ORIGINAL BLACK AND WHITE CENTER ILLUSTRATION FOR THE REALIST # 74

Violin prodigy and counterculture pioneer Paul Krassner began publishing his left leaning free thought magazine The Realist in the late 50’s. It was loaded with so much social wit and sarcasm that the FBI followed its articles and Krassner’s public appearances with much interest. In 1967, about a year after Walt Disney’s death, Krassners commisoned EC comics and MAD Magazine (to which Krassner had contributed before) artist Wally Wood to do an illustration that would show what all the Disney characters would be doing now that their creator was no longer around to control them. The inside poster was not signed by the late Wood and he has often avoided the topic in interviews. Not so with Krassner. Here is a section of an article he wrote for the 18 Aug 2005 Huffington Post:

After Walt Disney died, there was a rumor that his body had been frozen, but actually it was cremated. Somehow I had expected Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and the whole gang to attend the funeral, with Goofy delivering the eulogy and the Seven Dwarfs serving as pallbearers. Disney’s death occurred a few years after *Time* magazine’s famous “God Is Dead” cover, and it occurred to me that Disney had served as Intelligent Designer to that whole stable of imaginary characters now mourning in a state of suspended animation.

Disney had been *their* Creator, and he had repressed all their baser instincts, but now that he had departed, they could finally shed their cumulative inhibitions and participate together in an unspeakable Roman binge, to signify the crumbling of an empire. I contacted Wally Wood–who had illustrated the first piece I sold to *Mad* magazine–“If Comic Strip Characters Answered Those Little Ads in the Back of Comic Books”–and, without mentioning any specific details, I told him my general notion of a memorial orgy at Disneyland to be published in *The Realist.* He accepted the assignment and presented me with a magnificently degenerate montage.

Pluto was pissing on a portrait of Mickey Mouse, while the real, bedraggled Mickey was shooting up heroin with a hypodermic needle. His nephews were jerking off as they watched Goofy fucking Minnie Mouse on a combination bed and cash register. The beams shining out from the Magic Castle were actually dollar signs. Dumbo the elephant was simultaneously flying and shitting on an infuriated Donald Duck. Huey, Dewey and Louie were staring at Daisy Duck’s asshole as she watched the Seven Dwarfs groping Snow White. The Prince was snatching a peek at Cinderella’s snatch while trying a glass slipper on her foot. The Three Little Pigs were humping each other in a daisy chain. Jiminy Cricket leered as Tinker Bell did a striptease and Pinocchio’s nose got longer.

Disney did not pursue a law suit against Krassner and felt any action would only draw more attention to an image located in the center of a relatively obscure newsletter type magazine that would interest only the Berkley types. They did however sue, and settle out of court, 60’s psychedelic poster publisher Sam Ridge, who took the image and mass produced it. While in today’s jaded Sodom and Gomorrah culture images of Ariel the Little Mermaid and Belle the Beauty can be found in any sexual situation imaginable or unimaginable this poster was printed in 1967 and prior to it Disney was a sacred institution, beyond reproach. Wood did do adult material and some of that may appear here later as I am trying to do a good article on the man and his tragic life, filled with career struggle, broken marriages, paranoia , alcoholism, kidney failure and ultimately suicide. But damn! could he ever draw!

Below is a link to the entire issue with the poster. The articles and letters are actually very good and the sarcasm is of a fairly high level. I may check out more of this curious publication that, until now, I had heard of but had never actually seen.

LINK TO ONLINE REPRINT OF THE REALIST # 74

I have accumulated thousands of movie poster scans and I think as an occasional break from writing  I can share a few of them. This way I am am able to get a post generated and stay afloat in the blogosphere and at the same time keep a visual emphasis going.  I went to a couple sites lately that were nothing but writing. Retelling a film scene by scene. I tried to finish the essay but it was too damn long. And it was on an old Boris Karloff movie of all things. How much could possibly be said. So I decided to spruce up the Cafe with more image related posts as well, which I have done before, but will refocus my efforts. This is just a random sampling and no witty comments accompany them this time since I rambled enough already.

I am also working on a new category that began with the one on The Giant Claw, and that is audio clips, especially of great dialog and quotes. I may just use my flash audio player which means they cannot be downloaded, but I am finding out you can really work too hard doing this little hobby and I am not sure it is worth it really (he says with a sigh of defeat) but I think they would be cool if I went to a site to hear audio clips from a movie. I think I will do a couple from The Collector as a project here shortly and see how it turns out. And here are the poster picks for today. Enjoy my pretties.

TODAY’S THEME IS EXPLOITED FEMALES OF ONE TYPE OR ANOTHER. WHILE BARBARELLA OR JANE FONDA CAN HARDLY BE SAID TO BE  TRULY “EXPLOITED” WOMEN I JUST LOVED THE RARE ASIAN POSTER SO MUCH I USED IT AS THE TEASER IMAGE.  THE IMAGE STILL HAS THAT EXPLOITATION FEEL TO IT AND THESE POSTERS ARE ALL FROM ANOTHER TIME. WHEN GUYS CALLED WOMEN DOLL OR SWEETHEART AND DID NOT GET FIRED FOR IT. NOW GUYS CALL EACH OTHER DOLL AND SWEETHEART. AH, TIMES HAVE CHANGED.

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I recievied an invitation from both Chick Young at Trash Aesthetics and Gilligan over at Retrospace to participate in something called a "meme", but I am so out of touch I have no clue what that is (but that has never stopped me from getting involved before). Seems it originated from Piper and Brian over at Lazy Eye Theatre blog (a couple of the more active LAMBers) and there have been good fantasy film festivals so far by Chick, Gilligan and Barbarella apologist Becca at No Smoking in the Skull Cave. I do not know if Tal at Taliesen Meets the Vampires has contributed as of this moment, but I will plug his excellent site anyway, free of charge. The rules (as laid down by the crew at the Lazy Eye site) are:

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1) Choose 12 Films to be featured. They could be random selections or part of a greater theme. Whatever you want.

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2) Explain why you chose the films.

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3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre so I can have hundreds of links and I can take those links and spread them all out on the bed and then roll around in them.

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4) The people selected then have to turn around and select 5 more people.

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So, there you have it, now lets get on with the Uranium Cafe Film Festival . I think it was supposed to be some 12 day marathon, but we here at the Cafe know a lot of you have to work and maybe forking out a movie ticket each night for twelve days can be tough in these days of fiscal woe. So we are having a double feature each night for six days (with Chili Cook Off and Pentacostal Healing Revival over the weekend). Here are the films I decided to play and it was not easy to select 12 from the many I would want to see on the big screen ( I assume we are fantasizing that this is on some big screen venue and not over at my place on the sofa):

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Day 01 Japanese Cult Cinema/Matango-Branded to Kill

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Day 02 Exploitation Classics by Jack Hill/Switchblade Sisters-Spider Baby

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Day 03 Drifters and Desperados/Hombre-The Wild Bunch

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Day 04 Psychotic Women Haters/The Boston Strangler-Frenzy

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Day 05 Cops on the Edge/Bullitt-Dirty Harry

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Day 06 Monsters from Space/The Thing-Alien 3

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Branded to Kill-

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I have only been able to see this 1967 film by Seijin Suzuki in Japanese without subtitles so I really do not know what is going on all the time, but the film has a reputation for being “absurdist” and surrealistic anyway, so I am not sure if subs would help, and the experience of watching this visually mesmerizing movie is rewarding enough. The truth is Nikkatsu studios actually fired Suzuki for this film and the conflict following got him blacklisted by Japanese studios. It is the story of a hit man who himself becomes the target of another ruthless hired killer and of course a super sexy and dangerous girl. I don’t know what else you need to know, check it out. A longer essay of this odd movie is in the oven.

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Matango (aka, Attack of the Mushroom People)

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Matango is a 1963 film by Ishiro Honda and is a departure of sorts for the man who made the best of Godzilla and Toho monster movies. Bleak and claustrophobic the action and drama centers around a group of ship wrecked young Japanese people who suddenly realize there are reasons there are no birds and turtles on the foggy, dismal little island they find themselves on. Also released as Attack of the Mushroom People it found its way into late night TV in the 70's (I saw it on Project Terror in San Antonio as a wee lad) and eventually into VHS And DVD cult-dom, though never having been distributed in movie houses in the States. A longer review and critique is coming soon as I recently came into the original Japanese language version.

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Spider Baby -

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I understand a remake of this 1964 (though released in 1968) Jack Hill film is in the works, with Hill as a producer. I once had a signed copy of Spider Baby by Jack Hill but my buddy Matt inherited that when I left for China some years ago. The story revolves around f a family who suffer from a congenital disease that causes them to eventually regress in mental condition to imbecility. Gee, sounds familiar. It is a black comedy with some creepy moments and fine b/w photography. Lon Chaney Jr and Sid Haig appear in the film. I don't really know how the remake will turn out but will check it out if I can since Hill is producing it, and his original never got the distribution or attention it should have until only recently.

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Switchblade Sisters-

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Both Spider baby and Switchblade Sisters are films cited by Quentin Tarantino as heavy influences, though with Switchblade we can see a more direct influence on his work and the film was restored and released on his Rolling Thunder Pictures label in 1996. A gang deb flick with lots of great dialog and over the top acting, including squeaky voiced Robbie Lee, it is the type of action movie Hill became more associated with than horror/suspense pieces likeSpider Baby. It is really fun to watch and some consider it to be Hill's best film. There is a fight scene in the jail between the guards and the Dagger debs and you have to watch for the male stand in for the butchy female jail guard. Gets no better.

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Hombre-

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A psychological western starring a brooding Paul Newman as a "half-breed" Apache who inherits a hotel and suddenly finds himself reluctantly in the white man's world with a hair cut. Directed by Martin Ritt and based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, this is a moody and depressing film (and that is a thumbs up in other words from me) that deals with issues under the surface other than cowboys and Indians. Hardly a music score is to be heard and Richard Boone is menacing as the bad guy. No one is perfect and everyone finds themselves in the middle of the desert where a glass of water is more valued than the stolen loot most of them are trying to salivate over. A great film I have not not seen in way too long.

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The Wild Bunch-

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A totally great western (and film period!) by Sam Peckinpah about a group of mercenaries led by William Holden that try to get a kidnapped girl back from Mexican bandits and revolutionaries. The film is most famous for it cinematography and editing, using slow motion in ways that had not been done much before (like showing hordes of drunk Mexican soldiers being blasted to bloody smithereens). The men are all tough and ruthless, and there is a fine line between the good guys and bad guys. The violence is basically splatter film material and the acting and dialog is great from start to finish. Expect a longer critique one day. I love this movie.

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The Boston Strangler-

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I actually went to 1st grade in Boston at the time Albert DeSalvo (and perhaps another man as modern police theory speculates) was finishing up a series of 13 murders of women, many, though not all, found with stockings around their throats. While The Boston Strangler has receiived some criticism because of its liberty with the facts of the case that does not deter me from recommending this well made suspense film. Tony Curtis is out of character and does great here as the killer, and Henry Fonda is equally in fine form as police detective John S. Bottomly. A lot of unnecessary split scene photography and I have never subscribed to the “split personality” disorder, especially as it is shown here, but so what. It’s a just a movie and a damn good one at that.

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Frenzy-

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As far as I know 1972’s Frenzy was Hitchcock’s only R rated film. Of course back then it took much less to get an R rating than it does now. It is one of my favorite Hitchcock films outside all of his work with Jimmy Steward. Jon Finch plays Richard Blaney, a man with anger management issues who soon finds himself the fall guy for a series of neck tie stranglings that have been terrorizing the citizens of London, where the film was shot. Along with the iconic shower sequence in Psycho Frenzy contains one of Hitchcocks most graphic murder sequences. Finch is great as his life unravels and there is no where he can turn as all the evidence begins to point towards him. The ending is a classic ending where the killer is undone and apprehended and shown humiliated, rather than the stock ending of today’s film where the killer simply has to be killed off himself in some action scene or worse a hostage scene where the cop has had to lay down his weapon. Whatever happened to endings like this?!

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Bullitt-

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1968’s Bullitt created so many of the genre formulas for the 70’s cop movies and TV shows that is hard to image that they all seemed to come from one film essentially. Steve McQueen plays Bullitt, a outsider cop having issues with insubordination and driven by an instinct to bring the bad guy to justice (of any type) regardless of who is in the way, including corrupt city officials, here played by Man from U.N.C.L.E.’s Robert Vaughn. Of course the most famous sequence is the car chase, pitting Bullitt’s Ford Mustang against the hitmens’s Dodge Charger. Contrary to legend McQueen did not do the bulk of the stunt driving but he is still cool. Action packed and gritty with Jaqueline Bisset as his sensitive, artsy girlfriend who comes to realize Bullitt lives in a world she knows nothing about. The movie serves as a template for my next cop on the edge selection…

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Dirty Harry-

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“Dirty” Harry Callaghan, like Bullitt, is a cop more concerned with justice than with city politics and the rights of murderdous bad guys. Clint Eastwood with his .44 Magum is immortal in the role (and I do not think Clint is compensating for anything), and while the film is not really as good as Bullitt story wise in my opinion, it revived the spirit of the outsider cop film established by Bullitt and cop movies and TV shows have never been the same since. Reni Satoni is simply great as well as the serial killer Scorpio (based somewhat less than loosely on real life serial killer Zodiac). Full of classic quotes and action it is really the only one of the Dirty Harry franchise I really like. The other ones just got sort of cheesy and Callaghan became comic bookish, whereas here the character, like his Sergio Leone loner cowboy, simply stands mythic in proportions to the world around him. -

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The Thing-

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There was once a time in my life where I took acid for recreational purposes. I know, I know by looking at this site you may find that hard to believe, but one night my cousin and I returned to the basement TV room at his family’s place in Lexington Kentucky and while “peaking” we surfed and stumbled across John Carpenter’s 1981 successful remake of The Thing on early cable TV. Well, this film is a mind blower without hallucinogens so you can image the impact it had on me. I am sure I have seen this movie at least 20 times and was thinking of seeing it again here later this week. With nary a stock teenager or beautiful woman (other than Adrienne Barbeau as the voice of the computer chess game) to be found in all of Antarctica the ice bound crew of a weather station (or something) led by Kurt Russell as MacReady must contend with a shape shifting alien from outer space that seems all but unstoppable as it takes over the crew one member at a time. The special effects by Rob Bottin still stand up against any of the computer generated effects of today (and I like computer effects mind you). The action takes place in a totally claustrophobic atmosphere (really the best for any horror film) and the tension between the men becomes palpable as they all try to figure out who is and who is not a “substitute” for a real man. The film is not scored by Carpenter this time but by the maestro Ennio Morricone and is it one of my favorite soundtracks. The film bombed at the box office as it had to compete with Steven Speilberg’s E.T. but has endured and became very influential along with Bladrunner and Alien in reviving quality Sci-Fi films. And on a closing note, I am older and wiser now, please do not watch this on LSD, okay kids.

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Alien 3 -

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Sigourney Weaver returns as Lt. Ripley in 1993's 3rd installment on the Alien story, which has become my favorite and the one I have watched the most. The first two are great films as well while the Alien Resurrection thing is totally forgettable except for the swimming aliens. This was David Fincher’s first film (and the pressure was enormous I understand) and he did a bang up job with this dark and existential horror/sci-fi classic. Again, the mood is totally claustrophobic (like the 1st Ridley Scott Alien film) as there is no way off the prison colony she finds herself on alongside rapists and murderers and a really grumpy warden. The creature preys alone (in contrast to James Cameron’s army in Aliens) but is faster and more clever (as it was hatched from a dog) than the one that terrorized the crew of the Nostromo. A great well shot film with the character’s nerves pushed past the breaking point as the creature starts offing them one at time at its leisure. Some people criticize the religious and philosophical undertones to the film but they are the elements draw me to this film over and over. Well, that and the creature ripping the wailing inmates to bloody shreds.

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And don't forget, the big chili cookoff and pentecostal revival. Retain your ticket stubs for one free bowl of Texas chili and the casting out of two demons.

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FOUR FINE JUNGLE GIRLS BY DAVE STEVENS

Master illustrator Dave Stevens has a natural gift for drawing sexy women in classic poses and so the jungle girl genre suits his imagination just fine. In these four samples you can see he takes the whole thing to a level that is really unreachable by the guys that started all the Tarzan influenced jungle comics back in the 50’s and 60’s. His Sheena work is perfect and the drawing with the bare breasted girl in the tree at the bottom is so stunning in layout and rendering I just do not get tired of looking at it. In some cases I would say it lacks intensity due to the absence of a lush jungle background but here it works just right the way it is. Takes a true artist to so confidently handle empty space.

A SELECTION OF JUNGLE GIRL DRAWINGS AND COMIC BOOK PAGES

Of course the whole Tarzan concept alone required some suspension of disbelief in itself, mush less the white jungle girl theme. I am a big fan of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films and you can expect to see posts on them in the future. But the reality is too intense for any of this to be true of course. I read a book recently on the jungle warfare that took place in Burma during WWII and some of the worst elements both the allies and Japanese had to deal with was the jungle itself… insects, leeches, disease, heat and cold, the foliage and terrain and it goes on and on. So it is crazy to see these gals all dressed in bikinis and not covered in mud and grime and insect bites. But I totally love it and it is one of my favorite comic book genres to look at for the quality of the drawings. I enjoy it for the detailed jungle art and crazy stories.

Note: The following comic book pages are not a complete story nor in any special order. I found loads of the stuff online and it is nice to look at on a good computer. Nothing like seeing the original stuff on paper I am sure, but I am content to settle for the digital substitute at this juncture.   They are posted to show just how good some of the jungle adventure art had become in its detail.

A SELECTION OF JUNGLE GIRLS IN BONDAGE COMIC BOOK COVERS

Subdued bondage of women was a recurrent theme in almost all comic book genres up until recent history. It does not appear often now except maybe in underground or adult titles. I do not know what the intent was but it has been a point of hostile criticism of comics in general from feminists groups and concerned parents. Well, we here at the Café not only do not see what all the hubbub is about but feel ourselves compelled to be purveyors of this sub-genre of comic book expression. There is a sort of humor or innocence about these covers when compared to what is being done now in comics or films. There is no doubt that the women are half naked and tied up, usually in these books by pygmies or cannibals, but it is all in good taste, we assure you. And if there is one thing we here at The Uranium Café know about it is …er… good taste.

I guess sometimes we just have to stop and look around us and wonder what the hell is really happening to the world. While I cannot say I am an actual fan of extreme metal (grindcore, black metal, death metal, etc… ) I have to admit that I do sort of like some of what is done in those areas. Or at least I have explored it more than most people in my age range have. I really like Testament, more of a thrash band I suppose, whose early stuff sounded like Megadeth (to me anyway). I liked them more later after singer Billy Cobb’s vocals got deeper and raspier. I also like Norwegian black metal artists Emperor and a few other similar bands in moderate doses. I even like Napalm Death, Morbid Angel and Carcass at times, but I am not a raving devotee of these genres in any sense. One thing that makes these bands stand out to me is their seriousness and devotion to what they are doing. There is a definite sense of the theatrical involved and one hopes that these guys can leave their onstage personas there after they get back home. While I do own some of the music I do not endorse most of what they sing about or the ways they lead their private lives (however that may be). That disclaimer being noted, I recently got the urge to download most of the Cannibal Corpse catalog. I also found a site that hosts their utterly outrageous lyrics as well as some FAQs about the band. The link is down below somewhere.

Everything they do is over the top and the music is as brutal as the lyrics and artwork that “grace” their record sleeves.The musicianship is outstanding really if you are able to listen to it without losing your mind. The death growls are a little more bearable than with some other bands who do the same thing. The lyrics are indistinguishable but once you get a lyric sheet and read along with the songs the themes are so over the top I can’t help but wonder what these guys are thinking. Is there some sort of inside joke here the rest of us are not privy to? Do they just not want their parents to listen to what they are doing? I once heard an interview on Metal Shop with one of the two main singers in the band’s history, George Fisher a.k.a. Corpse Grinder, (he other influential front man being Chris Barnes) and to be honest he really did not sound like a potential serial killer (they never do, right?) and he was rather quick witted and funny really. I do not necessarily think that being intelligent and articulate can excuse everything you do and in fact makes you more accountable. It is also a fact of life that most people who are blithering idiots do not sell millions of records. Well, I’ll have to tell you, the music is not to everyone’s taste and I am glad I got the stuff free from the net rather than spent money on the collection. I think once the music gets harder than Testament or even Iron Maiden you are in murky waters. But so what. If I were 16 years old and snorting speed and reading the Satanic Bible while listening to this stuff day in and day out who knows what could happen. That is not the case. I am simply a casual purveyor of the strange and twisted, not a true believer.

Their covers have received as much controversy as their lyrics and sparked hordes of imitators trying to outdo the next psycho with a manager with images of murder, dismemberment, cannibalism and ol’ fashioned necrophilia. I believe all of the covers here were done by Dead World illustrator Vincent Locke . In an interview Locke said he had sampled some of the music after he was commissioned to do the covers but said it was not to his liking. Still some people claim Locke captured the real spirit of the band and even had his brother tattoo some of the covers images onto his body. I put a link to some of Locke’s actually fine ,though usually disturbing, work below, but I do not know if I would feel relaxed having tea with a guy who has Tombs of the Mutilated tattooed on his chest. Believe it or not there were a couple images I opted to not post here as they were simply too graphic and intense. As if the ones I selected are more middle of the road I guess. Well what do you expect to see from a band who adorns their songs with such memorable and catchy titles as ‘Dismembered and Molested’, ‘Born in a Casket’, ‘Necropedophile’, ‘Meat-Hook Sodomy’, to name just a few that I am willing to name. After all this is a family oriented blog site.

The always insightful Corpse Grinder ( I wonder if that is the name he has on his American Express?) Fisher explains the music is simply stories, odes to horror movies that are not to be taken too seriously.“We don’t sing about politics. We don’t sing about religion. [...] All our songs are short stories that, if anyone would so choose, they could convert it into a horror movie. Really, that’s all it is. We love horror movies. We like gruesome, scary movies, and we want the lyrics to be like that. Yeah, it’s about killing people, but it’s not promoting it at all. Basically these are fictional stories, and that’s it. And anyone who gets upset about it is ridiculous”.He made a statement in one interview about this stuff being somewhat no less freaky than some artwork in the Vatican collection. Well, I don’t know. I have to see what he was looking at, because this stuff is really out there. Well, I hesitated to post this stuff but did it anyway. Is there a point? If there is I cannot see it but life does not always need points. In the end maybe the pointless things make the world go round, like pizza, and poodles and the lyrics to Hammer Smashed Face at sunset. This stuff is just something that is out there that people are either fanatical, curious or pissed off about. They are one of the big sellers in the death metal genre and even appeared in a Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura) movie once and were critically targeted by Bob Dole. So, there you go. Just a bunch of dudes next door after all.

For more information than you may really need go here:

http://www.tombofthemutilated.net/FAQ.html

A site with lots of samples of the art of Vincent Locke:

http://vincelocke.com/

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