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buzzdixonwriter · 7 months

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The L. A. Bastards

I’ve mentioned several times in the past the phenomenal talent pool that coalesced around Ruby-Spears Productions in their heyday, in particular their storyboard department, led by the truly sui generis John Dorman, one of Hollywood’s genuine wild men.

Not only was John an amazing talent in his own right, but his Rolodex included some of the most incredible talents it’s been my pleasure to work with: Kurt Conner, Thom Enriquez, Larry Houston, Tom Minton, Dan Riba, Hank Tucker, Jim Woodring, and a host of others at various times and on various productions.

John ran an effective art crew, and I learned many things from him that proved invaluable in dealing with my own art crews when I was packaging books and educational material.

John and his team always delivered top notch work in a timely manner, often going above and beyond the call of duty to get it out the door on time.

But John did not run a tight ship.

Oh, no, quite the contrary…

They called themselves the L.A. Bastards and the storyboard department was Bastard Central.

I’m proud to say that I was the only non-storyboard artist admitted into that freaky fraternity. I won their respect by being the only writer who actually went down and talked to them about what would make their jobs easier when I wrote scripts.

They appreciated that and opened the window to all sorts of insider tips I never would have gleaned without their insight.

Whenever possible I’d go down to John’s department and recharge my batteries. It wasn’t a 24-hour party, but it was a constantly fun environment, and everybody enjoyed themselves making cartoons so much that the love just poured out onto their storyboards.

But they were a handful.

Let’s say “chemically enhanced” and let it go at that.

One of the legal enhancements I can discuss were the mini-oxygen tanks John kept for himself and his crew. You felt yourself dragging in the middle of the afternoon, just come on down and get a couple of hits off the old 02 tank and you were fully energized in a matter of seconds.

Classic John Dorman chemical enhancement story: At one of the buildings Ruby-Spears used as a studio, John’s office was down wind from the ink and paint department’s restroom; anything that entered the air vent there would exit in John’s office.

You’d walk in and swear you just stepped into some Haight-Ashbury hippie pad in the middle of the Summer of Love. John would swear it wasn’t him, but the smell of marijuana remained so overpowering you could almost get high standing there.

Ken Spears eventually went into John’s office and told him that he and Joe didn’t mind what he did on his own time, but for the luvva gawd, stop toking up in the middle of the workday.

“But it’s not me!” John would wail.

And it wasn’t! The ink and paint ladies, bored out of their minds slapping paint on Mighty Man and Yukk cels, would take smoke breaks in the ladies’ room and as mentioned above, the purple haze would find its way into John’s office.

John and his crew were merry pranksters, notorious for their wild antics in and out of the studio. They used to like flamingoing people’s lawns, buying dozens of cheap pink flamingos at a big box store and covering somebody’s lawn with them.

Their antics finally got to be too much for the suits in the front office to bear so Joe and Ken moved the L.A. Bastards out of the studio and into their own space, the former offices of Cheech y Chong.

If ever there was a perfect match of location and occupants, that was it.

Most of the stuff John and the L.A. Bastards did never went into production, development art for shows that went nowhere. At one time we did a development on Prince Valiant, a large full size artboard showing Prince Valiant astride his mighty steed.

Only something went wrong in the inking of the horse.

Joe and / or Ken got a look at the art when it was halfway inked, realized it would not fly and by that time apparently already got a signal from the network that Prince Valiant was way down beneath the floor tiles in the sub-basement of possible shows.

So the incomplete art remained behind John’s desk after that. They copied and enlarged the horse’s head, dubbing it Widowmaker, and made T-shirts with it proudly proclaiming themselves The 5-Hours For Lunch Club.

Not an exaggeration.

In any case, when I left Ruby-Spears I stayed in touch with John but never found out what happened to Widowmaker. Fortunately for us, Dan Riba scanned a copy of the Prince Valiant art, so here Widowmaker is, in all their pagan glory.

Gawd, I miss you, John…

#animation #Saturday morning animation #storyboards #storyboarding #L A Bastards #Bastard Central #Kurt Conner #Thom Enriquez #Larry Houston #Tom Minton #Dan Riba #Hank Tucker #Jim Woodring #Ruby-Spears #Joe Ruby #Ken Spears

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steamedtangerine · 2 years

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Concept art by Thom Enriquez for the Terror Dogs in Ghostbusters

#movie #who are you gonna call?

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thebestcomicbookpanels · 2 years

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Twisted Tales #9 by Thom Enriquez

#bruce jones #thom enriquez #twisted tales #the best comic book panels #horror comics #horror

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balu8 · 3 years

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Concept art by Thom Enriquez for the never made sequel

#thom enriquez #concept art #who framed roger rabbit

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bookclub4m · 3 years

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Episode 130 - Battle of the Books 2021

This episode it’s the first part of our 2021 Battle of the Books! We’re each pitching a book that we think we should all read and discuss, and you get to decide which one we read! We talk about pombies, wooden book clubs, friendship, and more! Plus: Digressions about superheroes!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards

Which book should we all read?

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories by Mariana Enriquez

Vote for which book you’d like us all to read

Vote!

Our Shortlists

RJ’s Shortlist

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Golem Girl: A Memoir by Riva Lehrer

The Unspoken Name by A. K. Larkwood

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

Circe by Madeline Miller

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery

Meghan’s Shortlist

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Anna’s Shortlist

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Media We Mentioned

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke

Loki (TV series) (Wikipedia)

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Links, Articles, and Things

Episode 079 - Which Book Should We Read?

Episode 083 - The Fifth Season

Episode 103 - Battle of the Books 2020

Episode 107 - Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Dear Prudence

Shirley Jackson (Wikipedia)

The Shirley Jackson shirt RJ was wearing

Arsenal Pulp Press

Hark! Podcast

Mangasplaining

Canada Reads (Wikipedia)

Spider-Man (Wikipedia)

Peter Parker (Marvel Cinematic Universe) (Wikipedia)

Miles Morales (Wikipedia)

Ben Reilly (Wikipedia)

The New 52 (Wikipedia)

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Wikipedia)

Imaginary Prisons (Wikipedia)

Wyvern (Wikipedia)

Sixties Scoop (Wikipedia)

Canadian Indian residential school system (Wikipedia)

Cultural genocide (Wikipedia)

1976 Argentine coup d'état (Wikipedia)

15 Spy/Espionage books by Authors of Colour

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by POC (People of Colour) authors to help our listeners diversify their readers’ advisory. All of the lists can be found here. This is our retrospective book list for Episode 012 - Spies & Espionage.

Benita Renee Jenkins: Diva Secret Agent by Lorisa Bates

A Hope Divided : A Novel of the Civil War by Alyssa Cole

A Spy in the Struggle by Aya de Leon

Spy x Family by Tatsuya Endo, translated by Casey Loe

Gentlemen Formerly Dressed by Sulari Gentill

A Map of Betrayal by Ha Jin

Your Republic Is Calling You by Young-Ha Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim

The Starlet and the Spy by Ji-Min Lee, translated by Chi-Young Kim

A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Quotients by Tracey O’Neill

The Strivers' Row Spy by Jason Overstreet

Open House by Nabil Saleh

Impostor Syndrome by Kathy Wang

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

Give us feedback!

Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, August 3rd it’s time to jack in and download because we’ll be reading the genre of Cyberpunk!

Then on Tuesday, August 17th it’s time for another of our episodes in which we discuss books, movies, and other media we consume that aren’t for the podcast!

#battle of the books

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acmeoop · 2 years

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Full Rabbit Service

Concept art from the never-produced “Who Discovered Roger Rabbit”…

#90s #concept art #development art #character design #concept sketch #who discovered roger rabbit #sequel #gas station #1930s #period film #hybrid film #roger rabbit #thom enriquez #never produced #unproduced

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the-hunchback-of-notre-dame · 4 years

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The Art of the Hunchback of Notre Dame by Stephen Rebello signed by seventeen of the artists who produced the film:

Gary Trousdale, director

Kirk Wise, director

Dave Pruiksma, supervising animator

James Baxter, supervising animator

Russ Edmonds, supervising animator

Michael Surrey, supervising animator

Tony Fucile, supervising animator

David Burgess, supervising animator

Kathy Zielinski, supervising animator

Lisa Keene, background supervisor

Gaetan Brizzi, sequence director, story

Paul Brizzi, sequence director, story

Thom Enriquez, character design

Kent Melton, sculptor

Don Hahn, producer

David Goetz, art director and

Will Finn, story supervisor, story, supervising animator.

#the hunchback of notre dame #hunchback of notre dame #disney #merchandise

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murroyilodel · 6 years

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The Art of the Hunchback of Notre Dame: Quasimodo (link) | Esmeralda (link) | Frollo (link) | Phoebus (link) | Clopin (link)

The Misshapen Bell-ringer

The character and his journey from oppression to freedom aroused empathy in many key contributors to the project. Marshall Toomey, the cleanup key for the character and an African-American, asserts, “I’ve lived Quasimodo’s life. I was one of the first people to get bussed in the early 1960s. I got called all kinds of names. I felt so inferior and so ugly. I know what’s in Quasimodo’s heart because of what I’ve been through in my life.” Writer Noni White asserts, “Someone once said that anti-Semitism is a light sleeper. All bigotry is a light sleeper. Because Quasimodo and the [Romani] are outcasts, the story touches a universal theme: Why can’t we see each other as human beings and not judge one another based on looks, beliefs, or race?”

Full write-up behind Read-More

Taking that step forward required the filmmakers to extract the essence of some of literature’s more memorable and sharply etched characters Hugo evokes Quasimodo, for instance, as “a giant broken in pieces and badly reassembled,” with “a huge head sprouting red hair; between the two shoulders an enormous hump, the repercussions of which were evident at the front; a system of thighs and legs so strangely warped that they met only at the knees and looked, from the front, like two scythe-blades joined at the handle; broad feet and monstrous hands.” Still, beneath the surface, “There was a radiance about that somber and unhappy face.”

In the novel Quasimodo may be viewed as a symbol of the unacknowledged evil of his guardian, Claude Frollo, as well as a scapegoat for the fears and superstitions of the medieval populace. Yet the Disney filmmakers saw that behind these misconceptions lay another Quasimodo entirely. Observes concept artist Jean Gillmore, “Quasimodo was limited not so much by his own physical restrictions as by people’s opinions of him. People of that time feared anything out of the ordinary, and Quasimodo embodied those fears, fuelled by the superstitions and dogma of the church. To them something that hideous on the outside must also be hideous inside.”

Rather than dwell solely on the physical qualities of the character, whom Hugo variously describes as “a living chimera,” and “hunchbacked, one-eyed, and lame,” and with a “dome for a back and twisted columns for legs,” the Disney moviemakers chose to dramatize Quasimodo’s internal struggle with the shame, insecurities, and self-loathing Frollo has created in him. Don Hahn, who previously produced Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King before being asked to produce The Hunchback of Notre Dame, views Quasimodo as “an abused child who has to struggle far less with his physical challenges than with the huge oppression of being told by his father figure, Frollo, that he is a monster, a freak unfit to venture out into the world.” Kirk Wise terms the relationship of Quasimodo and Frollo “classically dysfunctional. Frollo constantly reminds Quasimodo of how ugly, how worthless, he is and whenever the poor kid gets his hopes up, Frollo smashes them down. It’s almost like some insidious form of brainwashing that keeps Quasimodo in a trance.”

The moviemakers determined that their Quasimodo should hew close to the age Hugo ascribes to him, about twenty, rather than the fortyish man he appears to be in previous film versions. The choice lends him an innocent appeal. Hugo’s conception that Quasimodo was “vicious in fact because he was anti-social; he was anti-social because he was ugly” evolved in the filmmakers’ minds to a more modern conceit. Gary Trousdale maintains that it was crucial for Quasimodo to not be “malevolent, bitter, and vicious, but a put-upon guy who, beneath his surface appearance and his being emotionally stunted, has a loving heart of gold.” “It’s not so much how much he looks, it’s a really his inner soul trying to break free,” concurs Kirk Wise.

No Disney animated character, from Mickey Mouse to Captain John Smith or from Snow White to Pocahontas, has sprung easily into existence. Few could have presented more challenges than Quasimodo, whose transcendent spirit can be glimpsed only be those willing to see beyond his unconventional outward appearance. Key decisions were required as to how he would look and move, and how great his physical challenges should be. It had been suggested, for instance, that half his face might be deformed, but hidden under a cascade of beautiful hair. The filmmakers vetoed that notion because, as writer Bob Tzudiker put it, “This is a story of someone who must overcome his perception of his own deformity. If we hid his deformity, we’d be avoiding telling the story.” Many of the Studio’s most gifted artists – among them Joe Grant, Burny Mattinson, Ed Gombert, Jean Gillmore, Thom Enriquez, Rick Maki, Geefwee Boedoe, Kevin Harkey, James Baxter, and Rowland Wilson – created prototypical inspirational approaches to the character that ranged from nightmare creatures to singular-looking boys. In the end, a blend of the designs of illustrator Peter DeSeve, whose surrealistic style is perhaps known best from his New Yorker work, and animator James Baxter, best known for his work on Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, were chosen to balance Hugo’s Quasimodo with Disney’s. From the first moment Quasimodo appears on screen, lovingly urging a hesitant, frightened young pigeon to at last fly free of Notre Dame, the character, as animated by Baxter, appears sympathetic, psychologically battered, winsome, a full-hearted and appealing underdog. “James Baxter’s animation of Quasimodo is so moving, that it’s easy to forget that the performance as created with a pencil and paper,” producer Don Hahn says. “The energy from his animation is something audiences can feel when they look at the screen.”

Baxter designed Quasimodo with a stress on horizontal shapes rather than vertical ones. Says Baxter, “His shape contrasts deliberately with the other major characters, especially Frollo, who is very tall and Gothic. Frollo seems to fit in with the Gothic architecture while Quasi doesn’t.” Despite Quasimodo’s physical appearance, he had to be designed to be very adept and active. “He’s deformed but not disabled,” says Baxter. “His being bent over was a metaphor for his wanting to hide. We wanted him wrapped in on himself, able to bend over and cower in his most oppressed moments.”

The artists of the layout, background and effects departments worked to create an environment for Quasimodo which reflected his character and his moods. Psychologically, the cathedral is, in Baxter’s words, “Quasi’s comfort zone. When he’s on his own or with the gargoyles he’s at ease; it’s very different from when he’s in the square.” Says head of layout Ed Ghertner, “There are places in the belltower where Quasimodo has all these found and manufactured objects and they really tell you a lot about who he is, what his preoccupations are.” As the movie progresses the color and environment change subtly to suggest changes in Quasi’s mood. “Though his environment starts out cold, it becomes warmer when he shows his space to Esmeralda and magical and ethereal when he dreams of heaven’s light,” says head of backgrounds Lisa Keene.

It is through his relationship with another element of the cathedral, the gargoyles Hugo, Victor, and Laverne, that the directors chose to reveal an important aspect of Quasimodo’s character. Voiced by Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough, and Mary Wickes, respectively (Jane Withers took on the role of Laverne after Mary Wickes passed away in October 1995), “the gargoyles help us see the warm and funny side of Quasi that shuts down when Frollo’s around,” says Gary Trousdale. “Not only does this add humour and lightness to the film, it shows an aspect of his character you wouldn’t otherwise see, an aspect that he isn’t allowed to express to others.”

To voice and sing the character, Tom Hulce, an Oscar nominee for his role as Mozart in Amadeus, was, according to coproducer Roy Cohn, “the guy as soon as we heard him sing because he has this wonderful, innocent quality to his voice, yet it still has the kind of power and depth you’d expect from Quasimodo.” Hulce got put to the test on “Out There,” the song written for Quasimodo by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz in which the character’s feelings well up, compelling him to express his longing for one sing day amid the throngs he watches from the distant heights of the belltower:

All my life I wonder how it feels to pass a day, Not above them, But part of them…

For Gary Trousdale, the song “defines Quasimodo as a yearning, child-like guy watching life pass him by from the belltower, as frustrated as anyone might be if the Tournament of Roses Parade or Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade passed by your window, but you could never go.” Victor Hugo probably never imagined his malformed, melancholy creation breaking forth into song. Yet, Baxter’s animation, Menken’s melody, and Schwartz’s lyrics speak powerfully of the character’s lonely isolation, oppression, and feeling of being an outsider.

#the hunchback of notre dame #hunchback of notre dame #mickeyandcompany #quasimodo #frollo #esmeralda #phoebus #clopin #disney #concept art #hunchback disney

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