Wicked City aka Yōjū Toshi (1987) - Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Ladislas Starewicz's The Mascot

Sometimes you think you've seen it all with special effects in films from the thirties, until you see a film like the Mascot which makes you rethink everything you think you know about what was possible back then. Featuring some of the finest and most convincing stop motion animation ever, one look at the Mascot will assure you of Ladislas Starewicz place as a true cinematic innovator.
By using techniques such as moving his puppets during the film exposure to get blur effects, rear screen projection, coupled with a delicate but assured handling of mise en scène, Starewicz creates a film in 1933 that seems more solidly alive than anything being produced today. I recommend you check out the write up of the Mascot on senses of cinema if your interested further in this incredibly innovative film and its important place in the history of animation and special effects. If you haven't got the time to watch the entire thing I recommend you click through the second part for some of the best animation. The film is complete in three parts below.

Robert Williams-Masterpiece on the Shithouse Wall (ZAP#6, 1973)

Before he was a painter Robert Williams was a cartoonist by trade. The following pages constitute his incredible debut in ZAP. A visually crowded and complex history and critique of graphic culture, this is probably one of my favorite pieces by Williams.

Some Horror Comics of Basil Wolverton

Included below are Wolverton's classic horror strips from the 1950's; Nightmare World, Robot Woman, They Crawl by Night!, Gateway to Horror, The Brain-Bats of Venus, and Swamp Monster. It's easy to talk about how influential and important Wolverton has been on the generations of comic artists that followed him yet it is somehow more difficult to explain the absolutely incredible range the man was capable of. Whether it was humor, horror, sci-fi serials or one page gags there was absolutely nothing the master journeyman couldn't pull off incredibly well. Wolverton proves that whatever difficulty other artists have with genre work in terms of losing their style or energy is just a lot of complaining. Truly one of the greats.

Russian Animation

Russia is a country with a long and rich history of experimental animation. The soviet system allowed a startling degree of freedom for experimentation after the 1956 period where Krushchev presided over the end of 'soviet realism' in the arts. Even under the Stalinist period the studio Soyuzmultfilm was especially known for the variety of visual styles and animation techniques used in their films. The variety of aesthetic dispositions and the artistic freedom to pursue them under a government funded mandate allowed Soyuzmultfilm to become a beacon of experimental animation during the period. Because it was government funded and was allowed to ignore the commercial aspects of it's films, Soyuzmultfilm animators didn't have to worry about sales figures and instead could focus entirely on their craft. Not all of the included animations in this post are from the soviet period, but many are. I've chosen several that I really enjoy and that are of diverse styles. Some are hyper real and some are completely impressionistic and surreal, some have narrative and some have nonewhatsoever. Please note that the Glass Harmonica is in two parts. All of the included films have subtitles in English or have no dialogue except for the last one, which I thought was really great, even though I don't understand a word being said. I strongly suggest any one interested in this further check out the wikipedia page for Russian Animation. 

Walerian Borowczyk's Les Jeux des Anges

Les Jeux des Anges is an animation about the experience of being taken to a concentration camp and of the dehumanizing mechanistic ways in which we exert our power. Borowczyks uses a succession of shots taken from a train, images of slate walls, various torture devices, and writhing headless bodies to make up his visual lexicon. Through his intricate sound design and minimalistic filmic vocabulary Borowczyk is able to produce a seriously haunting atmosphere. To my mind, the film uses the sparseness of the image in combination with the haunting soundscape to create the desired sense of disquiet in the viewer. The film is horrifying in a completely unconventional (and unexpected) sense because because it is so minimal. It precisely because of this it is bound to produce a sentiment in each viewer that is impossible to reconcile with the images we see. We color our perception of the horrors differentially, we bring our entire world with us. On a closing note, I do not understand the significance of the song that plays on the soundtrack very prominently for a time, perhaps it has some historical significance that escapes me. If anyone has an idea let me know. The film is complete in both parts below.

Invisible Hands-Richard Sala
A couple months back I stumbled upon Maniac Killer Strikes Again by Richard Sala. There was something oddly familiar about Sala's work, but I couldn't quite place where I'd seen it before. After doing some quick internet research on him I found out where I'd encountered his art. I was surprised to find that I'd seen his stuff on MTV. It may be hard to believe considering the state of the channel now, but MTV used to be one of the only channels on television during the nineties willing to give alternative comic artists and animators a chance to showcase their material. One of the well known shows where they were allowed to do this was Liquid Television. LTV is mostly remembered now for being home to the original Aeon Flux shorts as well as Bevis and Butthead. In a way, the popularity of these two franchises have eclipsed much of the other material that aired on LTV. If we couple this with the fact MTV has let the LTV shorts on DVD become discontinued, its easy to see why the legacy of the other artists who did pieces for the show has languished. LTV was so incredible because it allowed animators unaffiliated with MTV to work independently for the network, submitting material freelance as it was comissioned from them. In this sense the show functioned much more like a comic anthology than anything else, culling the best work from contributors as it was asked of them.

Adapting works from such graphic giants as Charles Burns and Bill Plympton LTV also comissioned a serial from Richard Sala. Sala chose to adapt a strip of his called Thirteen O'Clock for MTV, which eventually morphed into Invisible Hands. Interested primarily in working through the giallo and noir genres, Sala's comics are a blend of hard boiled detective fiction with the essential 'black gloved hands' gialli fans will quickly recognize. Theres always a ton of humour, mystery and nefariousness in Sala's comics. The highest compliment I can pay to his Invisible Hands is that it reads just like his comics. Its only about 12 minutes long, but was memorable enough for me to have recalled seeing it in my childhood. Highly reccomended.

 Sausage Hand- Andrew Smith

Sparkplug Comic books put out a lot of great titles. One of my favorites from them this year was Sausage Hand by Andrew Smith. I really like the drawing style Smith uses; the complex hatching, the bizarre proportions, the way it seems the figures are squeezing themselves so as to fit into the very comic frames. As I was flipping through it for the first time I was surprised to find how much I wish I could draw more successcfully in Smith's style. Definitley reads like some bizarre and awesome mix-up of S. Clay Wilson (in tone) and R. Crumb (in style, though it would be unfair to overstate this,) it's absolutely worth your time and the six dollar admission price. You can buy it at:

http://www.sparkplugcomicbooks.com/books/sausagehand/pages/sausagehand.html

 

 

Rene Laloux-Fantastic Planet

An incredible film by french animator/director René Laloux, known in the english speaking world as Fantastic Planet, the french title is La Planète sauvage, or Savage Planet. Laloux enjoyed success with this film in 1973 and it ended up winning the special jury prize at Cannes. As far as I am concerned Laloux is one of the absolute masters of animation and out of all his work Fantastic Planet is his best.