Art Collection: Four "Bungle Family" Sunday Pages By Harry J. Tuthill, 1932

Click each for huge (2400 x 3000) but readable. All photos by Ricardo Blanc.

On the slab today are four original pen, brush and ink drawings by Harry J. Tuthill for Sunday editions of his popular comic strip The Bungle Family (as well as its topper strip, "Little Brother"). These are large, executed on whole sheets (about 22" x 32") of highest-quality Strathmore watercolor paper, and they all date from a few weeks of each other. You can read more about the Bungles, as they were affectionately called, here and here.

The Bungle Family, which ran from 1918 until 1945, was extremely popular in the 30s; basically, if your local paper didn't have Thimble Theatre (starring Popeye) on the front page of their comics section, they had the Bungle Family, and if they had neither, they were in trouble (Thimble Theatre was distributed by King Features, the Bungles by King rival the McNaughton Syndicate).  Tuthill's work was so successful because he took the proven popularity of the family-centered comic strip (such as Sydney Smith's The Gumps) and combined it with, and even anticipated in the 20s, the new realism seen in features like Buck Rogers and Tarzan.

The Bungle Family themselves, lower-middle-class apartment dwellers, were totally unlikeable: they were ignorant, nosy, loud, buffoonish; they were everything readers were sure they themselves were not. The Bungles weren't lovably out-of-it like the families in Bringing Up Father or The Gumps. They were, however, realistic. They were the bad neighbors everybody had. Nobody wanted to live downstairs from this:

Yet the Bungle Family went through the same hardships everybody else was going through during the Depression (although they were luckier than many; dumb luck, to be sure). Yes, they schemed and plotted (ineptly), but were also prey to scammers and plotters themselves:

On a formal note, few cartoonists have matched Harry Tuthill in his mastery of the form. His line is thin and fluid; he manages to pack in plenty of detail without making his panels look crowded or overworked; he creates airy, coherent spaces with the confidence of an architect. He used solid blacks very sparingly (he's almost the anti-Chester Gould) but cunningly to emphasize the central figure in each scene (usually George Bungle), as can be seen especially well in the examples above and below. He also wasn't lazy: he eschewed assistants completely, and avoided labor-saving techniques like the use of halftone screens (Ben-Day/Zip-a-Tone) and lettering shortcuts (note that he redrew the "Little Brother" title with fresh lettering for each installment) until much later in his career. On the other hand, he also showed no interest in fanciful layouts or other gimmicks; note that all four strips on this page adhere strictly to a twelve-panel grid, a prison within which the artist thrived. It's easy to see why a formalist like Art Spiegelman admires Tuthill's work:

So why did The Bungle Family, so popular during its initial run, fade so quickly after Tuthill retired? Why did it sink into obscurity, its praises sung only by the most hopeless comic strip nerds (ahem!), while Popeye achieved immortality? First of all, despite George Bungle's frequent pratfalls, the strip was popular primarily with adults. The weekday strip consisted of long, complicated narrative continuities (not evident in these stand-alone Sunday pages) which I can't imagine were all that appealing to kids. Plus, as I pointed out before, the characters were totally unsympathetic, and because of this, the Bungles didn't get merchandised as toys or games or, like Popeye, made into animated cartoons. The strips also didn't lend themselves well to reprinting, as they were so filled with torrents of dialog in tiny lettering that reduction in size rendered them illegible. These factors, and perhaps Harry Tuthill's apparent lack of interest in promoting his own work, basically guaranteed that once the Bungles stopping running in the newspapers, they more or less stopped appearing anywhere.

That's a real shame, as in my opinion The Bungle Family is one of the great, epic achievements in American comics. I'd love for one of the reprint publishers (Fantagraphics? The Library of American Comics?) to republish the strip in its entirety (one measly year, 1928, was published in the 70s), but I'm not holding my breath.

You can see a fantastic selection of scanned color Sunday Bungles from 1937 here. Get into the Bungle Family!

Oh My God The Voices! The Words! They're Everywhere!

How can you stand it? The words? You can't get away from the words or the voices. George Will cannot get away from the voices. They surround him! They clamor away like ghastly disembodied spirits, filling every nook and cranny with their woeful din. Make the voices stop! Make them stop! WHY AREN'T THEY STOPPING?!? OMG.

George Will went to the airport once, and JESUS, THE VOICES AND THE WORDS! And the underground trains, again with the voices saying things, things... things George Will already knew! And another airport and more words, and trial lawyers, and something about daydreaming and foolishness and minatory pronouncements. MINATORY. That is a word that George Will uses, and nobody is going to take that right away from him.

And why can't George Will sit in a chair quietly without Wolf Blitzer just NOT SHUTTING UP. The whole entire world is closing in on him, inching ever nearer, nearer, nearer, whispering mocking nothings in his ears. His exquisite ears. Those ears know what torture is. They've seen it. I mean they've heard it. Everywhere. There is nowhere quiet for George Will. Ever.

Here's how it happens: George Will is somewhere, it could be anywhere. And maybe that particular time isn't a good time for him to be stuffing clay in his ears; maybe he has a companion, or maybe he wishes to talk on the phone. And then some voice somewhere starts some words going, and that sound travels along, radiating outward from the source, and eventually those words, speeding along, come across something new: it's George Will's ears. And do they ask permission before they go ahead and enter those ears? No, they do not. And then it's merely a hop, skip, and a jump through George Will's head, vibrating bones everywhere along the way, and then it's off along the auditory nerve and then, POW! Voices in his head! New combinations of words have been integrated into George Will's brain and, sheesh, the gall! 

Look, words are just better when George Will is writing them. This is the exception to the "too many words, everywhere" problem. Words are particularly good when George Will is quoting them, like, oh, say, George Eliot. Middlemarch! I bet you weren't expecting THAT, were you? Ha! George Will snuck up on you and did a fine number on you, didn't he, with his fancy Middlemarch?

But all the words, OMG. WHY WON'T THEY STOP?

Stupid words.

Quickie: Careful With That Axe, Callista

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with his wife Callista, holds an oversize replica of an ax after signing a pledge to cut taxes, spending and government, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

Part of me, of course, says, Oooh, bad idea. The other, more dominant part of my brain, however, shrieks, Giant-sized novelty axe! Giant-sized novelty axe!

UPDATE:

Fake Herman Cain Ad Almost As Funny As Real Herman Cain Ad

Big Surprise: "Candid" Excerpts From New Condibook Not Particularly Candid

Here we go, let the Condibook circus begin! Long-time Pony Pals™ aren't likely to fall for any of this nonsense: we all know this book is going to be boring and will contain, at most, one or two amusing stories and zero percent actual reflection or insight.


And now the proof is in as Newsweek and The Daily Thing have published what are probably the only parts anybody will care to read. Now, you'd think that "The Wounds of Katrina," Newsweek's excerpt, would be especially interesting to readers of this blog, because it covers one of her signature moments, her NYC shopping/theater spree which gave birth to "Dr. Ferragamo," her most enduring nickname:

That evening, upon arriving at the Palace Hotel, I flipped on the television. Indeed, the hurricane had hit New Orleans. I called Henrietta, who said that the main issue was making sure our people [Note: she means "State Department People"] were safe. She’d also convened a departmental task force because offers of foreign assistance were pouring in. I called Secretary of Homeland Security Mike Chertoff, inquiring if there was anything I could do. “It’s pretty bad,” he said. We discussed the question of foreign help briefly, but Mike was clearly in a hurry. He said he’d call if he needed me. I hung up, got dressed, and went to see Spamalot.

The next morning, I went shopping at the Ferragamo shoe store down the block from my hotel, returned to the Palace to await Randy and Mariann’s arrival, and again turned on the television. The airwaves were filled with devastating pictures from New Orleans. And the faces of most of the people in distress were black. I knew right away that I should never have left Washington. I called my chief of staff, Brian Gunderson. “I’m coming home,” I said.

Haw: I made some phone calls, saw a show, watched some TV, went shoe shopping. Notice that she doesn't mention that she caused a mini-riot while she was at Ferragamo, with people screaming at her about shopping for luxuries while people were dying. No, she just leaves that part out. How candid! She also somehow forgot to mention that she had been openly heckled and booed at Spamalot. How did these reactions make her feel? I guess we'll never know.

Anyway, it turns out that through it all, Condi was an absolute paragon of racial sensitivity. Phew.

Much, much more fun is the excerpt at The Daily Tina Brown, because finally we get Condi's side of the whole "meeting with Muammar Gaddafi" show, and it is amusing and alarming ("...after sundown the “Brother Leader” insisted that I join him for dinner in his private kitchen."), but Condi is such a robotic, unstylish writer that she even makes that sound boring. Here's the best part:

At the end of dinner, Qaddafi told me that he’d made a videotape for me. Uh oh, I thought, what is this going to be? It was a quite innocent collection of photos of me with world leaders—President Bush, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and so on—set to the music of a song called “Black Flower in the White House,” written for me by a Libyan composer. It was weird, but at least it wasn’t raunchy.

Dear me, yes, at least it wasn't raunchy! Because that would have been, you know, interesting.

Next up: Condi appears on 400 television programs and candidly reveals what a great honor it was to be made secretary of state.  It will be thrilling!

Herman Cain's Ugly Tour Bus

Herman Cain steps out of his campaign bus for a rally in front of Michigan Central Station. Bill Pugliano / GETTY IMAGES

A lot of people –people like me– think Herman Cain's campaign is just a publicity stunt meant to raise his public profile and, by extension, his book sales and speaking fees. So it makes sense that his tour bus would be plastered with a gigantic Herman Cain head. Here, last month, is either the other side of the bus above or a different Herman's Head bus:

(Tjomsland Tyler / AP)

He's also pushing, apparently, Herman Cain Urine in a Bottle™:

(Washington Post)

Now you can test Herman Cain at home!

Hillary Flips Out

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walks past a General Motors "Spark" while touring the GM Powertrain plant in Tashkent, Uzbekistan Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Iran should not misread the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as affecting the U.S. commitment to the fledgling democracy, Secretary of State Clinton said Sunday. (AP Photo/Kevin Lamarque, Pool)

Yes, it is funny that Hillary went to Uzbekistan right after Herman Cain's mortifying "beki beki stan stan" gaffe, but what I really want to talk about, obviously, is her hair. What. On. Earth. Is Hillary doing with her hair? An ironed-out, shoulder-length blonde flip? Really, Hillary?

You might recall that I once described Jan Brewer as a 65-year-old woman trapped in a 30-year-old's hairdo. This is worse: Hillary is a 64-year-old woman trapped in a 17-year-old's hairdo... from 1965.

There's something about this that screams "makeover,"  and it's making her look ridiculous.

And you'd think I'd be happy about the return of The Flip to the State Department!

Venn Diagram For Michele Bachmann

Funny/Sad Fred Karger Also Has Funny/Sad Campaign Merchandise

Oh, Fred.

See, last week I meanly referred to the bizarre presidential candidate as Fred "Fred Who?" Karger. Little did I know that "Fred Who?" is literally his campaign slogan! This is funny! And sad! And again, it leads us the wonder what the hell is Fred Karger doing?**

Remember how jealous we all got on Thursday when we saw that lucky, puzzled couple in New Hampshire receiving a special Fred Karger Frisbee™ from the man himself? Hooray for us, we can pretend it happened to us, too, by cheating and purchasing one ($20!) from his fantastic campaign shop. There you will also find Fred Karger notepads (WHY?), stickers, t-shirts and bumper stickers, all with the funny/sad "Fred Who?" logo, and all modeled by gay-republicany-looking young men. These items are the makings for a clever Halloween costume, except that nobody would get it. Just imagine:

YOUR FRIEND: What are you?
YOU: I'm a Fred Karger fan!
YOUR FRIEND: Fred who?
YOU: Ha ha! That's what it says!
YOUR FRIEND: No, really, who the fuck is Fred Karger?
YOU: [20-minute description of Karger's baffling and pointless run for president ensues]
YOUR FRIEND: Isn't that [OTHER, LESS BORING FRIEND] over there? I need to go talk to him.

OK, maybe not, then. The shop site does, however, contain one hilarious joke. They offer an ugly American/rainbow flag combo pin, and look who they chose to model it:

Now that is for real funny. Still kinda sad, though.

Oh, Fred.

**Here's my official guess: Fred is trying to become the "go-to Republican Gay™" for media appearances, etc. The problem with this, obviously, is that nobody wants or needs a go-to Republican Gay™.

Real Food: Meat

Please click for 900x1200

Random Nancy Panel

(1970)

Herman Cain Has No Idea What A Neoconservative Is

 

This is the face of a very, very stupid man.

I haven't paid much attention to Herman Cain beyond being vaguely aware that he's a blowhard and obviously from the "know nothing" wing of the GOP. His appearance on Meet the Nation (or Face the Press or whatever) yesterday was a real eye-opener, though, because until watching it, I had no idea just how out-of-it he is.

It was bad enough that he trotted out lame concepts like "Liberals want to destroy America" and "I was joking when I said I'd erect a lethal electric fence on the Mexican border" or, hilariously, "I admire Clarence Thomas", but where David Gregory really unleashed a geyser of ignorance was when he asked Cain about the Neocons:

"I'm not sure what you mean by neoconservative," said Cain. "I am a conservative, yes. Neoconservative -- labels sometimes will put you in a box. I'm very conservative."

"But you're familiar with the neoconservative movement?" asked Gregory.

"I'm not familiar with the neoconservative movement," admitted Cain. "I'm familiar with the conservative movement. Let me define what I mean by the conservative movement -- less government, less taxes, more individual responsibility."

And he said this right after praising John Bolton! This, Pony Pals, is a complete disqualifier. This means, basically, that Cain has absolutely no idea what Goerge Bush's foreign policy philosophy was, and no idea why we declared war on Iraq. No clue!

But that's OK, because when pressed on his foreign policy, Cain simply said he'd hire people to figure it out for him. People like John Bolton.

It will be interesting to see how the Neocons react to this. Will they be offended at his ignorance, or, like Sarah Palin, will they salivate at the prospects of a new, unwitting convert (I'm guessing the latter)? Stay tuned to the Weekly Standard and Jennifer Rubin's blog at the Washington Post to find out!

UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin is confused, doesn't know what to think: "[He needs to] reject isolationism." The rallying cry of the Neocon!

UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin is no longer confused, knows what to think. She ended up posting three items in a row bashing Cain.

Quixotic Gay Republican Still Thinks He's A "Presidential Candidate," Makes Obscure 70s Homo-Culture References Just Like Any Old Queen

Oh, gosh, Fred Karger. Lonely ol' Fred. I shouldn't be so mean about him, but let's face it: he is the saddest sad-sack in the whole GOP field. Here is a guy who has been utterly shunned by the vast majority of his own party, systematically excluded from every debate, and worse than being spoken ill of, he's not spoken of at all, and yet still he comes back for more. So is he Pollyanna, eternally optimistic that "they'll come around"? Is he Edina from Absolutely Fabulous, totally oblivious to all the hostility surrounding him? Is he Howard the Duck, trapped in a world he never made? Or is he simply a masochist?

Maybe he's totally weird. Or stupid, possibly? Both? Soooo hard to tell. For instance, now he's upset with Florida for all their primary date shenanigans, so he threatened –threatened!– the state with an orange juice boycott if they didn't cut it out. For real! OMG, how seventies. But... what is Fred Karger doing? Seriously, a Florida orange juice boycott? Is this an incoherent attempt to blow a gay dog whistle? If so, what does the Anita Bryant boycott of 1977 have to do with a wonky primary scheduling issue? It doesn't make any sense. Or, maybe Fred Karger is totally unaware of the strength of the gay cultural memory of the original orange juice boycott, in which case: WTF? Either way, I just totally can't make any sense of Fred Karger.  

There's strong evidence that he's just plain odd. Here he is last Saturday wandering around New Hampshire giving his gay Republican Frisbees™ to skeptical-looking suburbanites: 

(Photo: Grant Morris, Nashua Telegraph)

From the Telegraph's article:

“Hi, I’m Fred Karger, and I’m running for president,” Karger said, introducing himself with a handshake, a business card and a blue frisbee with his name etched on it.

Meanwhile, residents began spilling out of their homes, lured by the sound of bagpipes and the parade of campaign workers carrying blue frisbees and business cards.

Later in the article, Karger actually utters the words "I've hustled," and that's when you realize that this guy is totally, hilariously great, and we should enjoy this piece of inadvertent performance art while we can.

Quickie: Forms Stiff Peaks

Callista Gingrich's hairdo at last night's debate (AP Photo detail)

I know I've already compared Callista Gingrich's mighty hair helmet to celestial objects, but the more and more I look at it, the more I'm convinced that the hairdo itself is of extraterrestrial origin.

National Coming Out Day Special: Aaron Schock Has A Bit Of A "Gay Aaron Schock" Google Problem™

You may recall that back in May I posted a totally irresponsible, anonymously-sourced, and yet perfectly plausible item about how everybody knows that Aaron Schock is as gay as pink ink (as my father used to say), or, I suppose more appropriately, as gay as a teal blue cloth belt. We hold these truths to be self-evident, as the saying goes.

The item got a little bit of attention, and then Wonkette reblogged it, humorously referring to me as a "trusted DC source" (hey, I've had my moments), and that got the "news" quite a bit more attention.  And then people in the blogosphere moved along to other important topics, the end.

Well, not quite the end! Just in the last couple of days, I've noticed a considerable uptick in the number of people clicking over to the PSP Gay Aaron Schock story from the Wonkette version. Why now? It seems that Schock was recently on Meet the Press, and whenever somebody most people have never heard of is on Meet the Press, it results in a lot of Googling, and when you Google "Aaron Schock", you-know-who shows up right at the bottom of the first page:

And it doesn't get much better (ha ha) when you do a Google image search:

And say you're watching Aaron Schock on Meet the Press and you think, "Gosh, that guy looks like he was separated at birth from Neil Patrick Harris," (doesn't he?), and you decide to throw the word "gay" into your Google search:

This all adds up to Aaron Shock having what the tech-savvy reporters call a Google Problem™. Poor Aaron! But Schock has an absolutely immaculately right-wing voting history, including voting against anything which could be perceived as hairdresser-friendly, such as the repeal of "Don't Ask/Don't Tell", so why doesn't he just go ahead and step out of the closet and be a Gay Republican™ like those cool GOProud guys?

The answer, of course, is that there are no successful openly-gay GOP politicians (just ask Fred "Fred who?" Karger),  and the concept might not (ha, make that "probably wouldn't") go over like gangbusters in Schock's rural/small town Illinois district. It would literally not play well in Peoria.

As a result, Schock has to obfuscate. Take a look at his rudimentary home page (all that is missing is the "under construction" gifs) and his congressional webpage, and you'll notice that so-called "social issues" are nowhere to be found... like, anywhere. He simply acts like these issues don't exist, despite his "clean" voting record on them.

This must be soooo awkward for Aaron! Think of all the time and energy he has to put into all this! Think of how careful he has to be!

So that's why I'm nominating Gay Aaron Schock as the official poster boy for National Coming Out Day. Well, that and because he'd look so totally cute on the posters.

CNN Posts Brilliant, Brutal, Hilarious Parody Of Sally Quinn

 

Sally Quinn contains multitudes.

Did you know that Sally Quinn's brain is like a labyrinth? It's true! I know I mock CNN all the time, but this incredible parody of an insane Sally Quinn experiencing enlightenment on the lush grounds of a California spa is too, too funny. Two sparkly hooves way up to whomever wrote it, although the "I lie down in a spread eagle position or in a corpse pose" bit was a little over the top. Kudos to CNN for having the nerve to run it as if it were really written by Sally Quinn, which of course it isn't. It can't be, because Sally Quinn is ridiculous, but not that ridiculous. Right?

Next: Sally Quinn locates Nirvana within the lining of a Judith Leiber purse.

Book Shelf: THE ROGUE By Joe McGinniss

Unlike some people, I thought it would be a good idea to actually read The Rogue before commenting upon it. It's unfortunate that a lot of coverage of the book merely trots out bullet points OF NEW FUNNY/OUTRAGEOUS REVELATIONS!! rather than taking a look at it as an organic whole, because there's a lot more to McGinniss' excellent volume than a simple laundry list of Sarahisms. Indeed, it's the overall structure of the book which makes it such an entertaining and fascinating read. The author skillfully interweaves two stories: the tale of Sarah Palin's life and career, and the personal narrative of his own journey to Alaska to research her alarming rise to prominence, his encounters with those who know/knew her, with the land itself, and, of course, the trumped-up media circus which surrounded his renting of the house next-door to the Palin's lakeside compound. One of the most delicious ironies in The Rogue is that the hysterical reaction to McGinniss' journey to Alaska from the Palins themselves, their deranged fans, and even the well-meaning locals who defy Palin to assist the author (in a hilarious running gag, they keep offering him guns: "Take all you want; I've got plenty!"), provided him with just the structure he needed to tie the whole thing together seamlessly. Perhaps a better subtitle for the volume would have been "Beneath the Valley of the Assembly of God," because it's not just a portrait of a person, but of a place, a place which Sarah Palin succeeded in single-handedly dividing and conquering.

I guess my main point is that Joe McGinniss is an outstanding writer, so if you think you "already know all about Sarah Palin"  due to all the spoilers and laundry lists of funny stories from the book here and there on the web, you're missing out on an absorbing and entertaining book. But beyond that, the author really succeeds in answering the question what makes Sarah Palin? in a fully-rounded way, taking a sharp look at how the state, the landscape (both physical and political), her family and friends, religion, and a fairly shocking case of arrested development all worked together to produce her, a quintessentially American story if there ever was one. Highly recommended!

Richard Cohen Is Totally Confused About This Sarah Palin Lady

Richard Cohen's editors, if there are any, have clearly thrown up their hands and given up on the dunderheaded typist. Maybe they simply run his stuff through a spell checker and call it a day?

He's got this totally confusing thing on the "Post Partisan" blog about Sarah Palin quitting/never getting into the presidential race. Lucky for us, it's only the second paragraph that makes us click "close tab" this time:

It would be a mistake, however, to bid her farewell without noting her accomplishment. She was maybe the first of our celebrity politicians — not, mind you, a politician who achieved celebrity but one who did it the other way around. It’s true she was governor of Alaska when John McCain selected her for his ticket, but no one knew that. She had the name recognition of a dead dog catcher.

Got that? Sarah Palin was an unknown politician who then became a celebrity. Wait, no, she was a celebrity who then became a politician! Which is it, Richard? It isn't the former, because plenty of people had heard of the Thrilla from Wasilla well before McCain chose her as his running mate: Wonkette had already, by that time, posted several items about this new, wacky governor who was dumb and funny; Talking Points Memo had already published, like, four hundred things about "Troopergate"; Vogue had already done a feature on her, not an honor generally bestowed upon "unknown" politicians. Oh, also: she was chosen by McCain to be his running mate.

How about the second concept, where she was "maybe the first of our celebrity politicians – not, mind you, a politician who achieved celebrity but one who did it the other way around"? Let's see: Sonny Bono, Ronald Reagan, Al Franken, Jesse Ventura, Clint Eastwood, and even Gopher from the Love Boat all spring quickly to mind.

So Cohen has managed to squeeze into a single paragraph two concepts which not only contradict each other, but are each inherently incorrect.  Good work if you can get it (you can't get it)!

Quickie: Hordes Of Fans And Interested Reporters Throng To Michele Bachmann Press Conference

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., speaks during a Faith and Family Council news conference, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Whoa, everybody, try to contain your excitement.

She must know it's over by now, right?

What Does It Take To Frighten Away Michele Bachmann? "Several Dozen College Students"

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., speaks during a Faith and Family Council news conference, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Michele Bachmann knows when she's beaten, when danger levels are too high. All she wanted to do was have a cute photo-op at a pumpkin patch, but alas, "several dozen" college students scared her away. Indeed, in one photo, I can count nearly 30 youngsters standing around, chatting amongst themselves. Terrifying! I'm so glad Michele is safe and unharmed and that she got through this horrifying ordeal.

And I know you love this sort of thing, so here's a close-up of one of Michele's eyes:

Finally, I love this guy's sign:

Art Collection: Animation Cels From "Pink Komkommer" By Marv Newland, 1991

(Click for bigger, uncensored, not safe for work!!)

Above is a cropped scan of a two-cel setup (the figure is on one cel, the chair and bunny slippers on another) by Marv Newland from his 1991 experiment in dirty cartoons, Pink Komkommer.

Pink Komkommer was a quasi-sequel to Newland's Anijam, a film which featured a collaboration by 22 animators all working independently with the same character. For Komkommer, Marv and Dutch animator Paul Driessen created a short soundtrack full of suggestive sounds: moans, squeaking bed springs, whip cracks, squirts, splashes, groans, etc. They then sent this soundtrack to seven different teams of animators, including themselves. The rules were simple: synch your cartoon to the soundtrack, and make it dirty.

The animators chosen for this experiment, in addition to Driessen and Newland, were abstract animator Sara Petty, Academy Award nominee Janet Perlman, collaborators (and Oscar winners) Alison Snowden and David Fine, Bulgarian animator Stoyan Dukov, and, surprisingly, "Hey Arnold" and "Penny" creator Craig Bartlett. The different responses the animators, with their very disparate styles, had to the same soundtrack are sometimes shocking, sometimes hilarious, and always fascinating. Petty's effort, for instance, is drawn in charcoals and pastels and manages to be gorgeous and erotic and reminiscent of Georgia O'Keeffe, while Snowden and Fine's segment is absurd and silly big-nosed cartooniness at its best. Perlman manages to be both funny and artistic, while Driessen's will probably disgust you. Finally, Marv Newland's bit, seen in the cel above, is almost like a fantasy/porno foreshadowing of The Human Centipede.

To tie it all together, Newland and Driessen cast the resulting segments by the different animators as dirty dreams experienced by an old woman animated by Canadian master Christopher Hinton (don't take my word for it). At the end of the film, she too goes through the soundtrack, but with more mundane results than her previous sexy visions. In retrospect, some of the animators did a better job than others (it was probably wise to get Bartlett's and Dukov's parts out of the way early), but overall I'd call the experiment a success. I think Snowden and Fine get the prize for the most hilarious and unexpected interpretations of the sound effects.

This film had a short life on the festival circuit and it's vulgarity doomed it to more or less instant obscurity. When I worked for Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation, audience response wasn't quite what we hoped for, as it was a little too maddening and intellectual for the "sick and twisted" crowd, and people hated Hinton's linking animation. I finally located a copy (sorry, best quality I could find; it's never been released on DVD) and uploaded it to the Youtubes, and who knows if they'll delete it or not, so watch it while you have the chance. This is definitely NOT safe for work: