Politics

Review: Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology

| artofthecartoon

Secret Identities/ Edited by Jeff Yang, Perry Shen, Keith Chow, & Jerry Ma/ 2009

secret identitiesThere is a tremendous amount of Asian American talent in the comic book industry. From writers to editors, and inkers to pencilers, more than likely you’ll find some dope Asian American artists. Even more than that, many of the die-hard fans of comic books are Asians Americans. One of my favorite comic book artists growing up was Jim Lee and I have stated many times that my favorite era was the 90’s where Jim Lee’s X-Men designs always held a special place. 

Even though there are plenty of Asian American artists in the comic book industry, and many more Asian American fanboys, there is very little representation of Asian American characters in the comic book universe. It seems a little strange that a huge portion of the brightest artists/ writers and the greatest fans in the comic book world do not have a set of superhero characters that is ingrained in the Asian American community, that they can claim as their own. 

Actually it’s not that strange. Take a gander at current movies and television and you’ll more than likely see that the Asian American community is overlooked. Our characters are limited to secondary characters, but never the main person. So it makes sense that it translates to the comic book world as well. 

The creators of Secret Identities, Jeff Yang, Keith Chow, Jerry Ma, and Perry Shen, hoped to take the first step in changing this perception by bringing together some of the best Asian American talent to create an anthology of 26 stories revolving around Asian American Superheroes. The result is a truly inspiring collection of stories that feature the Asian American community. It is a must read for any comic book fan. (Hit the jump for the rest of the review) Continue reading →

Filipin@s: Al Robles

| artofthecartoon

A Melancholy Rest in Power to Manong Al Robles, who passed away this past weekend.

manong-al

Community Activist and poet, Manong Al was most known for his work with the I-Hotel community. Here’s the trailer for Manilatown Is In The Heart, which followed Manong Al Robles:

filipin1fall-of-i-hotelEven though this site focuses alot on animation, cartoons, comic books, and video games, this site deals not only with the things that are related to cartoons and animation, but also the things and people that inspire me to keep doing my art, to keep learning, and to keep me focused on the community and the people. 

That is why I highlight Manong Al. His narraration, presence and poetry in the documentary The Fall of the I-Hotel directed by Curtis Choy was one of the big reasons why I decided to get my degree in American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington and soon after, begin my work with the community. This was the catalyst that helped me finally gain enough confidence to call myself an artist. This in turn, eventually lead me down the path of becoming an animator so that I could share stories of the people, of the community through the medium of animation. 

Manong Al did so much for the community through his actions and his words. I hope I do half as much with my actions and my animation. And I hope we all remember the life of a great man.

Rest in Power Manong Al Robles…

Other Tributes to Manong Al Robles:

Prometheus Brown’s The Fall of the I-Hotel Review

Hyphen Magazine

Philippine American Writers and Artist, Inc. 

League of Filipino Students – SF State

thaswassup

Bootleg Classics: Speedy Gonzales (film)

| artofthecartoon

Some of my favorite cartoons while growing up were Transformers, He-Man, ThunderCats, and Ninja Turtles. I even enjoyed watching Jem, Strawberry Shortcake, and Rainbow Brite with my older sister. But between those shows there were always several Looney Tunes shorts to fill out the Saturday Morning Cartoon lineup. Of all the Looney Tunes characters, there was one that resonated with me the most.  That would be the one “brown” Looney Tune character out of the whole bunch, Speedy Gonzales.  This Bootleg Classic is the best of the Speedy Gonzales shorts, and the Academy Award win proves that.

Speedy Gonzales/ dir. Friz Freleng/ 1955

speedy_gonzales_titlesBackground:

From 1930 – 1969, Warner Bros. had a cartoon series called Looney Tunes, that consisted of animated shorts that showed at movie theaters.  These animated shorts featured the popular characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester, Tweety, Marvin the Martian, Taz, Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite San, Pepe Le Pew, and many others. The Speedy Gonzales short featured the newly redesigned Speedy Gonzales, and was the first meeting between Speedy and Sylvester the Cat.

The Film:

There are a group of mice who are starving and are trying to get cheese from the AJAX cheese factory. The only problem is that there is a cat, Sylvester, who is gurading the the factory and the cheese. Other mice have attempted to get past Sylvester and get the cheese, but all of them have been eaten and died in the process.

Then one of the mice has a  brilliant idea to enlist the services of “the fastest mouse in all Mexico” Speedy Gonzales. After telling their plight to Speedy, Speedy agrees to help.speedy_gonzales2

Then some hilarious confrontations between Speedy and Sylvester occur, with Speedy always ending up the victor. Eventually, Sylvester decides to blow up the whole factory so nobody will get the cheese, but the plan backfires as all the cheese lands near the hungry mice.

Speedy then says “I like this pussycat fellow; he’s silly!” and the short ends.

To watch this Academy Award winning short and find out WHY it is a Bootleg Classic, hit the jump…

Continue reading →

Racist(?) Cartoon

| artofthecartoon

I feel like I have to say something about this:

delonas
New York Post, Feb. 18, 2009. Sean Delonas

So the article compared the The Killer Chimp from Stamford to the author of the new Stimulus Bill…

(sigh…) 

I can see the racial allusions…I really don’t think the artist meant anything, but that doesn’t excuse anything! 

(shakes head in disappointment)

I don’t really want to get into this, but I will say that there are a lot of folks that are mad about this and I don’t blame them. All over a little cartoon!

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the power and the Art of the Cartoon (see what I did there). 

This issue deserves a longer post (and rant) in the future… stay tuned…