Strange but true: The legendary underground cartoonist Robert Crumb cites two Oregon artists, Carl Barks and Basil Wolverton, as crucial early formative influences. Yet no one ever asks him to be more specific. Just how did Disney comic book auteur Carl Barks and Mad Magazine illustrator Basil Wolverton influence the creator of Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat?

Oregon Cartoon Institute asked Patrick Rosenkranz, the author of Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution, 1963 – 1975, and Charles Boucher, the owner of CounterMedia, to walk us through the specific aspects of Barks’ and Wolverton’s work which Crumb incorporated into his own. Karl Lind captured this avalanche of Crumb scholarship in the above video.

Readers of Oregon Movies, A to Z already know Crumb’s Book of Genesis, currently on display at Portland Art Museum, was directly inspired by Wolverton.

Reminder:  You have until September 19, 2010 to see rooms and rooms of  original artwork by Robert Crumb at Portland Art Museum. His entire Book Of Genesis is there – the original hand drawn, hand lettered artwork — making it possible for you to walk, page by page, throughout the first book of the Bible.

If you missed Bill Plympton at Annecy International Animation Film Festival (aka the largest animation festival in the world) last month, you can make up for it by coming down to see him at Dante’s, 1 SW 3rd Ave, in Portland, on Monday night.

Here’s Bill’s report on the festival, filed from France:

Its been 50 years since the 1st Annecy animation festival gathering in 1960. Apparently it was a small affair: 50 people congregated to watch animation and party. This year being a big anniversary year they asked some of the biggest names in the business (John Musker, Nick Park, Peter Lord, Joanna Quinn, Ed Nazarov, Alexei Alexeev, Matt Groening, David Silverman, Michel Ocelot, Peter de Seve, Raoul Servais, Marv Newland, Paul Driessen, Bruno Bozzetto, Sylvain Chomet, and me) to help celebrate. They put us all up in the fancy Palais de Menthon on the other side of the lake. It’s right on the beautiful lac d’Annecy so every morning I got to take a refreshing swim in the crystal-clear waters.

Yes, that’s two (2) Oregon animators out of a list of sixteen total invited to Anncey’s 50th anniversary. What does Bill do in France? He says he goes swimming, and here’s proof.

Bill’s caption: Ready to jump in the canal.

Bill will be selling DVDs of Hair High (2004), fresh off the presses, at Dante’s.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bill always felt Hair High was his best film ever, and was puzzled when it was not widely seen. All the attention received by Idiots and Angels (2009) — six billion film festival awards and counting – he was expecting to get five years earlier with this (comparatively) lavishly produced high school prom ghost/love story. So here’s your chance to own a film very dear to Plympton’s heart.

Eric Gilliland and Sarah Silverman provide the voices of the young lovers, Spud and Cherri.

Another reason for celebration: Bill is looking forward to the domestic theatrical release of Idiots and Angels (2009), which should be on American movie screens before the end of the year.

For more info about Bill: Emily Harris interviewed him today on OPB’s Think Out Loud.

Bill makes sure his fellow animators and filmmakers get a shout out, and begins crediting the entire Portland animation scene in his first answer, before he gets around to talking about himself.

In so doing, he has renewed his honorary membership  in the Oregon Cartoon Institute. Thanks, and a tip of the hat to Mr. Plympton.

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/07/bill-plympton-dvd-release-party-dantes-in-portland-july-19-600-1000-pm/feed/ 0 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/07/giant-on-the-beach-gullivers-travels-hollywood-theatre-july-16-18-21-23/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/07/giant-on-the-beach-gullivers-travels-hollywood-theatre-july-16-18-21-23/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:42:16 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=8722 Click here to view the embedded video.

In 1939, Oregon voice artist Pinto Colvig left Disney Studios, where he had originated the sublimely irrepressible Goofy, to work for a competing studio, the Fleischer Brothers, where he originated Popeye’s muscular nemesis, Bluto. Colvig’s quarrel with Disney was brief. He returned in 1940, and remained there for the rest of his career.

Colvig was more than a voice artist. He was a gold mine of animation smarts – an oldtimer in a new medium. He had produced and directed the first full length color animated film, Pinto’s Prizma’s Comedy Revue, in 1919. Dennis and I don’t know much more about Vance Debar “Pinto” Colvig. He was the son of a Jackson County judge, and entered show business first as a clown. He is famous for saying that he regarded animation as simply clowning on paper.

During his brief stay at Fleischer Brothers, Colvig took the lead role of Gabby, the Lilliputian watchman, in their first feature length animated film, Gulliver’s Travels.

In 2010, composer Galen Huckins selected Gulliver’s Travels as Filmusik’s seventh project.

Q: What is Filmusik?

A: Based out of Portland, Oregon. Filmusik is a collaborative performance group of musicians, composers and actors creating a unique movie experience by performing a new soundtrack for classic films live in the pit.

If you’re having a hard time imagining this, here’s my advice.

Just go see them do it.

Gulliver’s Travels will be screened  with a brand new score, and live voice artist performances, at the Hollywood Theatre, July 16 at 7:00 PM, July 18 at 2:00 PM, July 21 at 7:00 PM and July 23 at 7:00 PM.

Buy tickets here.

Hey, there’s more Oregon connections!

Jim Blashfield turned Michael Jackson into a modern day Gulliver, strapped to the ground by his adoring fans, in Leave Me Alone, his highly regarded and deeply influential 1989 music video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Leave Me Alone was made here in Portland, at  Blashfield’s studio, with the exception of the footage of Michael Jackson, which was shot in LA.

This post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute.

In honor of summer, Oregon Movies, A to Z is cutting back on work hours.

To fend off the feeling that readers are being left stranded, I am going to run a series of re-posts, arranged by theme. So don’t hold your breath, but there will be posts going up here — just on a much reduced schedule.

Dark Horse Comics founder Mike Richardson is being given a (super)hero’s welcome in the hometown he never left. From June 18  to June 23,  JC Lillie Performing Arts Center (11300 SE 23rd Avenue in Milwaukie) hosts an exhibit of original comic art boards and memorabilia from Richardson’s personal collection of original art by some of the most well known comic book artists in the world.

Here’s more information. The exhibit will be up for only one week.

Mike Richardson entered Oregon film history when he executive produced his first film, pretty much in his own backyard. He must have liked the work. Since that time, he has collected an impressive set of Hollywood credentials.

Starstruck Oregonians who want to hobnob with Richardson (no relation)  get a chance on June 19, when he will give a personal tour of the Hometown Superhero exhibit. Tickets here.

The post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute.

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/06/hometown-superhero-artmob-honors-mike-richardson-dark-horsejune-18-23-in-milwaukie/feed/ 0 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/06/dennis-nyback-grand-illusion-in-seattlejune-11-17/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/06/dennis-nyback-grand-illusion-in-seattlejune-11-17/#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:42:49 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=8543

Dennis Nyback (second from right)  hangs out with Jack Stevenson (far left), who wrote about him, and his unusual career,  in Land of a Thousand Balconies.

Tomorrow Portland film archivist Dennis Nyback packs up a few of his programs and goes to Seattle for a week’s run at the Grand Illusion Cinema. All film, no video!

Dennis Nyback’s Panorama of the 20th Century (Grand Illusion, June 11-17)

The Grand Illusion welcomes back Northwest archivist and historian Dennis Nyback and his eclectic collection of films for this weeklong series. Mr. Nyback, along with his encyclopedic knowledge and insouciant charm, will be your host, guiding you through his entertaining, offbeat version of the 20th century.

Terrorism Light and Dark
Friday June 11, 7pm
A revealing program of cartoons, short films and propaganda clips displaying America’s schizophrenic view of terrorism before 9/11. It includes the Cold War US Government film, What You Need to Know About Biological Warfare and Buster Keaton’s Cops.

Obama Technocrat?
Friday June 11, 9pm
Our president has been called a Technocrat. Huh? Technocracy was a social and political movement of the Jazz Age. Modern life had become too complicated for politicians to control—scientists should be in charge. It was laughed off the scene in the thirties. Since then, many Technocracy ideas have moved into the mainstream. One of their ideas was that energy should replace money as coin of the realm. Conserve energy to get rich! Our show goes back to the Zenith and Nadir of the movement: 1933. Titles include: Techno-Cracked, Techno-crazy, The Inventors, The Kid From Borneo, and more.

Battle of the Sexes
Saturday June12, 7pm
A look at the war between men and women in a program of short films and TV ads from 1934 to 1980. Of special interest to anyone who thinks there wasn’t a need for the feminist movement in the sixties.

The Open Road
Sunday June 13, 7pm
What is the myth and reality of America’s long love affair with the automobile? This program contains both and it’s only a ninety-minute ride at 36 feet per minute. The myth includes carefree vacations, the joy of hitchhiking, long haul trucker warriors of the road, carefree bikers on their hogs, leaving the driving to Greyhound and more. The reality includes being busted for drunk driving, becoming one of the tens of thousands a year who die in a horrible wreck, ending up a quadriplegic after a ride on a Harley, and road rage turning a mild mannered milquetoast into a vengeful maniac!

Hobo, You Can’t Ride That Train
Sunday June 13, 9pm
Mr. Nyback rode freight trains around the USA during his college years. This collection of hobo films looks at the reality and myth of hobos and train riding.

Industrial Design and Refrigerator Fetish
Monday June 14, 7pm
This show has been commissioned by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in SF to kick off their Industrial Design show in July. You get it first. An inside look at the beauty of the creation of utilitarian devices. Included is a rhapsodic look at four refrigerators from 1955, silent men in the 1920’s polishing, and polishing, and polishing, some unknowable object, everything you’d ever want to know about the design and production of a pencil, and much more.

Food: Is it for You?
Monday June 14, 9pm
Short films about food. A hit a Mr. Nyback’s Pike Street Cinema in 1993. Even more timely now. Short films about food. Isn’t that of interest to everyone?

Hillbillies in Hollywood
Tuesday June 15, 7pm
Outsider music from the black and white era. Hillbillies, Cowboys, Hawaiian, and unclassifiable musical acts from J. Harold Murray in 1927 to Hank Williams Jr. in 1964. In between wonderful performers singing, dancing, and playing banjos, ukuleles, saws, spoons, harmonicas, washboards, hootenannies, and more. Whoop Di Do!

Behind the Scenes in Hollywood
Tuesday June 15, 9pm
More inside stuff. This time a look behind the camera in Hollywood! From the 1930’s to the 1970’s. Early examples of the first sound cameras, songwriters Mack Gordon and Harry Revel struggling to write a song Lyda Roberti, Daffy Duck trying to get Porky Pig to resign from making cartoons for Leon Schlesinger, secrets of James Bond’s Aston Martin automobile, and much more.

Kill a Commie for Christ
Wednesday June 16, 7pm
Rare government films from the cold war era. Mushroom Clouds! Radioactive Fallout! Dirty Godless Ruskies! America with God on its side! It’s all here. Could it happen again? You be the judge.

Primer on the Ku Klux Klan
Wednesday June 16, 9pm
Since the election of Barack Obama there has been a resurgence of enrollment in, and activity of, the Ku Klux Klan. This program features a jaw dropping CBS Special Report on the Klan from 1965. Back then the Klan was reacting to the landmark Voting Rights Act. The program starts with an Our Gang short from 1923, Lodge Night, in which the Little Rascals form their own club, the Cluck Cluck Clams.

I Know Why You’re Afraid
Thursday June 17, 7pm
A program of educational films that should never have been shown to impressionable children! Included are the darkly hilarious bus safety film, Death Zones (1975), an excerpt from the drivers ed shocker, Mechanized Death (1961) and many more macabre films that do much to explain our culture’s paranoia.

The Mormon Church Explains It All to You
Thursday June 17, 9pm
In the 1950’s the Mormon Church started making educational films. Seen by students throughout the country, they combined excellent film making skill with very unusual ideas. This is the cream of the crop of their prodigious output. A most entertaining program!

You tell me. Is there a better city in which to hold the 54th convention of the AAEC?  Why not come straight to the source, to the state which produced both Homer Davenport and Jack Ohman?

Homer Davenport, born in Silverton in 1867, was the second American editorial cartoonist to win superstar status, after Thomas Nast. Jack Ohman has been picking up the slack since then.

While they are here, I imagine more than a few conventioneers will sneak out of their symposiums to visit the Robert Crumb exhibit at Portland Art Museum. The more scholarly Crumb fans, who realize that Crumb’s Book of Genesis was directly inspired by Basil Wolverton’s Story of Man, should get  special kick out of seeing that work right here, where Basil walked the streets.

Although not an editorial cartoonist, Basil also published in the Oregonian.

Thanks to Mr. Ohman for sending me this alert! We’re making him an honorary member of the Oregon Cartoon Institute.

Mayor Sam Adams has officially declared July 1 – 6, 2010 Walt Curtis Week in Portland, Oregon.

Walt Curtis Week is shaping up to encompass the following events:

July 1: Poetry Reading at Berbati’s

July 2: Performance Art at Dante’s

July 3: Auction in Wonder Basement/Evening Gala in Wonder Ballroom  ( dear puzzled readers — I believe this must have been cancelled – I can find no current information about it )

July 6: Mala Noche (1985) at Cinema 21

Jeff Baker sums it up in the Oregonian

Curtis, who turns 70 on July 4, will be honored at a literary extravaganza July 1 at Berbati’s Pan. Readers and guests will include Oregon’s new poet laureate Paulann Petersen, Tom Spanbauer, Matt Love, Monica Drake and many others. Curtis is the guest of honor. It’s all ages, and admission is $10.

The following night, July 2, there’ll be a birthday party for Curtis at Dante’s. Viva Las Vegas, Leapin’ Louie Lichenstein, Brush Prairie, and other acts will perform. Admission is $10; 21 and over.

On July 6, there’ll be a screening of a prime 35mm print of “Mala Noche” at Cinema 21. The movie is based on Curtis’ novella and was directed by Gus Van Sant.

Thomas Phillipson from the Northwest Film Center has curated an evening of the best short films of the most recent Northwest Film & Video Festival, all in one convenient program.

Tonight, June 3 at 7:00 PM and Sunday, June  6 at  7:00 PM. At the Whitsell Auditorium.

These are the films Shawn Levy raved about:

“Nous Deux” won the Best of Show award from the festival’s judge, Kenneth Turan, film critic of the Los Angeles Times and NPR, and as handsomely deserved as that prize is, more telling, I think, is Turan’s decision to hand out more than a dozen Honorable Mentions, testifying to the notable distribution of filmmaking talent throughout the region.  A mere 36 years into its existence, this festival gives the distinct impression of only beginning to scratch the surface.

Here’s the list of films.

THE MOUSE THAT SOARED by Kyle T. Bell

NOUS DEUX ENCORE by Heather Harlow

THE FANCY by Eric Maxen

NATURE ON ITS COURSE by Su-An Ng

IS THAT ME? by Elijah M. Hasan

EROS by Megan Griffiths

ENDLESS TUNNEL by Tommy Thompson

MISSED ACHES by Joanna Priestley

TROLLS by Brianne Nord-Stewart

122 RANDOM SECONDS by Karl Lind

DAMIAN AND ENDE by Benjamin Schuetze

STICK by Patrick Beechinor, Justin Longoz, and Chris McKinlay

DON’T WORRY IT’S A NEW CENTURY by Jeff Guay

SOMEWHERE by Salise Hughes.

( 90 min )

A Million Movies A Minute just released this international collection of short animated docs.

Erin Donovan, the founder of Portland based AMMAM (A Million Movies A Minute), wears a few other hats. She is also a producer , and keeps a film blog, Steady Diet Of Film.