Vote Bender !

Bakshi's Ass

Robert Crumb's bid for solidarity with Charlie Hebdo shows an extremely detailed illustration of Mohammed's butt. Crumb cautions that it is not the butt of a prophet but the butt of a film maker, however.
FWIW, Robert Rodriguez has taken on the task of creating a live action movie (that will undoubtedly use massive CG) of Fire & Ice, a collaboration of Frank Frazetta & Ralph Bakshi in 1983. Sony has purchased the film, so who knows WHAT will ranspire....

To find out more about Crumb's cartoon & his thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo slaughter, click here

It's Christmastime In The City

RIP Brian Griffin

Blogging isn't Cool mourns the loss of Brian Griffin - recently killed in a traffic accident.
More info here

Cartoons !

A long time ago, during the Cold War, I worked at an engraving shop & once in awhile people would come in with the weirdest shit. Mainstream printers wouldn't work with the average Joe wandering in off the street but we were a small company and we had a lot of weird old tech lying around. The basement was a complete trip.
Anyway, one day this young woman came in with some old engravings she wanted to get some prints made from. Apparently they were from a German Nazi era underground paper that was decidedly anti-Nazi. I believe there was some intrigue involved with them getting into her or her dad's or grandfather's hands. They were dirty and corroded but this is what we got. (We assumed any captions were set in type outside the illustration)

The Perils of Being on the Radar

When Americans think of animation, they usually think of Disney Studios. Modern Disney has been cranking out stale homogenized formulaic crap for awhile now. The new Disney cartoon, The Princess and The Frog, looks to be more of the same. This cartoon features their first "black" princess, however, so it's time for the PC Nazis to sharpen their knives.
The story takes place in New Orleans in the 1920s. The lead character was to be a maid named Maddy (Madeleine). No Good. I have always liked that name & I have never disrespected a maid. Unfortunately the PC Nazis thought Maddy sounded too much like Mammy. whatever Tiana is a Russkie name that is acceptable, I guess, since the Obamas used Russkie names for their kids it's ok. being a maid was no good because black girls in the 20s NEVER worked as maids. Still, don't. There is a firefly narrator type who is a light hearted semi-toothed fella with a heavy accent & small vocabulary. this is, of course, racist because no such person exists.
?
I'm into Delta Blues. Sorry, these guys exist to this day.
Since Disney is obsessed with magic, it's gotta come from somewhere. In this movie it comes in the form of Vodou. More racism. More stereotyping. Vodou is, of course (overly simplifying stuff here), a mish mash of similar beliefs of the sub-Saharan societies from which the European/American slave traders got their slaves. There is a nationalistic side introduced by seminal Haitian revolutionary Boukman, too, but we won't go into that here. I mean we're talking about The Wonderfully Superficial World of Disney here. Anyway, this has pissed off Vodousaints, neo-Pagans AND Christians. Did these folks have these same complaints about Disney's other wizards ?
Well, probably.
One of the greatest bits of crap from the PC Nazis is that the Prince the chick falls for isn't black. Not exactly whit either. He has a kind of Indian sounding name, but people are griping about him not being black. Do people gripe about Michele Obama not hooking up with a black guy?
I can't believe I have referenced the first family twice in an article about a cartoon. But, that's just it. It's a modern commercial cartoon adaptation of an old fairy tale & people are going off on it like crazy folk. Would they complain as much if the toon came out of france, Poland, Japan or Korea? As far as Disney goes, they should be more concerned with Disney merchandise sold at their stores in upscale malls across the US. Much of the apparel is produced in Haiti under near slave-like conditions. Haitians rioted earlier in the year to boost their minimum wage to $5/day.
ugh
I guess it is more important to have perfect uniform ticky tacky fictional characters flickering on the screen than to be concerned with real folks you can't see.
Like Dr McDreamy said, "Perception is Reality".