Book Review - Forgotten Disney: Essays on the Lesser-Known Productions.

 Reviewed by Cord A. Scott, UMGC-Okinawa

Kathy Merlock Jackson, Carl H. Sederholm, and Mark I. West (eds.). Forgotten Disney: Essays on the Lesser-Known Productions.  McFarland Publishing, 2023. $49.95. https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/forgotten-disney/

By the early 21^st century, Disney became a dominant media force in many regards, controlling the rights to Star Wars, the Marvel Comics, Pixar, and the traditional Disney IP, as well as various amusement parks and broadcast stations that span the globe.  While Disney has always had controversial aspects, it has usually been considered a successful and well-run company. But there have also been some lesser-known aspects of collaborations and projects that have not fared as well.  The essays in this book offer an insight into the “House of Mouse” and how it has not always had the “Midas touch.”  As noted in the introduction to the book, the editors pointed out that some of the projects were never meant to last, while others morphed from their original form into something else.  In all, the twenty-two essays offer glimpses into the Disney realm, and are at times, surprising.

The essays cover specific, chronological projects and times in the career of both Walt Disney, as well as the corporation after his passing in 1966.  The first essay focuses on Walt’s last directorial attempt, with The Golden Touch, a 1935 short animated adaptation of the King Midas story.  As with so many fairy tales, this adaptation had promise, but did not have the lasting effect that other original works such as Steamboat Willie had.  The story is a morality tale, much like the reality of wealthy Americans at a time in the 1930s, when most average were suffering from deleterious effects of the Great Depression.  While Disney tried to rail against the elites of America, the overall story simply did not hold the attention of the general public.  The author argues the failure of The Golden Touch served as a lesson learned for Snow White when it was produced later that year.

Other essays discuss not only the attempted adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, but also the works of Frank Baum and the Wizard of Oz series of books.  While the first book was made into short cartoons before the major release of the Disney adaptation in 1951, the idea of the “plausible impossible” was introduced in the 1939 cartoon Thru the Mirror, and the concept became a feature of the Disney films.  For Baum’s Oz, the opportunity came in the late 1950s when Disney was able to purchase the rights to all of the books.  The project never really came to fruition however, but the legacy of how Disney wanted many popular books or fairy tales adapted into his realm was written into the company’s DNA.

Many of the authors write on a now lesser-known aspect of Disney: the live movies, as opposed to the staple animated features which have been associated with the company since the successes of the 1980s.  From the live adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea to the movie Tonka (a Sal Mineo film centered on a horse that was a witness to the battle of the Little Big Horn), the authors look at how these films often carried a far more expansive view of Walt Disney and his approach to storytelling.  Even when the movies are (rightly) criticized for casting Anglo actors in minority roles, the overall theme Disney was trying to attain was that of tolerance. 

With the book arranged in a chronological timeline of the “forgotten” films, and the first half is about the time Walt Disney directly oversaw the creative process in some form or another.  For the last hundred pages, the essays center on the move forward after Walt’s death in 1966.  The book also goes associated spinoff ideas such as Disneyland, Disney World, EPCOT, and overseas ventures. 

Some of the information gleaned from the book was interesting, as seemingly odd for Disney as we know it in the 2020s: collaboration with Salvador Dali on Destino, a movie that was started in the 1940s but not released until 2003; the war films which had a shelf life of World War II, yest still offer insight into propaganda films made by the major studios in an era before television or the internet; association with seemingly ill-fitting Hollywood stars as Bette Davis and Bette Midler; and the adult-themed live-action films produced by a Disney owned and controlled company, Miramax films. 

The book allows the non-Disney expert a look at some of the lesser-known projects and how they served as a “here’s what NOT to do for next time”, such as the case of The Golden Touch or the lesser-known Oz works.  It also links together aspects of Walt Disney’s mindset about a return to values prized in more rural communities, and a connection to farming and nature that was being pushed aside, even by Disney, in areas where theme parks were situated. Disney’s natural and successful progression into comic book publishing was also noted, despite the company’s current disinterest.  The final aspects of the book discuss the preservation of defunct Disney attractions and their appeal to fans. 

One area that is ripe for future discussion is the corporation’s acquisition of Marvel and Star Wars characters and stories, and how that has already altered the entertainment industry, as well as stories Mickey Mouse entering the public domain.  In total, the book offers a revealing look into Disney’s output, and does give a reader a starting point to delve into aspects of their lesser-known projects, which puts their successes into a wider context. 

Curator’s Notes on Icons of American Animation, the exhibition

by Robert Lemieux

During the first quarter of 2022, I was fortunate to curate a popular animation exhibition, Icons of American Animation. The exhibit spoke to the rich history of one of America’s most popular and influential art forms. The artwork spanned the 20^th century, with over 150 pieces from 30 production studios, and emphasized notable characters, films, and animators associated with both film and television. Included within the artwork were 15 Academy Award winners and 20 films listed in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. By all accounts, it was an astounding presentation of the animation art form.

I contend that animation consists of two distinct, yet very connected, art forms. The first art form is the film itself. This is what most viewers relate to, as virtually everyone has a favorite animated film. The film is a stand-alone piece of art that is accepted as art, complete with a broad cultural reach (e.g., film studies, film critics, film festivals, film history, commercial tie-ins).  

The second art form reflects the ‘art behind the art’ and is less obvious to most viewers. This encompasses the production art needed to make the film – storyboards, model sheets, backgrounds, cels, inspirational paintings, etc. On an intuitive level, we know it exists, but it tends to be overshadowed by the final product, the film. Over the past 35 years, production artwork has become more recognized for its artistic value and has become highly sought by collectors. Our exhibit focused on this production art, as it tells the process of creating an animated film during the hand-drawn era that dominated much of the 20^th century.

As a follow-up to the exhibit, IJOCA invited me to submit an article and discuss key aspects. Much of what follows is a ‘show-and-tell’ of the production process with specific examples from the exhibit. 

Before I show-and-tell, I want to share a few logistical and planning points. To start with, consider the exhibit’s title. Titling can be a drawn-out and frustrating task, as we search for the ultimate representation. For this exhibit, there were two keywords in the title – Icons and American. Let us address the latter word first, as it is the easiest of the two to discuss.

The inclusion of the word American was both strategic and respectful. To simply call the exhibit Icons of Animation, which was our initial thought, would have negated the contributions of international animation. That may seem like a simple point, but it was important to us.

Using the word icons was considerably more challenging. As one colleague noted, “If you are bold enough to use the word icons, you are going to need some really good stuff.” Agreed. Thankfully, with a history that runs for more than 100 years, animation offers plenty of iconic contenders. That said, what does it mean to be iconic? More importantly, what 20^th century American animation would you point to as being iconic?

For ease of argument and simplicity of example, let’s assume we all agree Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is iconic. The film has a running time of 83 minutes. If the film adheres to the standard 24 frames per second, that’s more than 110,000 hand-drawn images to choose from! What single image or set of images best represents the icon that is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Is it the witch with the apple? Surely the dwarfs must be in there and, of course, Snow White. The prince? There are so many iconic elements to that film that it becomes a challenge. Keep in mind that the images we select help shape the exhibit’s narrative. So, in a sense, we determine that which is iconic.

Let us look at another example, Lady and the Tramp. Is it an iconic film? That is perhaps more debatable than Snow White. However, what is less debatable is the spaghetti scene, where Lady and Tramp share a plate of spaghetti. There is not a better image to represent the film and, yes, it is iconic. Even if I see the image outside of its context, I know exactly what it pertains to and where it comes from.

One of the biggest challenges we faced was finding animation art, iconic or otherwise. Aside from The Walt Disney Family Museum, which houses primarily Disney art, where do you find anything associated with the likes of UPA, Hanna-Barbera, Jay Ward, Fleischer, MGM, or many of the other studios from the 20^th century? After considerable research, a fellow curator recommended Mr. Mike Glad, a private collector who has what many consider to be the most comprehensive animation collection. Part of Mr. Glad’s collection has been featured in various museum exhibits, both domestic and international. To be frank, the breadth and depth of his collection is astounding, and it was clear he could satisfy our icon theme.

Equally important was that Mr. Glad’s collection could tell the story of the hand-drawn era. The collection consists of an array of production art that represents the various stages of the animation process. The rest of this article presents aspects of that process via selected pieces.

Storyboard

Generally, the production process starts with storyboarding. Presented below is an example from Pinocchio (1940, Walt Disney Studios) that uses colored pencil on paper, and features scene and camera designations. Even with something as simple as a storyboard, we see the quality and detail of the artistic process. (Fig. 1)

Animation Drawing

This example is from Flowers and Trees (1932, Walt Disney Studios), which is the first Academy Award winning animated short. If you are familiar with the film, you know it is a love story, where the hero tree battles a villain tree for the love of the female tree. This piece represents part of the final scene. After vanquishing the villain, the hero proposes with a caterpillar ring. If you look closely, you can see they have lightly sketched how the caterpillar will roll into position. Also present is a small audience of flower characters in the background. As an animation drawing, it features the characters. You will notice there are no background details. When the characters are transferred to the acetate cel, this is how they will look. (Fig. 2)

 

Background

              Presented below are two examples that illustrate the beauty of background images. The first is from Donald’s Ostrich (1937, Walt Disney Studios), which is watercolor on paperboard. This is the opening image of the film, and it is on screen for a mere six seconds, as the camera zooms in to the station platform. You will notice that there are no characters. Placed over the background would have been acetate cels that show the motion of the characters, in this case a cow, a pig, and flying birds, which are also part of the opening shot. As the camera settles on the station platform, the story unfolds, and all the remaining action takes place either on the platform or the station’s interior. Those scenes would involve different backgrounds that reflect close-up and mid-shot camera angles. The point is that this single image, with its beautiful artistic detail, establishes the sense of place. It also speaks to the ‘art behind the art.’ As an aside, it was one of my favorite pieces in the exhibit. (Fig. 3)

The second background image is watercolor on paperboard from Pigs is Pigs (1954, Walt Disney Studios), and it also features a train station. However, this image reflects the impact of modern art on animation, post-World War II. During the exhibit, we placed the two train station images side-by-side to show the changing styles. This image appears at the end of the film and, like the image from Donald’s Ostrich, it is on screen for a mere six seconds. (Fig. 4)

 

Layout Drawing

              This piece from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1936, Walt Disney Studios) is an example of a layout drawing, as it combines the features of an animation drawing and the background. The characters and the background are represented. The dwarfs, as well as the squirrel and rabbit, are moving characters that would be on acetate cels. Everything else would be part of the watercolor background. An incredible amount of artistry for a ‘simple’ layout drawing. (Fig. 5)

 

Inspirational Painting

              How is the mood of a scene established? Many artists create mood boards during the early part of the creative process. Similar to brainstorming, mood boards consist of images that an artist collects, and they help direct the artist in his/her creative process. Inspirational paintings are akin to mood boards and, as the name suggests, they are paintings that help set the look and mood of a scene. This example is from Cinderella (1950, Walt Disney Studios) and is watercolor and gauche on paperboard. Although the final scene may not look exactly like this, the image serves as the model. You get a sense of the mood via the colors, perspective, and shapes. This piece was created by Mary Blair, one of the few notable female animators. (Fig. 6)

 

Model Sheet

              Depicted here is a Lois Lane model sheet from Fleischer Studio’s Superman series in the 1940s. A model sheet provides detailed information about a character. In this example, we see anatomy, proportions, motion, angles, attire, and, in the lower right corner, detailed information about her eyes and mouth. A model sheet helps maintain the character’s consistency, especially if there are multiple artists drawing the same character. Virtually every primary character in an animated film would have an accompanying model sheet. (Fig. 7)

 

Color Model

              A color model is, essentially, an animation drawing with color notations. This image is from Porky’s Duck Hunt (1937, Warner Brothers Studios) and reflects how color is attributed. All the notations indicate the colors to be used, whether for clothing, props, or aspects of the character. In this example, we see BR (brown) for Porky’s jacket, blue-grey for the gun barrel, yellow for Daffy’s feet and bill, and two types of red for Porky’s hat. Like a model sheet, the color model helps maintain the color consistency. (Fig. 8)

 

Cel Setup

              This image is from The Band Concert (1935, Walt Disney Studios), and it represents the totality of the process, with everything in place. All the, somewhat muted, colors are associated with the watercolor background, and all the vibrantly colored characters are on acetate cels. This is the opening scene of the film, and the camera slowly zooms in toward the stage over the course of ten seconds. The impressive part is that all the audience members are in motion, as they cheer and clap. Considering the number of characters in the audience, that’s an extraordinary amount of motion that must be drawn, frame by frame. In short, this is a complex image. Thus, the more complex your design, the more complex it becomes to create the image and motion. (Fig. 9)

 

Music

              The roll of music is pivotal in film, particularly within animation. During the 1930s, many animated shorts consisted solely of music, with no dialogue. Disney’s Silly Symphony series, which numbered 75 short films, relied heavily on the musical score to promote the action. Some of the most notable films in animation history come from that series (e.g., Flowers & Trees (1932), The Skeleton Dance (1929), The Old Mill (1937)). Warner Brothers was also active in creating musical shorts, as they attempted to take advantage of their extensive music library. Many of today’s modern feature-length films have produced notable soundtracks (e.g., The Lion King). In short, music is a key component in the production process.

              The example presented below is a music sheet from Fantasia (1940, Walt Disney Studios), and it speaks to the intricacies of coordinating music to image. You will notice how the French horn and the bugle are emphasized in the musical notation and, most interestingly, how it applies to the scene. Below the musical notation is a watercolor thumbnail image of the scene accompanied by the camera shot notations. In this case, it is an exterior long shot of the castle, with a description of the sorcerer’s action. Most impressive is the thumbnail image, which speaks to the quality of the detail and craftsmanship. There were four Fantasia music sheets in the exhibit. (Fig. 10)

 

As popular as the art form has become, in the early 20th century animation was often viewed as an experimental novelty. The labor-intensive process of creating multiple drawings per second of film time was considered inefficient and costly by film studios. Despite these perceptions, it wasn’t long before like-minded animators joined forces, and the early strands of animation’s DNA began to coalesce into Fleischer Studios, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Brothers, Terrytoons, and Walter Lantz Productions. This hand-drawn energy would usher in animation’s Golden Era, which would extend for 40 years into the 1960s.

Throughout the Golden Era, most animated films were released as shorts, with running times of approximately seven minutes. The shorts were shown prior to a live-action feature film and, on occasion, proved more popular than the feature. In 1937, with the release of Snow White, the animated feature was born, adding to the art form’s popularity. After World War II, new studios began to emerge, such as Hanna-Barbera, Jay Ward, and UPA. In addition to the new material, many older shorts found a second life via a new venue – television. The segue to television in the 1960s also brought about a shift, as the number of features declined and, with the emergence of Saturday morning cartoons, animation became tailored toward children. In the last two decades of the 20th century, the industry rekindled itself with a resurgence of features from Walt Disney, as well as new studios, such as Don Bluth, Pixar, and Dreamworks. Additionally, there was an influx of prime-time animated television shows.

Over the course of the past century, one thing has become clear: The “experimental novelty” has transformed itself into a legitimate art form that continues to animate the imagination.

A version of this essay will appear in print in IJOCA in the fall.

Film Review: Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People by Cesar Cabral

Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People, Cesar Cabral. Coala Filmes, 2021.

Reviewed by Pedro Moura

Bob Spit is an hour-and-half stop-motion animation/feature documentary film directed by Cesar Cabral about Brazilian cartoonist extraordinaire Angeli. The film was awarded Best Feature at the Contrechamp section in the international animation festival of Annecy in 2021, a section which is “dedicated to,” in the words of Variety's Jamie Lang, “emerging talent from around the world and films that lie outside the mainstream.”

As the title reveals, the focus of attention is Bob Spit (originally “Bob Cuspe”), one of Angeli's most known characters from the 1980s. But it also threads the needle through the artist's oeuvre, his creative block, his aging, and a fair degree of nostalgia. This is a non-fiction project mixed with fiction, in which we'll slide through various degrees of remove from a purportedly “real” - stop-motion animation, documentary angles, the diegetic world of the character, historical contextualizations, fantasy, and so on.

Without wanting to rehash the discussion about the feasibility and pertinence of talking about “animated documentaries,” something that has been discussed by people far more informed than me, I believe that Bob Spit will nevertheless become a very good example of such an expanding field. Foremost, for being an exploration of interpretative frameworks larger and more profound that a supposedly “objective” or “journalistic” approach. We literally delve into Angeli's psyche, but in an oblique manner, so instead of having clear-cut decisive conclusions, we are rather invited to keep on thinking about the issues for ourselves.

The film follows two major storylines. On the one hand, we have an interview set in Angeli's apartment, where he clearly answers an interlocutor sitting off camera, discussing his work, career and life, showing archival material, and sometimes accessing third parties that talk about him. Angeli finds himself in a bind, and refuses to be stuck to older glories. So he resorts to recycling a strategy and decides to kill off Bob Spit, as he did before with other characters.

On the other hand, we follow what seems to be a fictive roadtrip adventure. The titular character, Bob Spit, embarks on a journey, crossing a desert-like, post-apocalyptic landscape, in his quest to meet his creator, Angeli. After learning of the cartoonist's plan to kill him – through the “prophecies” of tattered pages of the comics he stars in – Bob vows to take vengeance on his own creator.

We must always bear in mind that when we’re speaking of this whole interview setting, we are referring to a construction. After all, everything is depicted through three-dimensional puppets and backgrounds. The artificiality of the interview is made “natural” by making visible the presence of the filming crew, not only through dialogue but also through metatextual techniques such as video framing, timestamps, and other materiality traces. But if animated documentaries allow us to go well beyond indexicality, some of the less conventional techniques followed by Cabral bring about other issues, that keep us off balance and therefore alert at all times.

For instance, there are momentary “glitches” that allow us to see the actual photographic footage of the interviews Cabral and his crew did with Angeli, which can be seen as the supposed scaffolding of the final animated plane. So the film never leaves us in a continuously comfortable state of watching what unfolds. We are permanently jarred back and forth in these dimensions. According to Annabelle Honess Roe, “the use of animation as a representational strategy broadens the potential of documentary by expanding the range of what can be shown and told” (Animated Documentary). And what is shown and told in Bob Spit goes well beyond the Brazilian cartoonist's take on his own work.

Somewhat like the Quay Brother's Street of Crocodiles, it's as if we have access here to multiple levels of reality and existence – Angeli's “normal life” and Bob Spit's imaginary adventure storyworld –, but we do not have a precise map of how one level relates ontologically to the other. It would be easy to say that the latter is an extension of Angeli's “imagination” or “stories,” but it gets more complicated than that, in a crooked Lynchian logic sort of way. Nevertheless, there is a certain coherence and fluidity to this patchwork, as the director dovetails the artist's life, thoughts and art into a continuous unfolding thread. Mostly, this stems from the overall framing of Angeli's voice taking precedence over the whole narrative. At one point, someone asks Angeli if they can ask him a question. Angeli simply answers, “No.” Not because there are no questions to be asked or no answers to be given, but because we are always already within the discourse that makes up the whole text.

Notwithstanding, the projects allows for a number of shifting points of view. Apart from Angeli's speech, we go into the fictive underworld of Bob Spit, even if his adventure is mostly framed by the Kowalski twins. But, as mentioned above, we also have access to Angeli's wife Carol, fellow cartoonist Laerte (yet another giant from the 1980s, still extremely active today and admired by Angeli) and the ex-editor/taxi driver, which has a few words of choice about the author. Later on, other characters appear, bringing other types of “glitches” into the mix.  

Arnaldo Angeli Filho was born in São Paulo in 1956, and belongs to a generation of self-taught artists who were heavily influenced by the preceding golden age of Brazilian illustrators, comics artists and cartoonists, upholding thus a genuine national tradition, even if mixing it with the most diverse sources of foreign material. In Angeli's case, the influence of Robert Crumb is unmistakable, specifically his ability to come up incessantly fully formed characters, many of which would become recurrent. From the hippie duo Wood & Stock to the sexual deviant Rê Bordosa and, of course, the anti-social yet shrewd commentator Bob Cuspe. 

Most, if not all of these characters were born in the daily strips he created in the early 1980s in the pages of the Folha de S. Paulo, in which he had been working as a very politicized and combative editorial cartoonist since 1973. Around that same era, his interest for comics proper lead him to several editorial projects, thanks to a collection put out by the publishing house Circo, called Chiclete com Banana (“Gum with Banana;” really, I'm not kidding, it's not “of”). Its success was so great that the publishers decided to give Angeli a regular magazine. This also heralded an outstanding number of influential titles presenting a powerhouse new generation of cartoonists, including Laerte and Glauco, with whom Angeli would form an informal trio for years to come.

Chiclete com Banana would feature then a plethora of characters, including the “pervert” variant of the two-kid team trope Skrotinhos to con man/spiritual leader Rhalah Rikhota, both of whom appear in this very same film. But many, many others would be penned by Angeli, all of them hilarious stock characters very much related to the cultural specificities of the city of São Paulo (arguably the cultural capital of Brazil, or at least so “Paulistanos” like to believe).

This is not the first time Angeli is involved with filmmaking. In 2006 Otto Guerra adapted another character-driven strip into Wood & Stock: Sex, Oregano and Rock'n Roll. Cesar Cabral directed first a short based on Rê Bordosa in 2008, and in 2017 launched a television series called Angeli the Killer, in which he adapted many of the cartoonist's stories, brought his characters to life and conducted (and animated in stop-motion) interviews. To a certain extent, Bob Spit, the movie, is an extension of that project. But it is also a simplification, as it attempts to create a more or less linear and organized structuring of its themes, instead of the more loose, hectic and even frantic pace of the tv series. 

Bob Spit brings a visual dynamic that was not extant in the original material: color, three-dimensionality and a certain lightness to it all. We should bear in mind that Angeli's original work was made out of heavy, “scratchy”, “dirty” hatchwork, very typical of a certain underground aesthetics. Coloring, and subdued, murky one at that, would come later. But Cabral's own capability for character design and construction, their dynamic movements, the framing and camera work makes up for a technically solid piece of work. Cabral’s use of an incredible variety of sounds sources, including “classic” Brazilian punk rock anthems of the 80s, creates nonetheless a seamless surface that eases the many transitions between planes and subjects. To watch a stop-motion character drawing on paper is an amazing experience, even if for the briefest of moments.

To be precise, while the main two storylines are depicted through stop animation techniques, there are other interpolated techniques, used as brief transition bumpers (but which sometimes are also used to convey further contextual information). In some of these, the animations made out of the strip's art – basically quickly superimposing several of the strips' panels, but judiciously choosing similar positions of the character— is superb. And these scenes are particularly good precisely because they do not aim to disguise their origins or bring up the idea that “animated cartoons” are better than the original drawn cartoons, but because they leave visually present the variegated materiality of the original newsprint, including within their transition effects.

While Angeli's more recent work is slightly more introspective, sometimes with the cartoonist drawing himself, and engaging, quite often with zen-like adages, his 1980s and 1990s work, from which this movie stems, was quite virulent, frank and adversarial. In a word, punk. But what is at stake in Bob Spit is not simply an adaptation of those stories. Angeli appears in his present age, preferring to stay home, listening to records, working alone and uninterrupted. And Bob Spit himself is not his old self, living in the busy streets of São Paulo. He looks slightly tired, living off the flesh of maimed mutant Elton Johns, unable to spit (his trademark move, and hence his name). The possibility of killing his creator is the only little spark of joy that seems achievable, and even that does not change his demeanor. To put it simply, neither creator nor created character are the personalities that they once were, and that most people remember. There may be a hint of nostalgia in making this documentary, but both Angeli and Bob Spit himself suffer no fools gladly and are willing to disabuse people of their expectations.

 

Another potentiality of the animated documentary underlined by Roe is its capacity to what she calls “pointing inwards,” i.e., the possibility of employing non-mimetic strategies that go beyond issues of verisimilitude and evocative planes that open up to more complex, less directly accessible emotional or inner mental states of the portraitee. In this case, many of the silences, hesitations and half-explored emotions by Angeli gain a body of their own in the imagetic translations.  While the film is not dealing with repressed memories or clear-cut traumas, as is the case of the world-famous case of Ari Folman's 2008 Waltz With Bashir, Bob Spit sometimes hints at the idea that the “road trip level” of Angeli's characters may correspond to a “sub-level” of Angeli's psyche. Angeli speaks (in the film, but also famously elsewhere) of his problems with alcohol, drugs and sexual behavior. After all, the Kowalskis, the Elton Johns and Bob Spit inhabit sewers, underground bunkers and tunnels beneath derelict urban landscapes (even though it’s filled with Easter Eggs, such as the curvy hill of Mara Tara’s thighs). They cross dilapidated and abandoned streets and roads, and when finally Bob emerges into Angeli's world, he seems to comes from below a sofa in which Angeli was sleeping. Were we watching that which Angeli was dreaming? They seem to touch each other briefly, but Angeli awakes. But soon enough, while on the elevator, a scene plays out a wonderfully staged crossing of worlds, as Angeli and Bob Spit finally meet each other. Characters rebelling against their creators is not necessarily new (Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell dates back to 1918), and neither is the clash of the different ontological worlds of creator and created (e.g. Grant Morrison's Animal Man, or even the 2006 Marc Forster's Stranger than Fiction), but there is something strangely satisfactory in watching an old familiar character conquering a different degree of autonomy in relation to both his author and audience, confirming his contrarian, punkish ethos.

 

 

For the people who are knowledgeable about Angeli's work and these characters, the film offers an opportunity to re-engage with, and re-interpret it all with hindsight. Is Bob's punkish verve, the smash-it-all, kicking-against-the-pricks, spit-on attitude still an answer to society's problems? To apathy? To the sure destruction of the world? To the idiocy that surrounds us? Now that we are older, that our backs hurt, and that we don't want to get around much anymore, we may think we don't have the same energy, sure. But deep inside, just as Angeli in the end leans over his window, above the anonymous streets below, and spits, we think to ourselves, as Bob Spit would have said, “Fuck, yeah!

A version of this review will appear in print in IJOCA 23:2.

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Since this material will be unfamiliar to many of our readers, the following is from the movie's press release and a preview is on YouTube :

BOB SPIT - WE DO NOT LIKE PEOPLE is a stop-motion animation that mixes documentary, comedy and road-movie. It tells the story of Bob Spit, an old punk trying to escape from a post-apocalyptic desert that is actually, a purgatory inside the mind of his creator, Angeli, a cartoonist going through a creative crisis.The story is freely inspired by the life and work of one of the most celebrated Brazilian cartoonists of all times, Angeli, who became famous in the 70s by releasing political cartoons in the midst of Brazil’s military dictatorship. In the 80s, he migrated to daily strips, showing an acid sense of humor to represent Brazil’s society, day-to-day life and customs. Angeli had editorial success with his monthly magazine “Chiclete com Banana,” which sold over 120 thousand copies per edition. During his time, the cartoonist has created some of his most famous characters: the bohemian diva Rê Bordosa, the hippie pair Wood & Stock, and the punk Bob Spit.

DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY

Cesar Cabral has a degree in Cinema through the Arts and Communication School - São Paulo University (ECA-USP). He began his career as a stop-motion animator in 1998 and co-founded the animation company Coala Filmes in 2000. He directed the stop-motion short films The Re Bordosa Dossier (2008), which won more than 70 awards in Brazilian and international film festivals, and Storm (2010) selected to many prestigious film festivals all around the world, such as Annecy, Hiroshima, Havana and Sundance. Cesar created and directed 2 seasons of the young adult stopmotion animated series Angeli The Killer, selected to 2018 Annecy Film Festival and broadcasted at Canal Brasil. Bob Spit - We Do Not Like People was awarded best feature at Contrechamp section in Annecy 2021.
 
With the voices of Milhem Cortaz, Paulo Miklos, Grace Gianoukas, André Abujamra, Laerte, Hugo Passolo, Angeli.

MILHEM CORTAZ does Bob Spit’s original voice. One of Brazil’s most exciting actors, he has played parts in films such as “Elite Squad”, “Elite Squad 2”, “Carandiru” and the DGA nominated "A Wolf at the Door." He has also voiced the character in the series “Angeli The Killer”
 
PAULO MIKLOS does the characters’ original voice for THE KOWALSKI BROTHERS, who live in the desert gathering pages of the “Chiclete com Banana” Magazine. When they meet Bob Spit, they encourage him to find Angeli.  A gifted actor and musician, he played in seminal Brazilian rock band “Titãs” and had striking parts in films and TV Series such as “O Invasor”, “Estômago” and “É Proibido Fumar”, “Sessão de Terapia” e “Os Normais.”

ANDRÉ ABUJAMRA does the characters’ original voice  of RHALAH RHIKOTA, a charlatan guru who had his fame and followers in the 80s. He is the mentor of the Kowalski brothers.  A musician, comedian and actor, Abujamra has a long story in Brazil’s pop rock scene. He was the composer of “Carandiru”, and has parts in films and tv shows such as “Estômago” and “A Grande Família”.
 
GRACE GIANOUKAS is Rê Bordosa’s original voice. RÊ is a junkie diva who was the most famous of Angeli’s characters. The cartoonist killed her in the 80s, and since then she is a lingering presence in his life. An actress, director, screenwriter and producer, she had several roles in theatre, TV and cinema. She is currently starring in the TV Globo soap opera “Orgulho e Paixão”.