Remembrance of Giannalberto Bendazzi (1946-2021)

 Remembrance of Giannalberto Bendazzi (1946-2021)

 by 

John A. Lent

 

I first met Giannalberto Bendazzi when I picked him up at the Philadelphia International Airport, April 8, 2002, but I knew of his contributions to animation studies for years. He was staying at my home for a few days. On the drive to my house, Giannalberto began talking about his wife. I chimed in about mine, just having been divorced--a second time, no less. Then, out of nowhere, Bendazzi tells me he takes his wife to the beach every week. Things can’t be that bad if he does that. Not so, he snapped back; he took her there hoping the sharks would get her. A sample of the dark humor he was capable of.

For the next few days, we talked about everything--of course, animation, a book he invited me to co-edit, our Italianness, and, of course, his wife. We spent a day in New York City with Oscar-winning animator and professor John Canemaker and others, had a potluck dinner at my house with Temple University colleagues and graduate students interested in animation, and visited the nearby Brandywine Museum and its Wyeth family collections. Bendazzi also lectured on animator Alexandre Alexeieff to a large class of film students at Temple University after which he described as a listless bunch.

About a month later, we met again at Penn Station in Manhattan. Bendazzi wanted to fill me in on a huge book project he was planning with mutual friend, Keith Bradbury of Australia. They had invited me to join them in co-editing a 16-volume, tentatively titled, Understanding Animation:  An Anthology of Documents and Sources. Indiana University Press showed a keen interest in publishing the books to be extended over ten years. As far as I know, the project did not come to fruition; Giannalberto wrote us in April 2003, saying he wanted to put it on the “back burner.” Keith suggested that he and I continue, but this did not materialize either. I think Bendazzi wanted time to continue where his 1994 groundbreaking Cartoons left off, organizing what was to be the three-volume Animation:  A World History. He asked me to write the sections on Taiwan and India, and coordinate with the collaboration of Hassan Muthalib, the Southeast Asia part, including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Animation:  A World History hit snags along an eight-year journey, about which Bendazzi lamented to me. John Libbey Publishing was commissioned to bring out the volumes, but needed a co-publisher for an American edition. Multiple publishers, including Indiana University Press and University of California Press, rejected the proposition, complaining the book was too large. Focal Press, affiliated with Taylor & Francis, eventually published the nearly 1,100 pages in three volumes in 2016.

I saw Giannalberto twice more, when we had dinner at the Milan airport Oct. 24, 2002, during a layover I had enroute to Lviv and at a comics and animation conference in Jilin, China, in September 2006. We kept up a correspondence at our lazy paces; his emails were personal at times, philosophical some times, sad and happy, humble and proud, but usually, peppered with some sarcasm and much wit. When I sent him a review I wrote of his work, he replied:  “I received the review, made three somersaults and sent it to my publisher. We have a very well-coordinated opinion of each other:  I tell him he is an idiot, and he behaves so” (May 22, 2017). On one occasion, he labeled his publishers “slow as a snail,” another publisher as “the worst bunch of screw-ups on the planet,” and bemoaned the “geological times” of another publisher.

He could also tangle up emotions as in this Sept. 18, 2014 email:

 

you bet that I will come to see you!

After the publication of the book, I will be travelling around to present it, and get some rewarding appraisal. Actually, I don’t give anything for appraisal=vanity. Appraisal is a substitute for love. I wrote all my books in order to demonstrate that I am honest, intelligent, in other words, worth [sic] to be loved.

Mine was a lifelong search for this thing, but I didn’t succeed.

I’m 68 and I’m alone.

I have no complaints:  I did my best, with sincerity.

I’m deeply devoted to animation, for its qualities but also because it is underloved. So I do my best to promote it and enrich the number of its loving specialists.

I always felt at home with animators from every country of the world because in general, they are sensitive, kindhearted, altruistic.

In other words, loving and lovable people.

Thank you for listening. I realize that this confession is almost embarrassing…

Your faithful,

Giannalberto

 

Giannalberto was always humbly thankful. When, on June 22, 2019, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universidade Lusόfona of Lisbon, that he said was “the first that an animation scholar ever received,” he sent many of us a note saying,

 

I thank all of you for the affection and teaching you have given me, in many ways, over many years of career. This result would not have been possible without you. I hope (I believe) that this is one more step in the ascent towards a generalized conception of animation as an art.

Thank you, Giannalberto (June 26, 2019)

 

That was Giannalberto Bendazzi as a human being:  kind, frank, intelligent, and accommodating. He usually called me a friend which I was appreciative of and honored by.

As for Giannalberto Bendazzi as a scholar, his accomplishments provide the answer. That he was a pioneer in animation studies and one of the field’s most outstanding representatives and promoters is undisputable. He took the route to a career in animation as so many of us have--via training and employment in other disciplines; his was law, which he studied but never practiced. Instead, he became a film critic and in the 1970s, began easing his way into animation, especially its history, a virgin topic outside of coverage of Disney, Fleischer, and other U.S. studios.

Giannalberto wrote books, monographs, and articles on various animators, such as Quirino Cristiani, Italian-born Argentine who created the world’s first animated feature, Osvaldo Cavandoli, Bruno Bozzetto, Alexandre Alexeieff, and others, as well as his best-known compilations, Cartoons:  One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation and Animation:  A World History. He held teaching stints at Università degli Studi di Milano (2002-2009), Nanyang Technological University of Singapore (2013-2015), and Griffith University in Australia; lectured and presented papers in Italy, U.S., China, Singapore, and elsewhere, and co-founded ASIFA-Italy (1982) and Society for Animation Studies (1987).

His death, at age 75, on Dec. 13, 2021, left a huge void in the profession of animation studies and in the hearts of those of us who had the privilege of knowing him, that will be difficult to fill.

Exhibit Review: Moomin Animations – Thrills and Cuddles

Moomin Animations – Thrills and Cuddles, Minna Honkasalo. Washington D.C.: National Children’s Museum on September 3, 2021-January 9, 2022. https://nationalchildrensmuseum.org/

 reviewed by Mike Rhode

In 1945, Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson created her Mumintrolls for a children's book. The Moomins look like hippos crossed with the Pillsbury doughboy, but have proved popular enough to make her the Scandinavian equivalent of Walt Disney. She eventually wrote or drew 9 books about them. In 1947 she started a comic strip with the characters, which started appearing in English in 1954. Her brother Lars Jannson joined her on the strip from 1959-1961 and then he took the strip over until 1975 when it ended. Reprints have been published by Canada's Drawn & Quarterly. There have been multiple animated versions of her characters, and that is what this exhibit focused on.

The NCM has had some rough years, closing off and on while searching for new locations. In 2020, it finally wound up just off Pennsylvania Ave, NW in a plaza behind the Reagan building. They had to shut again almost immediately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but reopened in September 2021 with the Moomin exhibit among others, and are aiming for an attendance of a half million people per year. Note that you have to visit with a child; unaccompanied visitors need to make an appointment, and throughout my tour of the exhibit, I was accompanied by a staff member. The museum is actually largely underground; one enters at ground level and then moves downward through an unfinished concrete warren. The guide is probably necessary for more than the main reason.

The Embassy of Finland has brought over a version of Honkasalo's original exhibit from the Moomin Museum that is completely composed of reproductions. It has several sections - a wall on Jansson's life, stills from various animations, 4 screens showing cartoons, and several activity areas for children. An average American viewer might have no knowledge about the Moomins, in spite of the fact that there have been so many adaptations. This exhibit focuses on animated versions and includes episodes from 1959 (West Germany), 1969 (Japan), 1977 (Poland), 1990 (Japan). Obviously, none of these would be particularly easy for an Anglophone to find, but the 1969 one in particular was surpressed by Jansson, as noted in the exhibit catalog - "She felt that Momin was too far removed from her stories' world and atmosphere. Elements foreign to Moominvalley had been inserted into the tales, including cars, money and weapons. For example, a few episodes show Snork driving around in a car, Moomintroll makes money by busking, and weapons feature in several episodes." "She did not want them to reach international distribution, so they have never been broadcast outside Japan. Today, they are hard to find even in Japan, on account of complicated copyright issues connected with the [1900s series]." The exhibit catalog is unfortunately not available, except for a few copies lying in the exhibit, but I recommend it highly if you can find it.

Jansson has been the focus of recent attention including a documentary, two biographies, and an edition of her letters. The wall on her life is written for children, but includes the basics necessary to have an idea about her as a person and as a creator. To the exhibit's credit, the segment on her life does not shy away from her love of another woman, even though it was socially unacceptable at the time. "A soul mate. Amid the hustle and buslte, Tove meets Tuulikki, the woman who will become her life partner for the rest of her life..." reads part of the panel.

The wall of stills would probably have been of more interest in the original exhibit, as it apparently included some actual artwork by her. Here, understandably, it's all reproductions and screen captures. A fan of the characters might be interested in seeing how they evolved in different animations. There are also some areas for children to draw, hang things on a tree, or take a picture with cardboard standups. There is also a small selection of gifts in the giftshop. Also of interest from a cartoon perspective are a STEAM-centric exhibits about creating animations featuring SpongeBob and his cast, and another on Paw Patrol.

All the images, except for "Exhibition space 4" and "Tove Jansson," are courtesy of the Embassy of Finland in Washington, D.C. The two are courtesy of the NCM. The exhibit catalog cover is taken from the copy the staff gave to me. A version of this review also appeared on the ComicsDC blog. My photographs can be seen here.

 

Book Review: A History of Women Cartoonists by Mira Falardeau

 A History of Women Cartoonists. Mira Falardeau. Oakville: Mosaic Press, 2020. 298 pp. ISBN 9781771613514. $24.99. http://www.mosaic-press.com/product/history-women-cartoonists/

 reviewed by Jean Sébastien, Professeur, Collège de Maisonneuve

Working in comics, cartooning, or animation was for a long time perceived as man’s work and this is slow in changing. In A History of Women Cartoonists, Mira Falardeau envisions how we can turn the tide. The title of the book shows that one of the ways in which change can be brought is by including more works by women in the canon and to do this by valuing work published by women from the early 20^th century up to the most current day. Even if the book is largely a history of women artists, the last chapters have a different tone.; they act as a call to action in order to get things to change!

In this book, Falardeau gives an overview of the work of creators from the United States, from English Canada and Quebec, from France, Belgium and Switzerland and from the Middle East and the Maghreb. The main portion of her book is structured according to these four regional cut-outs. In her general introduction, she acknowledges that her book, thus, limits itself to only a part of the world’s production by women artists. Such a project, by its very nature, can be celebratory, but deciding who should be included can always become an issue. Falardeau has chosen to reference a larger number of artists in the introductions she writes for each of the four sections that constitute the main content of the book. For example, in her section on the United States she refers briefly to some 60 authors; out of this number, Falardeau selected 15 for whom she has written a more detailed biography, while describing that author’s most important works.

Falardeau’s book is designed to bring forth the similarities in the obstacles that women are faced with, whether in cartooning, comics or animation. In her introduction, she makes a point of noting that these three mediums share elements of a common language. In animation as in comics, women have been less recognized than men and Falardeau’s book works to tilt the balance. This is especially important, for instance, if one is to have a proper historical view of the animation that came out in 1930-1960 period: among the women animators portrayed are two pioneers: American Mary Ellen Bute and Canadian Evelyn Lambart.

A most interesting aspect of the book is its comparative nature. If the section about the United States will not bring any new names to the attention of those who have read Trina Robbins and Catherine Yronwode’s Women and the Comics, or Trina Robbins’ follow-up works, including her more recent Pretty in Ink. Falardeau does a great job in comparing the general economic context and the prevalence of misogyny at different times in the four contexts that she has chosen to look at. For instance, Falardeau links the relative openness to women in newspaper illustration in the United States to the fact that America developed early on a very dynamic illustrated press and that the sheer number of positions opened some of them up to women. She notes that this was not the case in Canada, either English or French, where she finds that women only began to have a presence as major newspapers added women’s pages and children’s pages to their pages from the 1940’s on. In France, there were numerous girls’ magazines in the early 20^th century. However, very few illustrations in such publications were attributed, and even if it is likely that there were women illustrators, most worked in anonymity. Falardeau’s section on the Middle East and the Maghreb is the shortest of the four and she touches very lightly on the political situations in different countries only to point out that, if some women have found it easier to create as expatriates, others became professional illustrators  to work in their home country. Through this comparison of the history of the press, Falardeau compares feminisms within different national contexts finding more advances for women in the United States.

“Should we link this abundant production to freedom of expression generated, on the one side, by a fundamental tradition and on the other, by successive waves of immigration providing the most innovative ideas of feminist thought? Ultimately, the United States were at the forefront of comic’s innovations while the other countries remained a little more conservative.” (p. 154)

Falardeau also points to the differences as to how second-wave feminism entered comics. Whereas in the U. S., this was mostly in comic book form through counterculture publishers, in France, it was the publishers of the science-fiction magazine Métal hurlant who thought that there was a market for a feminist publication in the world of bande dessinée and developed Ah! Nana a quarterly that came out from 1976 to 1978. The title roughly translates to Hey! Gal, but is homonymous with the French word for “pineapple.” In the section about Quebec, Falardeau briefly situates herself in this. As women’s magazines were taking on feminism, one of them asked her to create a strip which she did for from 1976 to 1978. A few years later (1981-1987), Falardeau joined a specifically feminist monthly, La Vie en rose, covered political and social issues; it gave humor and cartooning an important place.

The small press movement of the early nineties embraced autobiography as an important genre in which quite a few women creators of the period found their niche. Falardeau points to the fact that there already was an important autobiographical strand in the work of many women artists before that and refers to Mary Fleener’s comics in the underground movement, Lynda Barry’s early work in alternative weeklies and Lynn Johnston’s syndicated strip For Better or Worse. Even if there have been some opportunities for women in the past decades, feminist criticism has highlighted the slowness in openings within the mainstream. For those who remember Robbins’ criticism of the closed doors for women at Marvel and DC in her 2001 book The Great Women Cartoonists (to which Falardeau refers), there is a sad resonance to be found in more recent criticisms in France against the Angouleme International Festival which has granted its Grand Prize to only three women since it was founded in 1974. One of the festival’s attempt to correct the situation was miserably sexist; in 2007, the festival had come under heavy fire for having named an event “the brothel”, “La maison close.” In 2016, a collective of women authors called for a boycott because that year there were no women at all in the list of thirty author candidates for the Grand Prize.

In accounting for current production by women, Falardeau takes into account the rise of webcomics. She duly notes issues that come with self-publication on the web, especially that of needing to monetize one’s work, and the fact that, especially for younger artists, webcomics have served as a springboard to get attention from traditional publishers. Here she brings to attention a few artists in each of the four geographical groupings she highlighted. Her book is a who’s who in this new medium, from Meredith Gran and her comedic Octopus Pie to the tidal wave of blogs in France (many of them by women in the early years of this century), to the more recent political use of Facebook posts by Nadia Khiari in which she drew, Willis from Tunis, a cat who commented about the Arab Spring.

Even if Falardeau’s book is mainly designed as a canon-making work, she has found it important to show how empowerment of women cartoonists has been possible over time. In a chapter titled “Three Examples of Positive Action,” she opens with a short history of the New Yorker magazine. Its liberal founders, Harold Ross and Jane Grant published a great number of women illustrators. Her brief overview of the less-than-great record of the magazine in the ‘50s and ‘60s in its openness to women is meant to show that there needs to be an awareness about patriarchy’s hold on the workplace, and on certain types of work at the decision-making level, if change is to be attained. She makes this even more clear with her next example. The National Film Board of Canada developed structures in the early 1980s that encouraged the development of a women’s cinema. However, it was only in 2016 that the organization gave itself the goal of getting to 50% of its productions directed by women. Political cartooning still is, by and large, a line of work in which the number of men is disproportionate.  The organization Cartooning for Peace, founded in 2006, has chosen to value the membership of women cartoonists in many of its activities.

A History of Women Cartoonists translates and updates Falardeau’s 2014 Femmes et humour published by the Presses de l’université Laval. In each of the contextual pieces that precede the portrayals, Falardeau added a new paragraph or two. Among the additions in the section discussing the United States are Lisa Hanawalt and Eleanor Davis. In the section about Canada, she features Emily Carroll’s innovative work with webcomics. The call to boycott the Angouleme festival in 2016 is one of the new additions in the contextual text about France. In the case of artists from the Arab world, she added references to a few political cartoonists, among them Samira Saeed and Menekse Cam. However, the editorial work on the book by Mosaic Press is subpar. There are words in which a letter is missing. Some names have not been checked. For instance, when referring to French academic Judith Stora-Sandor, her name is properly spelled on page 22, but misspelled twice on page 246 as Stora-Standor and Stora-Stantor.

Falardeau concludes her book by taking on a certain number of issues. For instance, in cartooning, how can a character be designed to represent humans in general? She notes that the use of characters identifiable as women will lead to an interpretation of the drawing as referring to women specifically. Can the universality of a situation only be represented by the inclusion of male characters? Then there is the issue of caricature --in exaggerating characteristics, one runs the risk of encouraging stereotypes. The situation is not much better in the work of academics who analyze the work of women, where the cliché is noting the ‘sensitivity’ of the work of a woman author. Falardeau closes this short chapter by noting “the obvious link […] between humor and power, and consequently, the difficulty for women […] to achieve recognition for themselves in the world of humour” (p. 247). Destroying stereotypes takes time. “This is the task that feminist women cartoonists have given to themselves. But which stereotypes? Those held by men? The way that they see women? Or the opposite? The way women see themselves?” (p. 258) The last words in her conclusion come as an answer: “Women cartoonists need to create their own mythology.” (p. 269)

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

Book Review - Pearl Jam: Art of Do the Evolution

 

Pearson, Rob. Pearl Jam: Art of Do the Evolution. San Diego: IDW Publishing, 2020.  158 pp. US $39.99 ISBN 978-1-63140-741-3

Reviewed by Cord A. Scott, UMGC-Korea

Media often influence other forms of entertainment in unexpected ways.  People get ideas from one kind, such as film, and after a creation of something monumental may influence other media, such as music videos.  If something is truly effective, it will evoke both homages as well as parodies.  An animated video was produced to accompany the Pearl Jam song “Do the Evolution” from the album Yield, and its impact has been long lasting.  It was the creative process for the video, and its later influence, that is the subject of the book The Art of Do the Evolution published by IDW Publishing (which was reviewed as an incomplete advance copy).

Pearson’s chapters go into the creative process, as well as the production of the video, and finally the editing and resulting corporate censorship process. He also uses production notes, and interviews with the principle players to show the overall impact of the video. 

The song was inspired by the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The premise of the story was a discussion of humanity between a man and an ape named Ishmael, with the ape serving as a Socrates-like figure who notes that humanity has developed along two different tracks: the Leavers, who live closer to nature, and the Takers, who are slowly destroying everything through their own greed.  These story points in Ishmael also figured into the animated music video. 

One of the more interesting aspects of Pearson’s book was his look at how the video came about.  Eddie Vedder wrote the song, but also edited his own homemade video of the song by using the images from Todd McFarlane’s animated adaptation of the comic book Spawn.  This series, which ran on HBO, was far darker and more violent than a standard cartoon and Vedder liked the raw intensity of combining the images and the song. This rough video became the base from which the creative process of the finished video began.

When the video first aired in September of 1998, it was a sensation for a variety of reasons. Simply put, it was called “A four-minute history of mankind for stoners.” (p. 137) While the video may have appeared as a forceful depiction of evolution, the imagery was far more nuanced if one scrutinized it. The video is already striking, but there are even more details when one looks closely into it and this book allows that.

As a continuing theme of the book, the artwork executed under the guidance of Epoch Studios was also a change from the norm.  One aspect of this change was the mixing of animation styles. Jim Mitchell trained in the Disney studio style. Brad Coombs was from the intermediary realm of Tim Burton-style animation, which used both traditional drawings as well as stop-action models. The Japanese animation of Hiyao Miyazaki, as well as the overall style of Japanese and Korean anime, influenced Kalvin Lee, who was the final part of the creative team.  These artists all merged their talents into the production process. By utilizing a series of styles from all the forms, and by using other short cuts, they were able to meet their twelve-week deadline from concept to broadcast.

A substantial part of the book centers on the sketches of the storyboards and how these initial images developed into the final product.  These creative decisions also influenced the development of the video, through the character of the “death girl.”  This character was inspired by the character “Death” from Neil Gaiman’s comic book Sandman, as well as Spawn’s wife in the HBO cartoon.

What was of far more interest to me was how the various forces, such as MTV or the Sony record label wanted alterations of the images.  While some symbols were changed, such as the swastikas from the Nazi soldiers, or the American markings on a strafing aircraft, other images were found to be too disturbing and were therefore removed completely.  The most significant of these was the image of barbarians destroying a bust of a Roman leader. 

What remained even after the corporate censors went through the video was both surprising and curious.  Much of the discussion between the creators centered on the “trailer trash man” watching acts of sexual violence in a virtual reality mode.  As he watches the violence, he squeezes his beer, simulating sexual release.  That this sequence remained in was rather surprising to the creative staff.  The other moment was at the very end, where the screen went black and all that was heard was a cricket chirping.  MTV had a policy of never allowing black screens, but it remained. This simple ending acts to recall the cycle of life. 

The video has had an impact on both the music video industry while also inspiring a wide variety of imitations and admirers.  The animators of the Simpsons took the video and turned it into one of their opening sequence gags with a similar, toned-down version of the song to accompany it. 

Overall, the strength of the book is that it shows how the creative process was an interactive one, especially at a time when the industry was still “evolving” (pun intended).  At the same time, it also demonstrated how Eddie Vedder was far more creative, and knowledgeable, of the video editing process than many may assume.  His singular vision and final cut control were also factors that ensured the desired outcome.

While the book was interesting, there were some issues such as some of the stories being repetitive. Granted, they were from the different creators involved, but tighter editing would have helped. For me, the same issue was the use of storyboards and sketches which were interesting, but redundant after a while. Too many of them seemed repetitive.

In all, the intersection of so many media and influences (music, videos to accompany music, comic books, cartoons, etc.) shows how the process of this short film is itself a type of evolution.  Ultimately, that is a hopeful idea of humanity, as well as the goal of Vedder and all those involved in the creative process.

ANIMA: The Brussels Animation Film Festival 2020

The annual Brussels Animation Film Festival, officially known as ANIMA, takes place this year over the last two weekends of February, timed perfectly with the Carnival school holidays. Offering a wide range of national and international all-ages programming, ANIMA will screen 300 films over 10 days at the Flagey Cultural Centre and the Palace movie theatre. The festival also devotes a bulk of its resources to engaging with young children through interactive installations, exhibitions and animation workshops. This appeal toward pre-school and elementary school kids is telegraphed by the poster for this year’s festival which features a cameo by Petit Poilu, the popular character of a BD series of pantomime comics drawn by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Bailly.

The poster for ANIMA 2020 by Pierre Bailly. Petit Poilu is the character in the left-center of the seated audience with the black face and red nose.

The opening event for ANIMA 2020 was the screening of L’extraordinaire voyage de Marona, which had debuted at several animation festivals at the end of 2019 but was now making its Belgian premiere.

The most striking aspect of the film from a comics perspective is the aesthetic of the animation itself. Belgian comics artist Brecht Evens served as the graphic consultant for the film, responsible for establishing the visual style and character design. Both Brecht Evens and director Anca Damian were present at the opening event to present their collaboration.

Director Anca Damian (centre) and Brecht Evens (right) at the ANIMA kickoff event. Photo by Nick Nguyen.

Director Anca Damian (right) and Brecht Evens (centre) at the ANIMA kickoff event. Photo by Nick Nguyen.

Brecht Evens spoke about how he was brought on board the project via the persistence of director Anca Damian, who sought him out immediately after reading his comics to insist that his vision was exactly what she was looking for to portray the world of the film as seen through the eyes of a puppy. With his usual charm and humour, Evens humbly clarified his role in merely establishing the visual library for the film, and gave full credit to the film’s animators for the labour in making that vision come to life. The trailer for the film (presented below with English subtitles) offers a glimpse into how these animators did justice to the Evens style.

 L’extraordinaire voyage de Marona marks Brecht Evens’ first foray into the world of animation, and he follows in the wake of other fellow Euro comics cartoonists making their inroads into feature-length animated films (Emile Bravo and Lorenzo Mattotti, among others, come to mind). Here’s hoping that films like Marona reach a wider audience so that more unique visions and styles from the comics world can be expressed through audiovisual images.

Nick Nguyen