Osteo Porosis

I've read some criticism online of this book that splits between calling it a classic and deeming it overrated. IIIIIIII'm gonna side with the latter camp.

I just found the philosophical stuff overreaching and pseudo-...It just wasn't convincing. And the characters too dry and talky and are unfortunately not all that interesting. (Maybe this cartoonist is just not a writer). And the very ending was confusing. Not confusing in that I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say, but confusing in its execution. Even though the action and art is very clear, it's hard to figure out whether the ending is literal or metaphorical and so it took some of the bite out of it for me. Something was not working for me.

It's definitely ambitious and it has some charms (on a personal note, I enjoyed the fact that a chunk of the book took place in Ithaca, NY, with the inferred unnamed university being my alma mater, Cornell....since the professorial character was an architect, it was obvious from the buildings that the cartoonist went to Cornell's campus and incorporated the very art and architecture buildings that comprised my college at the university)....

.....but overall I found this book kind of glib, including the designs, as if it were longing to be one of the animated shorts from the '60s, part Norman Juster/MGM joint, part UPA cartoon. It's not that the character designs are bad. They just didn't appeal to me. Kind of chilly. Didn't dig it, brother.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed my sensitive thoughts on this book. A very mixed review from me. On a technical level, this is a handsome, well-drawn art comic, and I'm glad that cartoonists who made their name on superhero stuff are breaking away from it and going for something totally different.

But we're getting to the point where there's enough quality non-superhero graphic novels out there that we can take some of this stuff for granted. So I elect to not recommend this one. Especially with a new book by Gilbert Hernandez out and that Johnny Cash graphic novel to investigate.....

The Face of Pure Anticipation and Excitement!

The Face of Pure Anticipation and Excitement!

Archie Andrews, The Duke of Riverdale

Archie Comics are not that funny but Archie as fine art is HI-LARIOUS! I can't wait to see a sculpture of Moose as The Thinker. Or how about Da Vinci's painting, "The Veronica Lisa?" The sad note will be the Van Jughead self-portrait with crown hat but minus an ear.

And in related news......

IT'S FRIDAY! Here's Your Weekly Comic: GREENBLATT THE GREAT!

Happy 50th, Rocky & Bullwinkle!

Fifty years ago yesterday, November 19, 1959, TV animation king Jay Ward's "Rocky and his Friends" debuted on TV.

Even though Ward had a show or two before it, Rocky & Bullwinkle really caught on and it ushered in the age of TV cartoons; a precursor to Hanna-Barbara. Not to mention it was the hippest cartoon on Earth--loaded with in-jokes and made charming by bare-bones limited animation--and its writers went on to script stuff like "Mary Tyler Moore." Basically, stuff aimed at adults disguised as children's entertainment. The closest equivalent these days might be "SpongeBob SquarePants."

There's an article from a Midwest newspaper here in which they interview Ward's daughter, Tiffany, and reveal at the end that DreamWorks is planning a Sherman & Peabody feature cartoon for 2012 (good luck trying to do justice to that one....). And here's a decently drawn Rocky & Bullwinkle comic book that some nerd posted up in honor of the anniversary.



Ward's wit is sorely missed in today's TV cartoons, which are mostly poorly designed images synchronized to prerecorded shouting matches.

Look, I hate to be such a cynic, but it's hard to find clever cartoons on TV. But when it works, I'm the first one to shout about that. Past posts here have raved about "Batman: Brave & the Bold" and I don't doubt that there aren't more toons on the level of "SpongeBob." But Saturday morning cartoons are so junky these days, I can't get my Cap'n Crunch on watching 'em. I usually channel surf between the televangelists and infomercials, watch two minutes of City Council channel, and give up. Saturday mornings really suck.

I'm sorry if this is the most humorless, serious and dire post I've ever posted in the 25 years I've been running the CARTOON FLOPHOUSE blog (it's too bad Ward isn't around to write it). But you'd be miserable too if you had to eat your Honey Nut Cheerios while channel-surfing. It might create ulcers.

Boats missed: Bruce Campbell, Dynamo? Bruce Campbell, The Spirit? Bruce Campbell, Plastic Man?

Here's a photo of ARMY OF DARKNESS star BRUCE CAMPBELL looking Plastic Man-ish....



My BACK ISSUE! brudda, JERRY BOYD, and I were having a discussion. Jerry thinks prime Briscoe County-era Bruce Campbell should've played Dynamo in a T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS movie. Ol' Len Brown....



I countered that I always thought '90s Campbell should've played The Spirit. He would've made a mean Denny Colt. I also thought Jim Carrey could rock a Plastic Man movie - that's a role he was born to play. But according to the photo above, maybe Bruce Campbell could play him, too. He was kind of rubberfaced, after all, in ARMY OF DARKNESS.





Oh, well, the moment's passed, and none of those movies happened. Not even THE SPIRIT movie...that never happened....right?