FLESH FEAST: THE SUPERNUDES OF VIKTOR LYAPKALO

The artist was born in 1956 in Yhta City, Russia.

Seemingly obsessed with womanhood, working in lush Impressionist oils, his nudes are large, erotic, full of personality and humor. No artist like him.

CO-DEPENDENT 'INDEPENDENT' COMICS

Whenever I see a graphic novel with characters looking more or less like this, I know I'm not interested:

I don't just mean the quality. These are the signals of the "poor hipster me" narratives I can do without, no matter how they're drawn (which rarely differs). It's a stylistic cliche within the 'alternative', like cops having tube shaped hats.

Often I get the impression that the artist resorts to the visuals not out of desire, or because they can't do any better, but that they don't want to go thru the discomfort of trying to. At the rates sequential artists are paid, one can't afford to spend too much effort per page.

COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MILTON KNIGHT  

THE BIG SLEEP!

Yeah, the way I figure it, I've got only 20-25 years to go on This Wasteland Earth; the last five years since I moved to this house went by as quick as a bunny. So after four or five more rounds, Goodbye!!

SEX AND POWER WITH FRIZ

To me, Friz Freleng was the Looney Tune director with the real insight about behavior. He had a touch of the melodramatic that led to some depressing moments. The sequence & the music as the "hero" seeks his revenge are perfect. LET IT BE ME (1936).

One of the most unpleasant exploitation dramas ever enacted by mice.  HE WAS HER MAN (1937).

THAT OLD CULLID MAN

I'm looking forward to being too old for others to ask me which video games I play or whether I watch ADVENTURE TIME. But as I grow older, America's sense of culture gets more infantile...

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At a thrift store yesterday, I was offered the senior discount. Even after finding the truth, I was given it anyway. Through three store visits, I got a whole new Spring/Summer wardrobe for under $50.

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Even I feel vain posting pics of myself. I'm having them taken to track the changes as my weight lowers. This was at the MD's today. Everything checks out great, and the doctor halved my cholesterol medication. I can't help being pleased with m'sef.

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It's too early for me to start thinking in terms of this song, but it always cheers me up. SWING, MAMA. (Begins in mid-verse.)

HOLLYWOOD CARTOONS?

An FB friend sent me a link to a Tweety & Sylvester cartoon, for some reason wanting to know what I thought. My answer was:

"I watched SANDY CLAWS again. It's very funny, well made in every way. But that's where I feel I differ from WB fans in general. "Funny" isn't enough for me. I like my animation graphic and experimental. Yes, the Freleng, Jones and McKimson shorts had it all together, but their series had formulas that they repeated, honed and sharpened to an exact science. Even a ritual. Of these, I like Freleng's best because of their perceptive, human being outlook. (Jones just thought he had one.) But I'd much rather watch a funky foreign cartoon with no 'gags' to speak of because the artists were ambitious but still feeling their way around. I find that exciting."

One reason I'm not as excited by the Looney Tunes as the films I normally discuss is that, generally, I'm not taken into any 'new worlds' by them. Any given WB series after 1950, and I can predict where I'm going to go.

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Some people on the web are upset about this one, but I say: RIGHT ON, MRS. MITCHELL!! I like the way CGI is referred to as "puppets", because that's what they are.

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"Please Handle with Care", played by Isham Jones, sung by Eddie Stone:

CITY STREETS AND GODLY MORONS

After Bakshi, I wish more animation had taken the realist road. We need this too, not just the candy colored computerized blockbusters. (Actually, I don't need those at all. They're ugly and moronic.)
This is an amazing achievement that probably hasn't been celebrated enough. Animation is such an ephemeral medium. All that work, and in six minutes it's over. And I don't mean Bugs Bunny. Those were made by buildings full of employees and the financing of major motion picture studios.

THE BEHOLDER (1983) by Christopher Sullivan
(Click on image.)

SKETCH

Sophisticate that I am, I did some poetry readings in the late 90s in an attempt to exorcise a few demons. I actually became somewhat popular and got headlined on a flyer. I sometimes did sketches of other performers with lines they said.

COPYRIGHT 2016 BY MILTON KNIGHT

NEWLYWED CATS OF THE USSR

I just saw this for the first time, and had to share it. A FAMILY CHRONICLE (1961). Called "a Fairy Tale for Adults", it 's about a dispute between newlywed cats, in a very mid-century milieu. Excellent in every way. I'll keep my eye out for more post-1960 Soyuzmultfilms.

FUNNY ANIMAL THOUGHT

Comics like KRAZY KROW were published because at the time, they would sell half a million copies, not because they were artistic statements. Something all we "funny animal" cartoonists need to remember.

NOAH'S SHOES

This here's a true story, I swear by my tattoo. Trying to survive while awaiting the publication of the first HUGO, and not wanting to return to my fucked up parental home:

"It reached the dead of winter. Wheezy’s shoes were deteriorating in the snow. He couldn’t easily afford new ones. One evening, seeped through with water, they were just about destroyed. Wheezy was prepared to return to his room shoeless. Then, on an empty street, he saw, half covered by the falling snow, a pair of heavy, mangy shoes left standing at the side of a building. As he sat on a snowy stoop, pulling them on, he thought that this could have been a sign to keep at it."

I called them "Noah's Shoes", after the novel by Max Fleischer (which I have never seen), and because I felt I was on some sort of a journey. When I visited the old house, my mother was horrified. Under protest, I let her buy me a new pair.

If I seem vain posting pictures of myself in suits, part of it is because once I couldn't afford shoes.


COPYRIGHT 2015 BY MILTON KNIGHT

ZOOT THOUGHTS

I wear zoot suits because it disorients people. It's like showing butt cracks, but prettier. That's the kind of rebel I am.

Whe...llll...They're mostly "quasi-zoots". But every time I post a picture, everyone calls it one. The one below I did get from C&R Clothiers, now out of business. They were good. 20 years later, and it's still holding up.

Being an alienated personality, a lot of my life...my general preferences for art & music; the work I create; my general lifestyle... have been (small) forms of rebellion that make people angry even today.  MK

DON'T SMASH YOUR HEAD, COMRADE

A specialized genre of Russian poster art was the work safety warning. Their aim was to cause nightmares. These are the SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES of poster art. There are hundreds more!

ARMAND VALLEE

From LA VIE PARISIENNE (1910s-20s): The healthy-legged lovelies of Armand Vallee! With their big, shapely bodies and baby doll faces, they border on a perverse appeal.

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TTFN, Milt

2016

May it be A Grand New Year, Pregnant with Possibilities, for Everyone!!

NEW DANCE DRAWINGS

COPYRIGHT 2015 BY MILTON KNIGHT

SONGS & (PART OF A) STORY

From my novel, now in its fifth draft: Entertainer Paul St. Clair walks home from the club.

The alley was intimidating, but the crew, even the dancers, had grown used to passing through it to the street. There had never been a problem, except for an occasional wino…
“What do you say, Skipper? Gotten good right Friends with God Jesus ?”
It was Beautiful Joe, a vaguely nautical regular at the club, who came and watched the show every evening he could afford to, and tried to proselytize the cast after it ended. He wore a dark seaman’s jacket, a striped t-shirt, and rough jeans, hard with crust from lack of a wash. From under his cap, his gray hair and beard flew out of his head in every direction, giving him the appearance of a wounded yet noble porcupine. One of the Lord’s own oddballs.
“Jeez, Joe, you scared the hell outa me.”
“Just what I want to do, son. Well, how about it. Joined the denizens of Jesus Christ, our Lord of America??” Joe insisted in walking at Paul’s side as he continued up the alley.
Paul felt some empathy for this well-meaning eccentric, but was irritated by his constant harassment. Paul was simply not interested. Looking pained, he said, “Look, Joe”, he said, “You know I’m a believer, but I can’t dedicate my soul to it. I’ve got too many questions.”
“Ask the Lord, and he shall forgive them, Pappy. All you need is some spiritual food, and that’s free; anywhere, anytime. Let me tickle your palate.”
Joe was getting poised for one of what he considered his “masterful” diatribes. Paul nipped that in the bud. “He shall forgive me, you say. Why is having a question an error on my part? Isn’t the Lord generous enough to recognize that so many things about the world He created are going unexplained? That His world to us makes no sense whatsoever? That it hurts just to be here?”
“As you say, Paul-o, He made the Earth. And so there are no questions. Come; let me take you on the merry-go-round that is Our Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Merry-Go-Round was right. There was nowhere to go with this clod. Paul was losing his patience. He fumbled in his pocket, and laid a coin on the old man’s palm.
“Thanks, Paul-o, bless you. I shall pray for you. I shall use this money to lead others even less enlightened than you on the Path to Glory. Hallelujah, Brother! And then some…” His words faded into the distance as Paul walked out of the alley.
As he approached the stairs of the subway, Paul couldn’t help but consider that the fifty cents he had just “contributed” would simply be used to finance another grape soda at The Candl Club.



COPYRIGHT 2015 BY MILTON KNIGHT 

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Now, some song:

Merry Christmas, Milt

COPYRIGHT 2015 BY MILTON KNIGHT

HAVE A MERRY ONE, THEN!

May all your dreams come true.

COPYRIGHT 2015 BY MILTON KNIGHT

THOUGHT

No one is "born" with the ability to love. It's not an instinct. It's not a matter of being intelligent or skillful. It has to be handed down. It has to be learned. If a person doesn't get it, chances are they won't know how to give it.

MORE DANCING LADIES

Trying new poses, new ink techniques, new perspectives...all in the good name of tits-and-ass, of course.

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From my novel:

Wheezy Gibson badgers Mona, his boss, into making a decision.


Wheezy Gibson employed his own methods of persuasion. He was very conscientious about doing his best work in Mona’s bed. Afterward, uniquely, Mona was content to linger there, purring like a kitten, absently rolling her pelvis in happy memory, her cunt slippery and wet. Her arm rested over her forehead, her hair free and cascading over the pillows. Up on his elbows, gnawing his cigar, Wheezy continued his nagging. “Come on, Mona, give the kid a break!!”
Barely getting a response except for a sigh of bliss, Wheezy cunningly raised his hand to his mouth, generously licked his fingers and ran them up Mona’s slit, provoking a loud, delicious slurp.
Mona flung her head back and shuddered as the comedian’s hand slid up and down, making her cunt gurgle and smack. Her pupils obscured, she croaked in a delirium, “Oh, God, Wheezy. Do you want to kill me? You do…you do want to kill me…” Her tears flowed, but she was almost laughing. “You want to kill me.”
Wheezy had rolled his small body on top of her, once more wrenching and pumping his way into her heart. It took all the energy Mona had just to fling her legs around his waist.
Wheezy’s methods were working. Mona gave the matter more serious thought. 


COPYRIGHT 2015 BY MILTON KNIGHT

SCRAPPY

"Scrappy" was a character created by Dick Huemer (a terrific artist who had played a big hand in making MUTT & JEFF and OUT OF THE INKWELL cartoons) in 1930 for the Charles Mintz studio, released through Columbia Pictures. The series ran a good long time for a Mickey Mouse competitor, ending in 1941.

YELP WANTED (1931): Scrappy's debut. The original concept was of a child (not just a tiny adult) in comparatively believable surroundings, and trying a little tenderness.

SCRAPPY'S BIG MOMENT (1935): The child's match against Max Baer. Dynamically directed by Ben Harrison. Very rich animation that amazed me as a youngster (I owned an old, silent 8mm print). I found old cartoons (specifically Mintz's and Fleischer's) such a feast. There was nothing like watching silent early Popeye cycles moving slower than they were originally meant to!!  (Click image.)


Visit his official website while you've still got Scrappy fever!!

ROLAND DAVIES: BRITAIN'S FORGOTTEN ANIMATOR

Not much for me to add here. This modern day video tells the short story of the start and finish of Davies' short-lived studio in the 1930s, and its star, Steve the Horse..

The first of the series, and possibly the best. Spoilsports will whine about the crudeness, but this is quite good considering this is a film done practically solo by a first time, self taught animator (and without pencil tests) at a time when the art had still to be mastered.

 

Click image below to visit this YouTube channel with *all six* of Davies' films in this crude, bold venture!