Category: Cartooning

Eric’s non-Anime Pick — Linda Linda Linda

Eric’s first non-Anime contemporary Japanese movie pick was the winning romantic comedy Train Man. Now he has us watching another winner. We haven’t finished Linda Linda Linda yet, but already we can recommend it with confidence. Below is a review from The Boston Globe. And here’s a clip from the movie.

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Schoolgirl charm rocks sweetly funny ‘Linda’

By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff | January 12, 2007

Don’t let the lack of punctuation fool you. “Linda Linda Linda” is a peachy two-hour delight that ends with a flurry of exclamation points. If the Beatles were teen girls starring in a John Hughes picture made with a distinctly Japanese attention to the comedy of everyday life, the movie showcasing it all would go something like this.

The members of an all-girl punk quartet have about three days to learn a number for the spring rock show at their high school. The new lead singer, Son (Doona Bae ), is a solemn Korean exchange student whose face contains limitless ways to touch you with its sleepiness. The group’s chosen song is a fuzzy firecracker called “Linda Linda,” an ’80s classic (in Japan) by the Japanese group the Blue Hearts. I’m still singing it.
Continue reading Eric’s non-Anime Pick — Linda Linda Linda

June in July

June ForayMark Evanier is helping legendary voice actor June Foray write her autobiography. She turns 90 this year! Evanier recently said he “will soon be announcing some sort of publication date, I hope.” June herself has a slightly different take on the situation. She was on WBZ radio in Boston late Sunday night, and this is what she said.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUL07/Foray.mp3]

The Real Elmer Fudd

A few postings ago, a little man in a cameo movie appearance was identified as Arthur Q. Bryan. He was a popular voice on radio, mostly in the 40’s, but thanks to TV he’s best remembered today as the voice of cartoon character Elmer Fudd.

For a brief time, director Bob Clampett made Fudd look like Lou Costello, but then wisely returned to Tex Avery’s previous design, patterning Fudd more after Arthur Q. Bryan himself.

Bryan is shown in this photo with Artie Auerbach, who is playing Father Time, in a publicity photo for the Al Pearce Radio Gang show. Pearce was very popular in his day, but now seems to be largely forgotten.

Anime On Long Beach

Back in April we attended the Anime Boston convention. Unfortunately, my post about it was lost in the database disaster in early June. This weekend in Long Beach, CA is the big one — AX, The Anime Expo. A bit too far away for us to take Eric and his fellow Anime fan cousins!
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Old Yorker, J. B. Handelsman

New Yorker cartoonist J.B. Handelsman has died at 85. Like a lot of artists and cartoonists whose eyesight holds up, he worked pretty much up to the end. He wasn’t a favorite of mine, but anybody with staying power at The New Yorker must be respected.

Here’s a mini-gallery of Handelsman cartoons from 1965-1970. Click to enlarge. I picked those years because Handelsman seemed conservative, and that was a time of great upheaval. I consider these to be the best of the bunch, and I’ll be honest and say that compared to other New Yorker cartoons, I don’t think they hold up very well. Handelsman’s humor could be dry to the point of being banal, even when insightful.

J.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New Yorker

J.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New Yorker

J.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New YorkerJ.B. Handelsman in The New Yorker
© The New Yorker