Most accidents
Happen
Buddah be praised

There are so many ways that a martial arts comic can develop. The transition to regular series brings with it the introduction of supporting cast member Black Jack Tarr, whose presence solidifies the title’s path into the espionage genre.

Strange that the company we keep has such a large impact on our own lives, but it rarely affects fictional characters in quite the same way. Imagine if the first people Shang Chi met in the Western world were astronauts or motocross drivers. What a wonderful comic that would be.

Your concrete paths
And overflowing gutters
Are not welcome

It’s obvious that the team behind this issue were uncertain whether it would last one issue or one hundred. The villain is a former friend of Shang Chi’s named Midnight, and is presented as being Shang Chi’s equal in Kung Fu, but he’s introduced and dismissed so quickly that it doesn’t really mean a thing. Worst of all is Midnight’s outfit, with a clumsy fedora and cloak marking him as a fourth-rate Shadow knock-off instead of a martial artist.

Shang Chi’s distance is interesting. He shows a detachment to the alien streets of New York City, puzzled only momentarily by a squalor he’s unaccustomed to before banishing it from his mind. Unlike so many other heroes, he’s less interested in saving a world he neither understands or cares for then he is destroying an evil he is already familiar with and leaving us to wallow in our own filth.

Paper warm
With slashing bodies
And neglected evils

Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom delineate the action with stiff poses caked in meaty feathering that gives off the kind of creeping panic one would feel upon waking up alone in a theatre on the Deuce. If powerful drawings are out of the question, pages that reek of stale bong water and black light posters aren’t a bad substitute.

In its way, Fu Manchu’s mastery over outdated methods of domination is brilliant in that this modern world seems to have forgotten how to cope with his archaic villainy. Master of Kung Fu is not only the tale of a boy and his estranged father, but a story about how tradition can be as dangerous as innovation.

I’m not able to attend Noir City this year, so I’ve decided to hold my own film noir festival at home, starting with The Money Trap featuring the considerable charms of Elke Sommer.

It’s been ten years since Jenny Everywhere was first made public. I check up on her every couple of months, and I’m always shocked and pleased to see new people discovering her and creating new worlds for her. Thanks to everyone who took a chance on her. The toast is on me.

In celebration of her tenth birthday, I present the only Jenny Everywhere story I’ve ever completed, a 24-hour comic from a few years back. Check out the hot mess after the jump.

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J. has a roller derby game this weekend, so I thought I’d dig up something, anything that involves roller skates. I’ve drawn roller girls a few times, and never really felt like I got it. I think I should make like Wile E. Coyote and push my next attempt as far as it will go. That’s some great posing there.

I was never that big a fan of the Road Runner when I was a kid. In other Warner Bros. cartoons, the dialogue combined with the animation played off of one another to raise the quality of both. That said, I had an assignment in college where I had to animate a scene with Wile E., and it certainly increased my appreciation for what the animators of the Golden Age were able to achieve. Wile E. may be the least appreciated character design to come out of Warner Bros. I love how mangy he looks with all his little tufts of matted fur, and how he has that huge torso that makes him look like a hunchback and accentuates his tiny, malnourished stomach. They really nailed him right out the gate.

POTENTIALLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK CLIP.

I promised myself that I wouldn’t post content found at Andreas Dejas blog more than once a week, but it’s so damn hard to resist. So many wonderful roughs and pencil tests. I just hope he starts pacing himself or he’s going to burn out.

Today’s clip is by Ollie Johnston. The design is unmistakably Freddie Moore, but no one has figured out where the clip is from, if it’s from anything. I love how raw it is in comparison to the other clips Dejas has been posting; the lack of detail or clean-up, the static holds. That and it reminds me of that urban legend about the gag footage animated by Disney artists showing Jiminy Cricket and Tinker Bell getting it on.

There’s a fine line between crazy and maniacal. Woody Woodpecker takes that line and beats you to death with it. At first I was a little taken aback by Woody’s intensity in this cartoon, but I can’t help but appreciate that willingness to make Woody stand out from the crowd by pushing him further, even if he does come off like he’s a serial killer. It’s interesting to see the changes these characters go through as they are passed around over the years. I like these interim portrayals, when they’ve been refined slightly but not enough to smooth out all the rough edges.

Man, when it gets going, this one tears right into it. The escalating jump cuts and rapid-fire editing add so much to the madness. Director Shamus Culhane is the Godard of animation. At first I found the human characters to be a little soft, but in the end they make a nice contrast to Woody’s angular, manic performance, as if the entire world is sleepwalking until he comes along. That sequence when they’re fighting along the counter is just masterful, and Woody has so many rich poses in this thing.

Things I Never Noticed As A Kid #312 – Little Johnny Jet’s father should really consider taking a paternity test.

It’s probably a little unfair, but I went into Little Johnny Jet comparing it to today’s crop of anthropomorphized vehicle animation. Right from the start, when Johnny’s dad opens the garage door with seemingly effortless appeal, I couldn’t help thinking that the use of inanimate objects in 3D animation to cover up for limitations in the technology has been a crutch for too long.

Back to Little Johnny Jet; upon watching it a second time I realized that it really works as a condensed movie, like those abridged Castle films you could get on 8mm back in the day. It’s a nice change of pace from Avery’s usual rapid fire wackiness, though he does manage on getting a few gags in as they circle the world. Johnny’s take after passing the Statue of Liberty is priceless.