WHAT I'M READING NOW

Here it is, the second volume of Simon Callow's biography of Welles. I've only just begun it so I really shouldn't be writing about it so soon. I just can't help it, there's so many interesting things in it. Please forgive my writing and probable typos. I have to write this fast with no time to edit.
Here's an example (above) of the kind of narrative prose Welles liked to write. I knew I'd seen the style before but I couldn't place it until now: it's from Psalm 23 in the King James Bible. In that Psalm each line is split in two: " The Lord is my shepherd / I shall not want. " It's the only poetry in the English language that might surpass Shakespeare, in fact some say that Shakespeare wrote it. Almost every line is two or three simple thoughts jammed together with a natural pause between each thought...it's a very powerfull type of prose. Very noble, very musical.

Shakespeare used it in the beginning of "Romeo and Juliette:" "Two houses / both alike in dignity /in fair Verona /where we lay our scene (maybe I've quoted wrong, I don't have it infront of me)." That's the way Welles wrote about the little boy and his bull: "The boy's name was Chico / and the bull's name was Bonito." Joe Fante, a heavyweight writer himself, is credited with writing the narration but you know that Welles wrote it. All his narratives sound like that. It's a beautiful way to write.

I've only read a dozen pages or so. When I put it down Callow was relating the story of how Welles rehearsed the actors in "Magnificent Ambersons." He recorded the rehearsel on records then played the best parts back when it was time to film it. Welles thought actors always spoke their lines too slow infront of the camera and he wanted to remind them how good it sounded when they spoke fast in rehearsel. Callow thought it had the unexpected effect of making the scenes feel awkward because the actors couldn't find the natural rythym of the present, infront of the camera.

Welles put a lot of emphasis on the reading that was done in rehearsel. I'm proud of myself because I deduced this before I ever read it, in fact I did a blog entry about it. You can hear it in the way he delivered his lines in " Jane Eyre." The lines sound like they're being read! You might think that would be a liability but it wasn't. It sounded great that way! I read ahead in the Jane Eyre sequence and discovered that he walked on the set and started directing from a podium just like a conducter, even though he was only hired to act.

REFRESHED AT THE FOUNTAIN OF MILT GROSS

I spent another afternoon sketching Milt Gross pictures at the ASIFA Archive in Burbank. Once again I'm indebted to Mark Kausler and Steve Worth for making this possible.

Gross really was a genius. The shoulders on this guy (above) are completely detached from the rib cage and yet it works. The head seems to come out of the sternum. How did Gross think of that?

How fearless Gross is! The guy (above) doesn't fall, though he's leaning and is painfully top-heavy. He doesn't fall for the perfectly logical reason that it's funnier if he doesn't.

I love Gross' walks. Strides like this (above) just beg to be animated funny.

This ball-throwing pose (above) probably worked better in print than it would in animation. Even so, the way the forms squash into each other certainly is interesting. Animators shouldn't be put off by the flat, print bias of the pictures. Even the flatest ones are terrific conceptual blockbusters.

MY FAVORITE NAPOLEON STORY

Over the weekend I did some housecleaning and found some books I thought I'd lost. One of them was a terrific book on military tactics. Most of the people who visit here probably aren't interested in this sort of thing but I can't resist relating one of the stories in the book, dealing with Napoleon's famous Italian Campaign.

It seems that Napoleon had a brilliant way of dealing with armies larger than his own. Really big armies usually had two or more commanders. Napoleon would use spies to locate the border that seperated the two commands. He reasoned that this was the area where commanders had the most difficulty in command and control and would offer the least resistance. He would create a breach with artillary then pour a fourth of his force into it. Once in they would quickly dig trenches, effectively splitting the enemy in two.

As soon as the French were dug in they directed all their fire against one of the enemy's halves. Since Napoleon's troops were protected by the ground they could shoot at others without being shot themselves, at least for a while. Sooner or later the enemy's superior numbers would prevail but that's OK. The Frenchmen in the trenches only needed to hold out long enough to pin the enemy down so they couldn't reinforce their friends.

Remember that I said only a fourth of Napoleon's army rushed into the breach and dug trenches? Now the other 3/4 comes into play. They attack the other enemy half. Since Napoleon is directing 3/4 of his troops against an enemy that's only at half strength, he's probably going to win. When he defeats this half he turns his full force on the other half of the enemy that'd been pinned down. Once again he usually prevails because he has his whole force intact and the other side has to make due with half. A nifty tactic, huh?

A WORD ABOUT JOHN K AND CLAMPETT

Before I dive deep into the well of theories again I want to comment on a critical internet article about John K and Clampett which appeared a couple of days ago, and which was linked to without comment from Cartoon Brew. The article made me pretty upset but I'll try to respond with restraint since the author seems to be a nice guy and tried to be fair in his own way.

First off, I was disappointed to see Clampett's work described as crazy, crude and exagerrated. He certainly was all these things (I'm assuming "crazy" was used affectionately) but it seems stingy not to add that he was also crucially inventive and highly entertaining. Sergio Leone, Fellini, Mick Jagger and Elvis were also crude and exagerrated at times. So what?

Clampett's style was summarized as having to do with bulging eyes and rubber-hose limbs. That's OK so far as it goes but where's the rest of the list? I didn't see any mention of Clampett's innovations in comedy, acting, pacing, animation, cartooning, dialogue, editing, and musical application. It's so strange to see the man's whole ground-breaking effort reduced to a couple of insults.

John K got the same harsh treatment. John's work was characterized by naked boobs and farts. Poor John gets no credit for the uptillion drawing, story, dialogue, editing, pacing, acting and musical innovations. The author casually reduces this bulging warehouse of gifts to the animation industry down to...boobs and farts. At the end of the piece he condescendingly pats John on the head by conceding that the pathetic purveyer of farts at least stimulates discussion about animation. Unbelievable.

Now I'm willing to concede that everyone isn't tempramentally suited for outrageous humor. If you don't like that sort of thing, or can only take it in small doses, then it's natural to resist people like Clampett and John, regardless of their innovations. Maybe it's even natural to nitpick about whatever faults they have. That's OK, I understand that. Just be respectfull when criticizing people who are giants in their field. We need these people and they're getting frightningly scarce.

SALLY WORM SWIPED?

Did the latest Wallace and Gromit film, "Curse of the WerRabbit," steal portions of a character design from "Tales of Worm Paranoia?" Here (above) is the suspicious design in the W&G film.

Here (above) is Sally Worm from "Tales of Worm Paranoia." See any similarities? It's probably a coincidence but it makes me wince just the same.

Boy, look at those parallel lines between Sally's hand and arm. Come to think of it, look at the parallel lines on her body in the color picture. And her clasped fingers might have looked better if they'd wrapped around an imaginary ball. Aaaargh! Now that I'm looking at it closely I can see even more mistakes. All I can say is, "Oops!"

A BLOG ABOUT GOING-TO-SLEEP SLEEP FANTASIES

This is a blog about sleep and I thought you guys would rather see these girls on a bed than me. Anyway here's the story.

I'm the only person I know who actually was objectively aware at the exact moment when rambling, try-to-fall-asleep fantasies turned into full-blown sleep. It came about because the phone rang at just that moment and I woke up with the memory still intact. Of course I wrote it down immediately. Here's how it played out.....
I was tired and in order to get to sleep I fantasized about being at a party. Of course the girls at the party all thought I was incredibly sexy and the guys all thought my ideas were brilliant. As the party progressed and my real body came closer and closer to sleep I began to wonder if the dream couple near me were saying things that I hadn't scripted. I thought I was imagining it at first, after all it was my fantasy and people had to say what I wanted them to say. After a moment I realized that I wasn't imagining it. They were speaking independently and it was really bothering me. Then I noticed what was happening to the furniture!

The table leg was slowly sprouting a dull-orange fuzz. This was just as disconcerting as the unscripted dialogue and I was mad that was loosing control over things. I cast a dirty look at the errand couple then shot another glance back at the table leg. The leg was still growing long, orange fuzz and now so was the sofa beside it. In a panic I looked all over the room and saw that everything, even the people were beginning to spout orange fuzz.

Whenever the fuzz from two sources touched each other the fuzz formed a haze of dirty orange color. "No, No , " I thought, "Stop with the haze! I order it!" but the haze areas kept growing. Then I thought, "What the heck! The haze is kind of interesting. So what if the picture and sound is going off? Let it happen!" The universe was disintegrating hand over fist when the phone rang.

HAVE YOU SEEN JOHN'S LATEST POST?

Has everyone here seen John Kricfausi's latest (or nearly the latest) blog entry about his artistic influences? If you haven't then you missed the mother of all animation posts. I predict that copies of that article will be passed around for decades, it's that good!

Of course John discussed his own influences as a way of opening up a wider subject, namely the need for more diversity in animated comedy styles. It seems like all the good draughtsmen are doing Disney, Cartoon Network, Chuck Jones or Spumco. Some artists are doing independent styles but even those tend to fall into two or three catagories. This is very odd because the history of comics and cartoons is so much more diverse than that. Think about Don Martin, Milt Gross, the Fleischers, Jim Tyre, Rod Scribner, Chester Gould, Al Capp, Bakshi, Barney Google, Seuss, Natwick, Iwerks, Plastic Man, Ding Darling, classic kids books...well it would be a long list. The point is that cartooning is beginning to feel narrow and claustrophobic.

I don't know about you but I can't express myself with (for example) Don Bluth-type characters. I'm not knocking Bluth, I have a lot of respect for the guy, but characters drawn that way reflect his life experience, not mine. I grew up feeling a lot of economic insecurity, a lot of lust for women and a real desire to understand the world. Don Martin 's style speaks to me about economic insecurity, Tex & John speak to me about lust, and Clampett, Scribner, Wood, John, the Fleischers and some of the most innovative aspects of Disney speak to me about about exploring the possibility of things. That's the mix that feels right for someone with my background. Someone who grew up differently would have a different set of influences. Why are we both doing Don Bluth's style?

And how about Cartoon Network's style? It's a fine style for humor about nerds and their hip suburban friends. I wish the studio well and have only good feelings about it but I never considered myself a nerd and I'm not really hip...I'm more of a hip wannabe. A big part of my life and comedy experience could never be made to fit into the nerd/hip nexus. I can't express myself in nerdhip. I don't think in those terms.

A lot of classic comedy doesn't reduce to nerd/hip. Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar, Kovaks, Jack Benny, Chaplin, Clampett Tex and John all did comedy about other things. Me, I think it's funny when you're sitting next to a beautiful girl and her big, mean bruiser of a boyfriend and she's coming on to you to make him jealous. It's funny when you're the only guy without a sandwich at a business meeting and someone's inadvertantly waving their pickle under your nose. It's funny when Moe thinks Larry and Curly are stupid when he's really just as stupid as they are. It's funny when Daffy imitates Danny Kaye or compulsively talks to Elmer when Elmer's trying to sleep. What does any of this have to do with nerd/hip? Where did this one-size-fits-all compulsion come from?

BTW, the caricature above is actually of Alex Baldwin but it looks like John, doesn't it?