Category: Cartooning

Chicago’s Animated Frames of Reference

I was born in Evanston, Illinois, bordering Chicago. Evanston was where Stephen Colbert attended Northwestern University, and where his sometime collaborator J.J. Sedelmier was born. On Facebook, Sedelmier recommends a new Web site, still under construction, about an illustrator and animator from a hundred years ago.

Edwin G. Lutz wrote a book on animation that was used as a reference by Walt Disney at the start of his slightly successful career, as explained by Sedelmier at this link. Note that animation insider J.J. refers to Mike Barrier’s book about Walt Disney, rather than Chicago native Neal Gabler’s much more widely read biography of Walter Elias, who was likewise born in Chicago.

(I strongly encourage reading Michael Barrier’s wonderful book, “The Animated Man” University Of California Press 2007. I’ve used Barrier’s book to put together a brief sketch of Disney’s early years.)

Despite the success ten years ago of “Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination,” and Gabler’s other books, he has been struggling financially, as featured on the PBS Newshour in 2016.

The Failure of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism

https://youtu.be/ACkiKVtF3nU

I have watched this installment of “Frontline” three, or maybe even four, times since it first aired in 2009. If anything I think it goes easy on Bill Clinton, by not pointing out that at the end of his administration he agreed to ending the Glass-Steagall Act.

Mr. A by Ditko

Steve Ditko’s take on Ayn Rand’s philosophy deals with good vs. evil in terms of violent criminal activity, as you would expect from a comic book creator. As covered in the Frontline documentary, former SEC chairman Alan Greenspan adopted the extreme free market aspect of Rand’s Objectivism, as you would expect from an economist.

I like to think the fictional Mr. A would agree with me that what the Wall Street banks did by taking advantage of deregulation to commit legal fraud, in both its intent and the outcome of ten years ago, was corrupt and evil. Therein is what I see as the inherent irony of Ayn Rand’s philosophy.

13 Hours of Punishment

https://youtu.be/OMW_dPtm7Bo

For myself, the Silver Age of comic books ended when I graduated from high school. At this moment I can’t think of a comic book title that was introduced during what is, for me, the Bronze Age of comic books, that interests me all that much. Which means that I’m not much of a fan of Wolverine or the Punisher, hugely popular Marvel Comics characters that were introduced in 1974, while I was in college. Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” series for DC in the 80’s is an exception, but those characters were all based on Charlton comics from decades earlier. Speaking of Charlton, I really enjoy E-Man, and he makes the cut because he was introduced before I started college.

Vigilante justice has always been present in comic books, although Superman dropped that approach very quickly, and even The Batman let go of his angst after becoming just Batman and picking up a sidekick. What came about in the 70’s, when vigilantism was reintroduced, were extra helpings of violence to go along with the justice.

In “The Punisher”, now streaming on Netflix, I see more than a little borrowing of elements from the TV series “Person of Interest”, which wrapped up a year-and-a-half ago. There was plenty of obligatory shooting of bad guys, but being a network TV series it never reached the level of ultra-extreme violence that is seen in “The Punisher”. I can’t say that I actually enjoyed all the blood and gore, but one thing for sure is that Jon Bernthal is perfect in the role. He says he wanted the challenge of putting across a sympathetic character that isn’t likeable, and Bernthal pulls it off, as long as you can stand watching him when the Punisher is in “killing machine mode.”

There is one truly great line in the Punisher script — “Pissed off beats scared, every time.” I agree.