The Princess and the Princess?

Okay, I confess I'm quite excited about Disney's return to traditional feature animation.




However.
Snow White: boy gets girl. Sleeping Beauty: boy gets girl. Little Mermaid: boy gets (fishy) girl. Beauty and the Beast: (fuzzy, scary) boy gets girl. Hunchback of Notre Dame: (handsome) boy gets girl. Lady and the Tramp: boy gets girl.
Okay, that last one is just too wonderful for words.
Great stories all, but isn't there more than one note to played in the symphony of LOVE?
The closest animation has come to gay issues is the Showtime series Queer Duck. There are gay characters in Drawn Together, currently in rerun on Logo, which also has a gay anime' series and Rick and Steve, which is puppet animation a la George Pal.
But it's mostly pretty bad animation. It's what the great Chuck Jones called "illustrated radio", for the most part. Also,most of what is out there is pretty guy-with-guy centered.
There are a great many gay male stories in anime', and much about transgender cahracters, but few lesbian stories. Also, call me a snobbess, but something about the visual style of anime' leaves me cold at times. Not that I don't love Tezuka, but I'd rather read it than watch it.
I like traditional Western animation. And I'd like to see a braver use of the art form.
There are beautiful and sensual stories of men and men, and women and women, and people everywhere on the gender and sexuality spectra, hooking up for physical pleasure, affection and just plain sharing life.
Some studio is missing a bet by not trying to tell a genuine love story about GLBT people in good animation.

da bode'!

As I prepare some of my extra art for auction, a step towards financing my paper presentation at San Diego in July, I'm drooling over a pencil prelim of a Vaughn Bode' Deadbone page.
My fascination with da Bode' waxes and wanes, but never completely fades. I wrote a bio piece on him for a gay comics website some years back, which has just resurfaced on the redesigned Gay League web page.
I also wrote (and need to rewrite!) a structural analysis of Bode's work for San Diego three years ago, my first formal paper presentation.
Vaughn was a pioneer in panel layout, use of materials, manipulation of language, and communication of raw emotion, often evoking comparisons to Walt Kelly in the the latter two respects.
He was also known for his personal life, being sexually ambiguous, bisexual, prone to S & M experimentation, and a cross-dresser with transsexual tendencies.
However, Trina Robbins described him as "a very eager straight boy who liked to dress up".

An excuse to post something wonderful!

I need to nest an image for use in my parting post to my Graphic Novel course, which ends on Tuesday (sob!).
Therefore, I am adding this classic strip, the last Calvin & Hobbes, to my blog, just so it has a URL.
Besides, it's such a great philosophy!

Frank Miller owes me two hours

I just finished watching The Spirit courtesy of Netflix.
I'm trying to work up the vitriol to be disappointed.
Oh, I was told what to expect. But this was so much worse. A mish-mash of styles, dialogue that suits none of the characters, a plot so full of holes you could fill Wildwood Cemetery with them, and visuals that lack energy.
Oh, people have commented at length about how visually striking this film is, but it doesn't work for me. It's just a sorry pastiche of Kill Bill and Sin City.
Miller was once capable of great innovation. Now he's a parody of himself, creating implausible cities in which all the women are gorgeous in a sleazy way, all the men are gruff and nobody seems to actually like each other very much. The whole thing was a bizarre nightmare vision of Sin City recast as a camp 60s TV show.
Lest you think me an uninformed grouch, unaware of the nuances of Noir, I would point you to this article.
Eisner deserves better, especially from a freind, and he and Miller were friends.
The Spirit is a pragmatic man involved in Capra-esque morality plays. while these times may seem at odds with such an outlook and such a hero (decades ago, James Garner seemed to me to be an ideal choice to play the Spirit), I suspect that the moral compass of the country is swinging to a sort of pragmatic optimism. The Spirit would fit right in, given the chance.
This page from a Paul Chadwick Spirit story shows that it's possible to be realistic and still maintain a character's inherent humanity and decency, traits that seem to have eluded Miller in this outing.
It's just a darn shame that Frank Miller let his ego interfere with his reverence for the character.
Miller's failure to create a substantial work out of an iconic comic character will in no way help public perception of comics as worthy.

At the Shawnpost up Ahead...

Fresh (sort of) in from tonight's Shawn Phillips concert, and at least somewhat rejuvenated by the experience. That someone as beat up by life as Shawn can keep smiling, keep trying new things and stay so alive creatively is both intimidating and inspiring.
For those not in the know: Shawn's father was a spy novelist (author of the Joe Gall books), a poet and a CIA agent. His mother killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills, and died cradling a young sleeping Shawn in her arms. In his salad days, Shawn roomed with Lenny Bruce and Bill Cosby (separately), taught Joni Mitchell how to play the 12-string guitar, opened for Yes until they asked him to leave the tour because his act was better received, sang backup on the Beatles' Lovely Rita Meter Maid, wrote most of Donovan's first two albums (mostly uncredited), survived an accident in which hair became tangled in an outboard motor propeller, survived quadruple bypass surgery, was robbed of millions by a manager, was divorced three times, and went without a record deal for close to a decade, despite making millions for his label at his peak.
Survival gave him strength. In his later years, he became an EMT and moved to South Africa with his new wife, where they raise his three year old son Liam, got a new label and released his first live record ever.
Shawn reminds me of possibilities, and he seems to come around when I need him most.

The only photo I was able to get from my (ahem) front row center seat was this cheesy one of the stage, taken with my cel phone.
One of the highlights (and there were many) was a song Shawn had never before performed publicly, a memorial to the Hawai'ian singer Iz (Israel Kamakawiwo`ole).
Haunting and uplifiting, like much of Shawn's best work.

It's Academic!

My students' final projects in one course are due this weekend. I have quizzes and online posts to grade in a different course at a different school. I am preparing ,career-wise and emotionally, for not having a course to teach at my favorite institution this fall.
I was sent a link to this blog post on adjuncting, which I found quote useful.
With all this, I've been musing a great deal of late about the significance of adjunct teaching in general, and my role in it in particular.
On the one hand, after close to a decade of adjunct teaching, most of it at an institution that does not seem to value my work, and being denied a position (at least for now) at my favorite place to teach, I have to fight to keep heart.
However, my other school had a graduation ceremony last night. I missed most of it due to lousy directions, but did arrive in time to talk to my students who graduated. One of them told me the only reason he came was to thank me and one other teacher for giving him something worthwhile.
Kinda warms your heart.
Well, I must get to work on my paper for San Diego.
Right after Justice League!

The Eisners Have It

Since few people saw it during Eisner Week, I'd like to repost this article on other creators working in the style of Will Eisner.
I'd be very curious for feedback on this one!

34- 35 years of three octaves: Shawn Phillips!

In 1975, my then-girlfriend sat me down and slammed some headphones on me, and simply said "shut up and listen."
That was my first exposure to Shawn Phillips.
Decades and seventeen albums later....
I will be seeing Shawn perform at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis on Monday, May 4. It will be my 15th Shawn concert.
I could tell you about Shawn's phenomenal career, his compositional acumen, his passion in performing, his intelligent and articulate lyrics, his profound love of humanity despite itself, his engaging smile, or his three-octave voice.
But I think I'll let him speak for himself.

All ages blogging

Since I'll have very little to say here that's overtly sexual, and will be probably be dealing with that from a largely academic perspective, I'd decided that there's no real need for an "adults only" disclaimer here.

Ignatz!

Time to explain where the title comes from, part 3.
Ignatz is the mouse of the cat-and-mouse love/hate duet of Krazy and Ignatz in Krazy Kat.
3/4 of a century ago, George Herrimann created an iconic minimalist text in comic strip form that draws on primal aspects of love and fear.
When one first reads Krazy Kat, the usual reaction is "meh". But on extended exposure, one usually agrees with the popular perspective that it's the best comic strip ever done, possibly the best that ever will be done.
By blurring Krazy's gender in the strip, sometimes referring to Krazy as "he" and other times as "she", Herrimann established one of the first gay relationships in comics. This is wildly debated, but does need to be mentioned in passing, so to speak.
Whenever I want to remind myself how much can be done with this art form, I read Krazy Kat and just sit in wordless joy.

Gentle Giant!

time to explain where the title comes from, Part Two.
Gentle Giant have a new album out, almost 28 years after their breakup and mere days after their partial reunion as Three Friends.


I won't elaborate on Gentle Giant.
Either you're into complex harmonies, challenging compositions, and technical virtuosity or you're not. I am.

Trosper!

Time to explain where the title comes from, part one.
This is Trosper, the grinning elephant-pig-child of Jim Woodring. Well, not so grinning in this image. Trust me, he has a great grin.
Woodring delights and terrifies with incredible and sublime dream imagery.
Woodring's also a really sweet guy who loves Fleischer Brothers cartoons!
I was lucky enough to meet him in San Diego last year. As soon as I can get at a scanner, I will post the Trosper sketch he did for me!

The Madoc Curse

As I read and reread (and reread) the Absolute Sandman, I find myself returning to a handful of stories repeatedly: A Dream of a Thousand Cats, all the Hob Gadling stories, and Calliope.
Calliope is the muse of words, held in the power of a writer to feed him ideas.
The story spoiler comes next, offered as a caution for the six people in the comics/ horror/ SF worlds who have not yet read this story.
When she is rescued by Morpheus, he floods the writer's mind with more ideas than imaginable.
The ideas prove beyond the hapless writer's control.
What strikes me as a bit of a dodge in this story, probably not intentionally on Gaiman's part, is that it's not ideas that are hard. It's execution.
It's easy to mull and wax philosophic about all the wonderful things that are going to happen after your work comes to life: you have shelves of books with your byline, you are celebrated for your innovation and genius, and when you travel to discuss the work and ideas, you don't ahve to pick up the tab. Oh, yeah. Your home is magically bigger and cleaner.
The ideas are crucial, but without execution, they truly are a curse: this is what could be. Make what could be into what is.
Well, I'm off to go into the studio.
But then, I'd have to be!