John Callahan—Author / Cartoonist / Songwriter

July 1951-July 24, 2010 (both Portland, OR)

In grateful memory © 2010

by David Milholland

John Callahan is adopted by a Catholic family in The Dalles, Oregon soon after his birth to a young, unmarried Catholic woman in nearby Portland. Mrs. Callahan, unfruitful to that moment, almost immediately becomes pregnant and soon thereafter turns out a full complement of siblings.

The young Callahan, with his life-long mane of red hair, sets a quick pace for his provincial western community—a mischief maker from an early age. In one of several cartoon features we publish in Clinton St. Quarterly, John is pictured stabbed with a fork, as are all his five siblings, for breaking house rules laid down by their no-nonsense father.

Exaggeration? No, artistic license refined to a high pitch early in his career.

Another CSQ feature captures the recent high school graduate working in the local mental hospital, now Columbia Gorge Community College. John and his late-night-shift colleagues learn all about and experiment with the psychotropic medicines they dose out, administer electro-shock therapy, befriend and befuddle their essentially incarcerated wards.

No wonder that John early on dials into abusive alcohol consumption. This depressing work makes any vision for the future far from appealing. His tales of bravado under the influence, staple yarns of extended adolescence, catch the fancy of his peers stimulating even wilder bacchanals and near-mythic fables.

But this cycle fades away. The true opening of John’s bildungsroman takes place on a Los Angeles freeway off ramp when John and a drunken-driver buddy flip and pile into oblivion. In the cartoon version, before discovering that he’s paralyzed for life, John tells the attending patrolman, “There’s a five-dollar bill in my left shirt pocket, get me a short case.”

Needless to say he keeps drinking with lamentable results, until years later, in Mt. Angel, Oregon, John has an epiphany and puts the bottle aside, for good. The CSQ feature on this entire process “I Think I Was an Alcoholic” is a succinct masterpiece.

I first meet the recently sober Callahan living in public housing just behind the newly constructed Food Front Co-op. I am editing its newsletter. In short order John is turning out canny cartoons featuring “relentless” cheese and unveiling his takes on our culture, which coupled with his rapier wit, launches a syndicated one-panel comic career and the autobiographical features we publish in CSQ. Several books and multiple television series loom on the horizon, but John lives in the here and now, mostly one comic image at a time.

Watching John develop a single cartoon, nearly all produced under looming Willamette Week deadlines [en route to international syndication], is a short course in the creative process. John banters around ideas, plumbs anyone nearby or near a phone for suggestions, and then plays with 2 or 3 possibilities, flipping them around—mentally and verbally—until a punch line emerges. He then clutches a sharpie pen in both hands and begins drawing an image to fit the phrase. Sometimes he hits it on the first round, but more often image and phrase duel a while, with both subject to mutation in the process. Then boom, they fit together like a glove, and he’s off the hook for another week.

John is a relentlessly creative and social human being. He marries the two whenever possible. Though he craves the sun, misty Portland is a perfect petri dish for his talents; a foil for his politically incorrect notions. Callahan craves a gut-roiling laugh, quite frequently at his own expense, but just as frequently against the grain of what many considered reasonable. John’s quadriplegia is both a debilitating handicap and a springboard for insight and expression of what others are experiencing, if not daring to utter.

With John no cow is sacred. Whatever pain we feel, we all self censure, crane around for justification, look for a route off the hook. Callahan’s cartoons stick the fork in and probe disquietude, that “not me Lord” feeling of embarrassment, whether it’s being caught unzipped, in over one’s head, or, for the never-been-embarrassed, in full-tilt hypocrisy.

Rather than pinning politicians to the insect display, to avoid terminal boredom and in his wit and wisdom, Callahan sees fit to examine us all. Whether his subject is a head on a skateboard, a portly woman wearing a muumuu, “Fat” writ large across its surface, or the Pope—they’re all busted. The post-alcohol realist message is—no whining, get over it, and on with it. Over and over the phrase resounds—“how does he get away with it?” The sole response: he just keeps turning it out.

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot (1989) raises his high-profile onto another plain. Soon John is bedeviled with long-distance phone calls, most frequently women drawn to his plight, vulnerability, and profound humor. His phone number changes, and changes again. Not long after its appearance, Robin Williams options the work for a major motion picture. For nearly two decades the possibility looms and then slowly, despite high-profile rewrites by the likes of Gus Van Sant, fades away.

The book appears in Dutch—Man Op Wielen. Perhaps that edition draws filmmaker Simone de Vries to seek out the subject of her biographical Touch me someplace I can feel (2007). The film catches John on both good and bad days, his endless attraction to young women, and his budding career as a singer-songwriter. The camera probes so close to the skin that after the premiere John says in the NW Film Center lobby, “I’m going out for a dermaflage.”

I’ll never forget Callahan’s sly smile, which emerges whenever a beautiful woman passes his way; as he nails a joke—in conversation or on the page; after meeting his hero Bob Dylan backstage at a Portland concert; or following his powerful performance of songs from his CD Purple Winos in the Rain, with Terry Robb, at NW Portland’s Music Millenium, now dark.

Suddenly, on a bright July day, John’s no longer with us.

Or he’s with us forever, in a differently-abled way.

He gives us his all for 30 years as an active artist, and 60 years on the planet.

Today, mere hours after his passing, people remark they saw him days ago wheeling down NW 21^st, or through the Portland State University halls. Callahan just keeps rolling along.

In my vision, John is now striding out, not perhaps in heaven but far from a dark place, his wheelchair ditched forever.

Thanks to Kevin Mullane for inspiration and friendship.

Look for notice of a commemoration event in early August.

Join us in helping put John back on the NW Portland streets soon with a memorial plaque.

Written in an emotional rush July 24, 2010, with a hasty post-midnight pre-hyperspace edit, by David Milholland.

Three months after Hitler invaded Poland, MGM released this anti war cartoon. Director Hugh Harman was nominated for both the 1939 Nobel Peace Prize and an 1940 Oscar. Mel Blanc voices the narrator, Grandpa Squirrel.

I hereby claim Peace On Earth as an Oregon film, on the basis of Mel Blanc’s contribution as voice artist.

“I met a boy named Frank Mills/ On September 12th right here, in front of the Waverly”

October 17, 1967:  The landmark musical Hair opens, with Shelley Plimpton singing the plaintive love ballad “Frank Mills”, about a boy she met at the Waverly Theater in New York’s Greenwich Village.

October 6, 2010: Idiots and Angels opens at the IFC Theater in New York’s Greenwich Village with writer-producer-director Bill Plympton acting as his own distributor.

The connection between these two Plimpton/Plympton debuts?

IFC Theater is “the Waverly “, aka the Waverly Theater, under a new name.

Then:

Now:

Distantly related Shelley Plimpton and Bill Plympton each traveled 3000 miles (from Roseburg, Oregon and from Oregon City, respectively) for their Waverly/IFC dates with destiny.

This strange but true confluence of theater, film and Oregon history is brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute.

Awarding winning media critic Aaron Mesh became an honorary member of the Oregon Cartoon Institute, in our Astute Newspaper Reader category.

It turns out Mr. Peanut was recently in the shop here in Portland, getting his image refurbished.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Aaron’s expert eye noticed the new Mr. Planter spot was made at Laika, and directed by Mark Gustafson, of The Fantastic Mr. Fox fame, and Ringan Ledwidge. Here’s the “making of” doc.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Congratulations, Laikans!

And thanks, Aaron!

This post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute.

Uncle Scrooge and Money stars the super thrifty Scrooge McDuck, and his three nephews Huey, Dewie and Louie. All four are the brainchildren of Carl Barks, the failed-ranch-hand-turned-illustrator-turned-animator who disliked working at Disney Studios and turned his hand to writing and illustrating Disney Comics, a move for which legions of Duckville fans are grateful.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(To be clear: Carl Barks did not draw or write Scrooge McDuck And Money. He just made up the characters and the universe they live in.)

I hereby claim Scrooge McDuck and Money as an Oregon film, based on the creative contribution of Southern Oregonian Carl Barks.

This post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute.

Last year, Oregon was represented at the Oscars by Coraline and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, both films animated by artists trained by Will Vinton, at Will Vinton Studios here in Portland. This year, Bill Plympton decided to keep Oregon animation in the spotlight by making sure his internationally acclaimed, multi-award winning Idiots and Angels was eligible for an Oscar nomination.

Here’s the story in Bill’s own words.

I believed in the film enough to try for an Oscar nomination.

So, without a distribution deal in place, I decided to handle the release myself. Now this isn’t the end of the world, in fact there are some positive aspects of self-release. But let me first list the negative points:

1.     I had to lay out a lot of money for prints and trailers.

2.     I had to hire press agents.

3.     I produced posters and postcards myself.

4.     I called all my press friends begging to get any kind of interview or articles.

5.     I organized street teams of students to canvas the city.

6.     I booked myself in every art school I could think of to give me a Master Class, to make the schools aware of the screening.

However on the positive side, here are the benefits of self-distribution.

1.     The rights to the film remain in  my hands, thus I can control when it’s released how it’s released, and where it shows. And if I want to rerelease it, it’s my decision.

2.     All the money, if there is money, comes directly to me.

3.     I get to control the images and style of the release. I can talk directly to my audience.

Idiots and Angels’ run at the IFC theater in New York, which began Oct.6, now has been extended to Oct. 21.

Congratulations, Bill! For all you Academy members out there, here’s the screening times:

• Wed, Oct 13 at: 1:00 PM, 2:45 PM, 4:40 PM, 6:40 PM,8:40 PM, 10:35 PM
• Thu, Oct 14 at: 1:00 PM, 2:45 PM, 4:40 PM, 6:40 PM,8:40 PM, 10:35 PM
• Fri, Oct 15 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Sat, Oct 16 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Sun, Oct 17 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Mon, Oct 18 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Tue, Oct 19 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Wed, Oct 20 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM
• Thu, Oct 21 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM

The IFC Theater is at 323 Sixth Avenue, Greenwich Village, New York. Yes! You are correct. It  is located on the site of the historic Waverly Theater, just off the southwest corner of Washington Park.

Q: What is Bill Plympton’s Idiots and Angels about?

A: New York Magazine sez: In the animation icon’s ambitious, hilariously demented moral fantasy, a selfish businessman discovers angel wings growing out of his back and finds his crass impulses suddenly at odds with a newfound, unwelcome desire to do good.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This post brought to you by the good people at Oregon Cartoon Institute.

From an interview with Al Jean, an executive producer for The Simpsons.

Q.Were you concerned that what he ( Banksy) sent you could get the show into hot water?

A: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it for a little bit. Certainly, Fox has been very gracious about us biting the hand that feeds us, but I showed it to Matt Groening, and he said, no, we should go for it and try to do it pretty much as close as we can to his original intention. So we did. Like we always do, every show is submitted to broadcast standards, and they had a couple of [changes] which I agreed with, for taste. But 95 percent of it is just the way he wanted.

This post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute, the Matt Groening Fan Club sub-chapter.

Caricature by Martinus Van Tee

Myth #1. Mel Blanc graduated from Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon.

False! Lincoln High School has no record that Melvin Jerome Blanc ever graduated. He did attend.

Myth #2. Mel Blanc moved to Los Angeles in order to become a voice artist.

False! Mel Blanc already was a voice artist when he arrived in Los Angeles. His first professional gig was here in Portland, on KGW radio, in 1927.

Myth #3. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig formed the center of Mel Blanc’s professional universe.

False! Mel Blanc’s first love was radio, and he worked steadily in radio throughout his entire life.

Myth #4. Mel Blanc’s phenomenal talent was a freak of nature.

False! Mel Blanc worked hard to develop his talent. He conducted two parallel careers in Portland from 1927 to 1935: he was both a musician and  a radio performer. As a musician, he had front row seats (in the orchestra pit) to study the comic delivery of the nation’s top vaudeville comics, a group which included Jack Benny, with whom he would eventually work. As a radio performer, he spent 6 years on a nationally syndicated one hour weekly show at Portland’s KGW, and two years on his own daily one hour show – which he wrote, produced, and starred in – on Portland’s KEX. He was eight years into a show business career when he moved to Los Angeles.

Myth #5. Matt Groening, Oregon’s other animation supernova (who did graduate from Lincoln High School), idolizes Mel Blanc.

Not sure! Matt Groening has gone on record stating that Bill Plympton is God.

Here’s Mel Blanc himself, in a clip introduced by Dennis Nyback. Mel appears at 2:55.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This post brought to you by the Oregon Cartoon Institute in honor of Bugs Bunny’s 70th birthday.

To the Editor,

In today’s Sunday New York Times, Dan Barry describes the voice of Bugs Bunny as one of “those many distinctive voices channeled by Mel Blanc” and correctly identifies Bugs’ accent as a “Brooklyn-Bronx blend”.

Just for the record, Mel Blanc grew up in Portland, Oregon.  He developed his amazing vocal chops doing voices on Portland radio starting in 1927.   When he made the leap from Portland to Hollywood, he arrived a fully formed voice artist.  It is a tribute to Mel Blanc’s craft and talent, and one might add genius, that the world thinks Bugs grew up in Flatbush.

Sincerely,

Dennis Nyback

This post brought to you by Oregon Cartoon Institute, your source for Oregon animation and cartooning history since 2007.

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.