story went that way. When we got to this sequence where Beast and Belle dance, which was just in the storyboard at the time, there was a feeling like this movie is not working. I don’t believe. We haven’t earned this moment for Belle and Beast to fall in love. It feels like we’re forcing it. It feels like the artist’s hand is sort of making people believe this, trying desperately, but it’s not working. What is it?

“And at that point Howard Ashman came in with this song that I think really turned the corner for us — the “Something There” song. And what was wonderful is it was a very small little thing that the movie turned on, Beast giving Belle the library. That was the thing; that he had noticed what was special to this girl, and he gave her this gift. And it was really cool just to see how you suddenly believed the story after that. And before that song was written, you didn’t.”

The dance sequence was revolutionary with its computer-assisted backgrounds and camera sweeps. It’s also one of the best known scenes in the film. I asked Keane about the difficulties involved in animating the scene.

“Any time the computer enters into a hand drawing, I find that it forces you to draw better. It forces you to think more dimensionally. So I have always embraced any time the computer work comes in. John Lassiter and I started this thing way back right around Tron, doing a little animated test where we animated the background in CG but I could do the character in hand drawings. It just naturally helps you think dimensionally when the background is turning in space. So what seems difficult about it is the dimensionality of animating and drawing a character that is turning in space. And that’s really not the hardest part of it.

“What the hardest part of the dance sequence was –- was actually learning to dance. James Baxter and I, James was doing Belle, and I was doing Beast, brought a dance instructor in. And so he and I would dance together, and I would learn the Beast steps, and he would do Belle. James went through and blocked out all the animation himself first. Then I went in and went over top of it and was drawing the Beast. But in the end, I would have to say it was really just the subtleties, the gentleness of keeping the Beast –- of learning the dance steps that were the most difficult in that sequence.”

A sequence that is close to Keane’s heart is the transformation of the Beast into the human prince at the end of the film. “I had been waiting to animate for years the scene where Beast transforms. I had one week left in production, and I hadn’t even gotten to it yet. And Don Hahn, the producer, came into my office.

“I said ‘Don; I don’t have time to do this. I feel like this is what I was born to do, and how am I going to do this in a week?’ And he said ‘All right. Glen, look. Whatever it is that you need to get done, this sequence, just make it great. Take the time that you need. I’ll fight off the wolves here. We’ll figure it out. Just do what you need to do.’

“This transformation is a spiritual moment. For me, when you’re animating something, you’re trying to express something that you’ve experienced in your own life. This isn’t just drawing a character. You have to live it. You have to feel it. And I know that for me when I am animating a character, I am going through all of those same emotions that they are. When I was animating the Beast, I would go home and my jaw would hurt from drawing this face. I was living it. And in this moment here, this to me was very much something that I think I just experienced in my own life, my own spiritual life.

“I am a Christian. I really experienced this. I wrote up in the upper corners of the paper as I was animating this a bible verse from I Corinthians. It says ‘If any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation. The old things have passed away, and all things have become new.’ That’s what this was for me. Every artist has to draw on their own experience, their own beliefs, and put that into their work. And it’s there. You sense it. It’s true.”

As powerful and as meaningful as this sequence was for Keane, when asked if he would change anything about the Beast, he replies, “I wish he could have stayed the Beast. In fact, I did have us record a line at the end of the movie where Beast and Belle, the prince, were dancing. I knew that the audience was going to be disappointed. ‘What happened to our Beast?’ So I had them record Belle saying, ‘Do you think you could grow a beard?’ We should have put it in there.”

This is but a glimpse of what Keane went through in creating and animating the Beast. In the end, it came together in a magical film that was the first fully animated feature to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. It lost to Silence of the Lambs, but people noticed.

“We were amazed that that happened at that time,” said Keane. “And I think it took the academy by surprise, and there was a lot of uproar about it. I’d be really interested in seeing what the final vote count on that was.

“One of the things that happened with Beauty and the Beast that really bothered me was the way they were talking about ‘well, what about real actors? We need to have real actors winning these awards.’ And I was thinking, ‘Well, what am I?’ I feel like I really poured my heart and soul into this character. And Robby Benson’s voice. I feel like both of us put so much into that. And the fact that we’re drawing it doesn’t cheapen it. It actually adds more value to it to me. “

Keane ended the session not by looking back but with a look ahead at what the future may hold for animated films.

“I just finished Tangled. I oversaw animation with a lot of the animators. And what I kept reminding everybody was that computer animation is still just a graphic flat artform. Even though we say it’s 3D, it’s on a flat screen, and it’s just as much of a graphic shape as drawing is. So I would do a lot of drawings and apply the same principles of hand-drawn to computer animation. And I think that it’s important to bring the feeling, the influence, the inventiveness of hand-drawn into computer animation, where you are not tied to just what the computer is giving you.

“Because the computer seems to always shade everything so perfectly. And this is what you want, right? Look how good it looks. It’s like dimensional everything. And you start thinking ‘Wait a second. No. That’s not quite what I wanted. I pushed that silhouette a little stronger, and I stretched that arm out more. And I jut that jaw out further.’

“That’s the thing that we have to remember; that we are the masters of the graphic statement and letting the computer bend its knee to the animator, instead of the animator to the computer. At the beginning, I think we really struggled, and the computer was sort of dictating what we were going to get. And now in Tangled, I feel like you will see the computer really changing and bending to what it is that we want it to look like. It’s very unusual animation in computer animation. You’ll see a big influence of the same kind of principles you see in Beauty and the Beast.”

Some of my all-time favorite comics are graphic novel series for kids, such as Owly or Amelia Rules!, but I’m an adult, and waiting anywhere from six months to two years for a new installment is nothing for me. I’m not sure kids have that much patience. When an original series like Amulet puts out a book every year, are kids still interested? Or does it depend on how old they are?

It would be nice if the publisher could fund the creator long enough for them to get some material under their belt and release every season (three months) or so, but I certainly understand that there’s a lot of potential for bad consequences under that method. Publishers don’t have that kind of money to float in many cases these days, and they want to know that the author’s work has an audience before laying out too much in advance.

Some great series have adopted different strategies to put out more than one book a year. Frankie Pickle, for example, is illustrated text with just a few comic sequences. Lunch Lady has sketchier art (although I shouldn’t assume that a minimal style means less work involved), as do Babymouse and Johnny Boo. Toon Books has gone the opposite direction, with substantial hardcovers that hold up to rereading while waiting for another title in the series. Also, all of their stories stand alone.

Not having any kids around to ask, I turn to my readers. I know many of you share comics with young ones, either professionally (such as in libraries) or personally (children, nieces, nephews). Do they prefer monthly comics to annual? Or do they pick comics based on their content alone?

• Benny and Penny in the Toy Breaker
• Luke on the Loose, Benny and Penny in The Big No-No!
• Benny and Penny in Just Pretend, Otto’s Orange Day, Silly Lilly
• Mo and Jo Fighting Together Forever, Jack and the Box, Stinky
• Little Mouse Gets Ready
• Zig and Wikki: Something Ate My Homework

This may be the first time I’ve found an entire company line worth talking about!

TV animation of the 1980s seems to split most animation fans into two camps. On the one side are the fans who love it. These are often people who were kids in the 1980s, and they grew up watching the adventures of He-Man, The Thundercats, Transformers, G.I. Joe, and others. There’s even a magazine, Cereal Geek, devoted to animation of the 80s. These fans are passionate about their favorite shows.

On the other side are those who feel that watchdog groups like Action For Children’s Television and the American Family Association took the fun out of television cartoons in this decade. Anything that could be repeated by a child with bad results was forbidden, which saw the end of Road Runner-style slapstick comedy. The shows had to teach the viewers a lesson, so from the stories to the animation, they became bland under the restrictions. It was this state of affairs that Ralph Bakshi and crew were rebelling against when they unleashed Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures on an unsuspecting public in 1987.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s
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You can decide for yourself how you feel about the debate with the Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s DVD. This two-disc set collects eleven animated series. A quick aside –- I fall firmly into the second group described above. I was in ninth grade in 1980 and was not the target audience for most of these cartoons. But I was, and am, an animation fan. I wanted to like them, but that wasn’t the case. So, knowing that, let’s proceed.

All the cartoons in this set were produced either by TV animation giant Hanna-Barbera (Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Jonny Quest, etc.) or Ruby-Spears. Ruby-Spears was founded by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, who were former employees at H-B. It is no surprise that their cartoons have some similar qualities to those of H-B. And why not? H-B were television animation pioneers, and Ruby and Spears learned from the best.

The set opens with a little known Ruby-Spears cartoon, Goldie Gold and Action Jack. Goldie Gold is the world’s richest girl, and Action Jack is a daredevil reporter. Together, they get into all kinds of scrapes. In this episode, it involves Incas and the villainous Crystal Skull. Watching this episode reminded me of later Roger Moore-era James Bond films in that no matter what spot they found themselves in, Goldie had some gadget that was just the perfect thing to get them out of it. This ruined any suspense for me, as I knew they would easily escape any predicament they encountered, and neither of them has the charisma of Bond. Johanna recently reviewed this show and has a higher opinion of it than I do.

Goldie Gold and Action Jack also has a quality that I find in many of the action/adventure animated series of the 80s, including others on this disc. The action seems to move at a snail’s pace. It’s hard for me to get into the moment when the bad guys are running so slowly that our heroes could easily outrun them. Or in the time it takes for the bad guy to throw a chair, the hero could have constructed a wall in front of themselves for the chair to smash against harmlessly.

Real People Cartoons

The next show on the DVD brings us to our first cartoon standby of the 80s –- cartoons based on real people. In this case, it’s Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos (misspelled Commdndos on the DVD menu). Chuck and his Kommandos face the Claw, Super Ninja, and Angelfish as the villains attempt to take over a sea lab from which they can create tidal waves. Chuck spends most of the episode with sumo wrestler Tabi, and their supposedly witty banter usually revolves around how much Tabi eats. The show is bookended by live action sequences with Chuck Norris telling the kids what the message of the show is. In this episode, it’s “don’t give up”. Chuck may have counted to infinity twice, but I wish he had made a better animated series.

Also in the “real people-based cartoons” category is Mister T. This show is also bookended by live action sequences of Mr. T. In the show itself, Mr. T is somehow involved with a youth gymnastics team. His connection to the team is not explained in this episode. While there is a certain camp appeal to the show, as Mr. T pities fools right and left, I have no desire to see any more episodes for two reasons. First, the animation is the weakest of any show in the set. Second, the members of the gymnastics team come across as real jerks and I don’t want to spend any more time with them. Johanna also reviewed this episode, so make sure to check out her review for another opinion on this series.

Before you think I can’t say anything nice, let me tell you about the final real person-based cartoon in the set, The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley. Ed Grimley was the creation of comedian Martin Short. This very pleasant fellow with a love of the triangle, Wheel of Fortune, and hair product first appeared on SCTV; later, Short brought him to Saturday Night Live. This series is really fun and captures the manic stylings of Ed Grimley, due in large part to Short providing the character’s voice. Other SCTV alums, Catherine O’Hara and Andrea Martin, also provide voices for the show. The series has a nice, cartoony look and is truly funny. My favorite sequence in the episode brings back SCTV favorite Count Floyd, as Joe Flaherty continues his attempts to tell kids very scary stories that end up not being scary at all.

But this show also has to teach a lesson, and in this case it’s about gravity. Just as a piano is about to fall on Ed, the scientists, the Gustav Brothers, interrupt the action to tell us all about gravity. One of the brothers, Roger Gustav, is voiced by the great comedian Jonathan Winters. This is a funny and informative sequence, but it feels out of place. However, that’s a minor quibble for a show that was very fun. If Warner Brothers is looking for a show to spin out into its own set, The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley gets my vote.

Baby Versions

Another 80s cartoon standby is represented on the first disc –- adolescent versions of adult characters. The earliest version of this that I’m aware of is the baby versions of the Muppets in The Muppets Take Manhattan. The Muppet Babies eventually got their own series, as did many others. In this set, we’re treated to Flintstone Kids. In addition to the main feature, there are three shorts starring Captain Caveman and Son, Dino, and Wilma.

While the kid versions of adults worked in some cases, I don’t think it works here. For me, the heart of the Flintstones are the character’s personalities; gruff but loveable Fred, Wilma who can stand up to anything Fred throws at her and come out on top, gooney and loyal Barney, and Betty, his long-suffering but good-natured wife. Aside from Fred saying “Yabba-Dabba-Doo” and Barney cracking jokes, none of those personality traits come through. The creators tried to give the adults in the series some of those traits so we could see where they came from, but it didn’t work for me. Also, Fred’s mom looked kinda like what you would think the adult Fred would look like if he dressed up as Betty. It was very odd.

Special Feature

The disc is rounded out by a documentary on Thundarr the Barbarian, which I found odd as the Thundarr episode is on the second disc. There is some interesting information about the creation of Thundarr and on the process of limited animation, but the rest of the piece is rather self-congratulatory. “Look what a great show we made!” I would have loved to have seen interviews with people who were involved with making the show aside from just Joe Ruby and Ken Spears.

How Cuuuuute!

The second disc begins with two examples of another 80s animation standby –- the group of extremely cute characters. In this instance, it’s the Biskitts and the Monchhichis. The Biskitts are the world’s smallest dogs. They live on Biskitt Island, where they protect a treasure from the evil King Max. In this episode, they’re aided in their efforts by a caterpillar and a mole.

The Monchhichis are based on a Japanese animated series as well as a popular toy line. The Monchhichis are very cute monkeys who supply happiness to the world with their Happy Works. In this episode, the Tickle Crystal in the Happy Works breaks and they have to get a new one but are impeded by their enemies, the Grumplins, who look like the Monchhichis, except they’re blue. This show was so cloyingly sweet, I quickly found myself rooting for the Grumplins. A child of five or under may enjoy these shows, but I’d be surprised if anyone older than that got into them.

Time for Adventure

Galtar and the Golden Lance is a nice, straightforward sword-and-sorcery story. Galtar, along with the Princess Goleeta, must defeat the evil Tormack and return Goleeta to her rightful throne. Yes, Galtar and Goleeta look like they could have stepped out of an episode of Masters of the Universe, and the dialog is stilted, but I enjoyed the story, and the animation was better than most of the adventure shows in the set.

This is followed up by a very bad adventure show, Dragon’s Lair. This show is based on the then-popular video game by former Disney animator Don Bluth. The main characters from the video game are all here –- Dirk the Daring, Princess Daphne, and Siege the Dragon. However, the animation pales in comparison to what was used in the actual video game. Add in a lackluster story and poor voice acting, and you’ve got a forgettable show.

It was often laughable how they tried to incorporate the video game into the show. For example, at one point, Dirk is trying to cross a dangerous chasm. The voiceover narrator pops in and asks the viewer what Dirk should do, offering three options. After the viewer is given ample time to decide, you’re shown what would have happened if Dirk had made the wrong choices. He then makes the right choice and the story continues.

Now we finally get to the show I’ve been waiting to see –- Thundarr the Barbarian. Thundarr is the one show on the set I watched when it was on, and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, reality didn’t live up to my memory of the show. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine show, but it’s not as good as I remembered. I don’t know if I found it outstanding at the time compared to the other shows that were on, or if this wasn’t one of the stronger episodes.

When the show debuted, there was a lot of talk in the fan press about all the comic creators who worked on the series, including writer Steve Gerber and artistic legends Jack Kirby and Alex Toth. Their influence can be seen as the villain Gemini looks like he could have stepped out of one of Kirby’s Fourth World comics.

The series is a fantasy epic set on a future post-apocalyptic Earth, caused by a runaway planet passing between Earth and the Moon. Barbarian Thundarr, Sorcerer Ariel, and the monstrous Ookla the Mok battle evil on this future world. The influence of Star Wars on popular culture is felt here as Thundarr’s weapon, the Star Sword, is quite like a light sabre, and Ookla could be a first cousin of a certain Wookie. This is another series that Warner would be well served to collect.

An Historical Nod

The set concludes with a show I really wanted to like, The Kwicky Koala Show. First, it was a return to Hanna-Barbera’s roots, as the show was a comedy made up of three short cartoons. Second, and most importantly, Kwicky was created by animation legend Tex Avery. At Warner Brothers, Avery directed the cartoon that included Bugs Bunny uttering his classic “What’s up, doc?” for the first time. The same cartoon included the first time Elmer Fudd uttered, “Shhhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits!” But it was at MGM that Avery’s genius blossomed and he created some of the wackiest cartoons ever made. Droopy Dog was his most famous creation from his time at MGM. So, to an animation fan, a new creation by Avery was a reason to rejoice. Sadly, Avery passed away before the show aired, and his particular brand of craziness never really appeared in the cartoons.

The show is made up of four segments: interstitials starring the showbiz dogs, The Bungle Brothers; a Kwicky Koala short featuring the villainous Wilford Wolf, who sounds like Paul Lynde; Crazy Claws, a wildcat who sounds like Groucho Marx; and Dirty Dawg, a dog bum who sounds like the late sportscaster Howard Cosell. The main problem with the show is that it isn’t very funny. Oh, the creators try, but the only segment that made me laugh at all was Crazy Claws. As I said, I really wanted to like this show, but it doesn’t quite work.

Technical Issues and Final Thoughts

Let’s look at the discs themselves. The cartoons look OK, but there is a disclaimer stating that these were taken from the best sources available. One thing that I found really annoying was the setup of watching the episodes one at a time. If the show features a full-length cartoon, there’s no problem. However, if there are multiple shorts, such as in The Kwicky Koala Show, you have to watch each short individually, and in Kwicky, that’s six segments! The only way to watch it as a whole is to use the “play all” feature.

Something that I find both funny and sad is a warning on the back of the DVD case. It states that “Saturday Morning Cartoons – The 1980s is intended for the Adult Collector and Is Not Suitable For Children.” Really? These cartoons, with the possible exception of Thundarr, were created for children! Biskitts and Monchhichis are extremely kid-friendly. How are these not suitable for them? I really have to question if the people who put this together know anything about the cartoons in the set.

So, we have two discs of cartoons made by people who had done well-received work in comics, including Steve Gerber, Martin Pasko, Mike Vosburg, Frank Brunner, Alex Toth, and Jack Kirby. You have a new creation by one of animation’s greats, Tex Avery. As a whole, we get one really enjoyable show, two that are OK, and the rest are pretty forgettable. I think that speaks volumes to the restrictions the creators were working under at the time. The talent was there, but the ability to use that talent to its fullest wasn’t.

Roger Ash lives in Wisconsin where he works for Westfield Comics. He also does some freelance writing, including interviews with Louise Simonson, June Brigman, and Jon Bogdanove about Power Pack in Back Issue #38 and a Flaming Carrot article in Back Issue #39. We’re always pleased when he’s able to share his animation expertise with us.

The Fraggles return in a new licensed three-issue miniseries from Archaia, the first publication stemming from their deal with the Jim Henson Company announced last year. The comic is in the square format also used by Mouse Guard, and this first issue contains three color stories for $3.95 US.

The main story, by Heather White and Jeff Stokely, features faithful likenesses, but there’s a stiffness to them, a sense that we’re watching still photos of puppets instead of moving creatures. Kids likely won’t notice, since the Fraggles look so much like the TV show, if kids are even familiar with that. If they’re not, then they’re cute little weirdos.

The story features Red daring Gobo to spend the night in the Gorg garden, in order to prove he’s really a brave explorer. The structure allows lots of basics of the Fraggle world to be (re)introduced: the dog in the kitchen with the hole that opens to the Fraggle world, the Gorgs, the five main Fraggle characters, Uncle Travelling Matt, and so on. We even see the trash heap that serves as the voice of responsibility, reminding the characters of the virtues of teamwork and friendship.

There are two backup stories, one each written and drawn by Katie Cook and Jeffrey Brown. Katie’s is more cartoony, which I preferred, since it looked more like a comic than a storyboard for the show, while Jeffrey’s is distinguished by amazing, near-psychadelic colors by Michael DiMotta. Katie’s has a lovely lesson about not being bound by time or pushed into racing competition. There’s also a “how to draw Doozers” page.

Overall, these stories are typical of works for kids: the lessons sometimes take precedence over the entertainment value. That’s to please the parents, who control the pocketbook. I never found the Fraggles as entertaining as the Muppets, anyway; the Fraggles seemed created to tell these kinds of lessons instead of just having chaotic fun. So perhaps this comic is even more faithful than I thought! Either way, this is more of a kids’ comic than a truly all-ages one, with less to interest adults who aren’t Fraggle completists.

For collectors, there are three alternate covers, a 1-in-4 art alternative by Jeffrey Brown, a retailer summit cover, and a photo cover. I don’t understand why companies feel the need to put these chase covers on kids’ books, but so long as the sales keep the titles going and they reprint all of the art in the eventual collection, I can’t gripe too much about it.

The Muppet Show #4

Writer: Roger Langridge
Artist: Amy Mebberson
Boom! Kids, $2.99 US

Roger Langridge turns over art duties temporarily to Amy Mebberson with this issue, but if I hadn’t known to be looking for it, I’m not sure I would have noticed, since the characters have the same wonderful likenesses and movement. Although shorter than Fraggle Rock (24 pages at a lower price to Fraggle’s 32), The Muppet Show is so jam-packed that the reading value is similar, at least for me.

The concepts are still as bizarrely entertaining, with the book beginning with Statler and Waldorf cast as gods, playing chess with the other characters. Don’t worry, there are still plenty of gags, puns, and other random comedy, from Sam the Eagle doing Shakespeare to Muppet Labs doing “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Whether or not you get the references, there’s plenty of funny of all kinds, keeping all ages entertained and amused. Some of the jokes require close attention, playing out in the background over several pages, providing good re-read value.

The structure of a variety show allows for plenty of scene changes and inclusion of favorite bits, like “Pigs in Space” and Gonzo’s ridiculous stunts. Most excitingly to me, this issue features the introduction of Skeeter, Scooter’s twin sister. She’s a welcome balance to the male-heavy standard cast, and she provides some deeper emotion as Scooter deals with jealousy due to her abilities.

This is the best licensed comic out there for taking the original and making new stories that are completely faithful and yet totally new, with something for everyone.

Lunch Lady and the
Summer Camp Shakedown
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The black-and-white art is approachable and cartoony, with bright yellow highlight color pulling the eye to key items while soft yellow fills in the backgrounds for depth. The story stops dead early on, while Lunch Lady introduces the counselors and sets up two struggles: one power, one romantic. There are so many characters and so much going on that we don’t see much of our title character until almost halfway through the book.

The story winds up with the retro feel of a Scooby Doo episode, but the same could be said of any plot that involves someone thinking putting on a monster costume is a good way to scare others into getting what you want. In a post-X-Files world, any scary legend is going to get investigated, not run away from. And the gadgets get more ridiculous as we go — including a camera shaped like a cookie and night goggles that, for no reason, look like a stuffed taco — but kids will find them amusing in their goofiness, and they demonstrate a twisted creativity. There’s much discussion of a Camp Wars showdown that doesn’t happen in this volume; perhaps material for a later book in the series?

Due to the lack of Lunch Lady focus and too much else going on, my favorite book in the series is still the previous, The Author Visit Vendetta, but kids who enjoy the series likely won’t have my qualms. This volume is due out May 11, with an unfortunate price raise of a dollar.

No-ah is a novice magician living with his three pets: Guru (a male cat), Nanai (a male dog), and Pritz Rang (a female mouse). At times it’s hard to decide who’s adopted whom in the series. Certainly, the animals see themselves as equals with their owner. one fine day (the series title is done in all lowercase letters) is a gentle, slice-of-life, humor series with a little magical realism thrown in. The series is composed of everyday stories focusing on the relationship between the four main characters. one fine day is currently being serialized in Yen Press’ monthly anthology magazine, Yen Plus.

one fine day
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There is a lot of ambiguity in one fine day. It begins with the nature of the animals themselves. They can appear as either a literal cat, dog, and mouse or as human children with the ears of the respective animal. Sirial never explains if their human manifestations are real or simply a story device. You can argue that they appear in human form when Sirial is giving us insight into how they feel and think about a certain circumstance. However, they have the abilities to write, draw, and use household utensils as if they have real hands. It reminds me of the unexplained nature of the tiger, Hobbes, in Calvin and Hobbes. I’m glad that Sirial, like Watterson, doesn’t try to explain this feature of the series, since it would take away from its charm.

Next is the question of No-ah’s apprenticeship. They talk about him studying to be a magician, but they never discuss the kind of magic he is studying. He tries using magic recipes but unfortunately fails. So is No-ah trying to master potions and other magic foods? We know that he works at a bakery; is that part of his training? We are also told that No-ah is struggling with his apprenticeship, but we are never told why or what the problem is. It’s frustrating because it’s mentioned with enough frequency that we want to know more than we’re ever told.

Even the character designs are a bit ambiguous. I honestly thought the cat and the dog were female until the character introduction page made it clear they were males. I also would have thought No-ah was a woman if it wasn’t for the masculine name. I don’t mind the androgynous designs. The large eyes and soft features are perfect for expressing emotions.

Sirial has crafted some wonderful characters. I like that the animals are slightly unpredictable and at times mischievous; it makes them seem more realistic. They come across as good-natured children whose sense of play gets the better of them at times. I like that the cat is always one of the instigators, but the dog and the mouse seem to take turns getting in trouble. It’s also funny to watch them gang up on No-ah when they think he is being mean. The group dynamics are pure joy.

The artwork is sparse, and Sirial uses lots of negative space. This helps to emphasize that the focus is on the characters; where they are and what’s around them is incidental. Although Sirial is Korean, you can tell the art is heavily influenced by Japanese shojo character designs. Sirial makes wonderful use of the large eyes to evoke emotions. Sadness and joy radiate from the page more powerfully when the feeling comes from the character’s eyes. There is one area of confusion created by Sirial’s art: No-ah’s hair. I don’t have a clue as to what hairstyle Sirial is attempting to depict. I’ve never seen anything like it, and it leaves me utterly stumped each time I think about it.

one fine day in some respects reminds me of Ziggy. There is the same gentle, uplifting humor. Also, both artists use lots of negative space, although one fine day is more sophisticated in its presentation and storytelling. Sirial has created a series that is comfort food for the mind. It’s light, airy, and makes you feel good after reading it. Like Ziggy, this kind of unbridled positiveness isn’t for everyone. A read through the first 20 pages will let you know if one fine day works for you or not. If it does, it’s like the smile of a close friend. It instantly brightens your mood and makes the day better.