There are Popeye cartoons, and then there are Popeye cartoons. The good stuff, as many fans know, are the black and white Fleischer theatrical shorts of the 1930s through the early 1940s (plus their three color two-reelers), which began just a few short years after Popeye first appeared in the Thimble Theatre newspaper comic strip. The subsequent color shorts from Famous Studios (essentially what became of the Fleischer studio once Paramount took them over) in the 1940s and 1950s are still pretty good, but cannot match the amazing quality of the Fleischer ones, and over time the Famous offerings devolved into largely formulaic and bland cartoons that many fans don’t mind forgetting. And next came the television cartoons and a further, inevitable dip in quality.

Popeye animated cartoons initially entered people’s homes via television syndication of his theatrical shorts; but King Features Syndicate, the owner of the character, hoped to grab a bigger piece of the profits by producing their own series of cartoons for mainly television exhibition. The result was a package of 220 cartoons of variable quality. “Variable” might be charitable, as many fans would describe these shorts – on the whole – as cheap, poorly-animated, mistake-filled messes that offend the eyes and heart.

Ah, but Popeye superfan Fred Grandinetti would like to remind us that the KFS cartoons were not all bad, not at all. Many were decent, and a few were even pretty good; and even the bad ones are interesting in their way. He has touched on this topic previously in his book Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History, but he has now expanded on the topic considerably in his new book, Popeye The Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons. Bear Manor media is offering the book in hardcover and softcover editions, for anyone for wishes to have some help in navigating through the many KFS cartoons.

One might say, “Fred has watched them all, so that you won’t have to!” However, as you read the book, you will inevitably be curious to watch these cartoons, either to appreciate some fun Popeye action, or to pick apart the worst of the worst. Regardless, the cartoons are an important part of television history. I previously reviewed a DVD set of these cartoons, and I can confirm that the quality ranges from poor to good, and none of them can match the best of the theatrical output. The reasons for the differences is explored in Grandinetti’s book, as he describes the production history of the cartoons and the players involved. We learn of how the cartoons were farmed out to several producers, in studios across the US and Europe. It may surprise some that many of the folks involved were well-respected pros, like Jack Kinney, director of many a classic Disney short. Directorial talent, however, can only go so far, and Grandinetti details how budget, time, and the availability of animation talent adversely affected this series.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the squinty-eyed sailor should find the text interesting, as it delves into a brief history of the character in comics and animation, then proceeds to describe how the KFS cartoons came together. The main players, like Kinney, Gene Deitch, Larry Harmon and others are given concise biographies, and the various studio circumstances are described. Spin-offs of the cartoons – including merchandise and exercise campaigns – are discussed, participating television stations are identified, and there are plenty of trade ads presented. Ratings and profits are highlighted, and the success of the shorts is celebrated. This is a basically a treasure trove of TV cartoon history- and that’s all before we get to the bulk of the book, which gives a synopsis for each cartoon, consisting of a solid one or two paragraphs each, in which we learn of the story but also any trivia or animation mistakes related to the short. Most helpful in our appreciation is that the cartoons are divided by studio, and the directors are identified, with Grandinetti pointing out differences in how the series was handled depending on who worked on each cartoon. This scholarship is most welcome, as we learn to understand that this was not a uniform glob of cheap cartoons, but rather the product of many hands in several places.

This makes for a fun and informing read on a lazy Saturday afternoon, likely to be followed by seeking out the cartoons themselves either on DVD, or on YouTube, where they have all been uploaded onto the official Popeye channel. With that kind of availability, and a helpful text that contextualizes each short, it’s a great time to re-evaluate the KFS Popeye cartoons.

At the 2015 New York Comic Con, it was announced that DreamWorks Animation had entered into an agreement for Dark Horse Comics to publish three graphic novels set in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. While the series is no stranger to comics, having had books published by Titan Comics that tie in with the television series first two seasons Riders of Berk and Defenders of Berk, these would tell of adventures taking place between the second film and the forthcoming third film. What’s more, the books would be co-written by the films’ writer/director Dean DeBlois.

Dragonvine is the second of the three graphic novels. As the books are intended to stand alone from one another, it’s not a prerequisite to read the first book The Serpent’s Heir. Dragonvine does feature in its entirety Burning Midnight, a 10-page story that was published on Free Comic Book Day in 2016, where Hiccup and the other Dragon Riders tell of fond memories of Stoick while shutting themselves in an empty cave. They are buying time for Toothless to gather his strength before tackling a new species dubbed Silkspanners.

The book proper then picks up right from where Burning Midnight ends as they fight off the Silkspanners to free the rest of their dragons from webbed captivity. When the group is able to ease the situation, Hiccup discovers a Dragon Hunter arrow. Believing they were responsible for riling up the Silkspanners to attack humans and dragons, he sets off to investigate with most of the group in tow. They find themselves arriving on an island that appears to be overgrown with Dragonvine. Previously thought to be myth, Eret confirms that they are poisonous to humans and deadly to dragons.

Co-writing the books with DeBlois is Richard Hamilton, who served as the director’s writing assistant on the second film. The pair develop a pretty good story that reads well and is able to work within how comic books and graphic novels are presented in comparison to how one is presented in the films or even the television series. It does come off like a two-episode arc for the television series in some respects. This seems to be the case through the last several pages as I think they were being forced to wrap things up quickly, leaving areas to end up feeling like they’re not fleshed out or further explained upon.

But also like the television series, on which Hamilton was a staff writer, this books ends up being an opportunity for a supporting character in the series to get a little bit of the spotlight. Perhaps surprisingly, Dragonvine sees Eret get that spotlight. The story shows him as a skilled adventurer as well as displaying some leadership qualities. We still see Hiccup at the center for the most part and the other characters do get a little more to do than I believe they did in the first book. But it’s very nice to see Eret showcased.

The Burning Midnight story was illustrated by Doug Wheatley while the remainder of Dragonvine is illustrated by Francisco de la Fuente. There is a noticeable difference in the design style between the two artists, which can be a little distracting. The most notable is in presentation. Wheatley seems to be illustrating in restraint, having to work with a number of panels per page and figuring how much he can illustrate within those panels. On the other hand, de la Fuente seems to want each page to be dynamic and manages to figure a way to manipulate whatever number of panels he has to work with into creating a full page that has the reader engaged.

I will say that de la Fuente does get rather inconsistent with how he illustrates character faces. There are a couple panels where the characters look nothing like they did in the last page. It slightly adds to the distraction. Fortunately, the fine coloring job by Wes Dzioba provides some visual fluidity. The colors do a fine job setting the atmosphere of the scene as well as masking some of the occasional differences in the drawing styles. The one thing that does work out quite well in the books is the way the dragons are visualized. Both Wheatley and de la Fuente do a nice job in maintaining the way the dragons look in the films while also being able to inject their own styles here and there.

How to Train Your Dragon: Dragonvine offers just enough to whet the appetites of fans while waiting for the release of The Hidden World. At 88 pages, it may seem a little short and the last several pages do feel like the creators had to rush. And while the differing art styles between the reprinting of Burning Midnight to the story proper may distract a little, the overall presentation of the book is pretty good. DeBlois and Hamilton develop a very nice story, Eret gets some spotlight time, and the full visualization of the illustrations are vibrant. I don’t think it’s a book fans should go out of their way to pick up. However, I do think it’s good enough to get if a nice opportunity presents itself to do so.

It’s always hard to choose a favorite, of course, and even though I can safely pinpoint my number one film as Superman: The Movie, my love of all things Disney has always been greater in a general sense. But how to pick a specific “favorite” amongst not only the huge number of feature pictures in the Studio’s library, but the cream of the crop that do nothing less than rank alongside the greatest films ever made, animated or otherwise!? It’s not an easy task, and even splitting selections up to the thirty year Walt-era of 1937’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs to 1967’s The Jungke Book and the now fifty year period from then until present day doesn’t really make things any easier!

Sorting the many titles into decades or even general periods in the Studio’s history does a lot to narrow things down, making it easier to name Pinocchio as the pinnacle of the Golden Age…and Aladdin as the most entertaining of the 1990s Renaissance. Yes, sir – Aladdin. Oh, sure, The Little Mermaid bounced the Studio back from a decade in the dark with a traditional fairytale musical that had been the cornerstone of Walt’s operation back in the day, and the natural continuation of that line resulted in a Best Picture nomination for Beauty And The Beast and the highest grossing animated feature of the time, The Lion King, not to mention experimentation in stop-motion (The Nightmare Before Christmas) and computer graphics (Toy Story) that took Disney even further to infinity and beyond.

I could even wax lyrical about the fantastic depths of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame or the film largely seen as rounding out this decade-long perch at the top, 1999’s Tarzan (although I would argue that was actually the underrated and brave Fantasia 2000, which harkened back to Walt’s heyday in the most obvious fashion).

However, for me, Aladdin has always been the film that I usually end up revisiting the most from this timeframe, mostly because it’s just a rip-roaring slice of pure adventure and knockabout comedy with some frankly terrific tunes, gorgeous styling and the Studio at the height of their creative powers, just on the cusp of bringing everything the artists had learned from the old guard into a confident next generation of storytellers with amazing new digital tools at their disposal. In fact, it’s interesting that Aladdin is getting a lot of attention currently – by way of the original film’s fairly recent debut on Blu-ray, the stage musical adaptation and word of a Guy Ritchie live-action remake along this year’s Beauty And The Beast lines – just as its directors, John Musker and Ron Clements, are enjoying renewed success thanks to their CGI feature debut, the beautiful, emotional, but no less amusing Moana.

And now author Michael Lassell and Disney Editions bring about a new look at the original film and the veritable cave of wonders it has opened up in their lavishly bound new tome, the rather unwieldy titled The Road To Broadway And Beyond: Disney’s Aladdin – A Whole New World, a last minute publicity alteration to the title as it appears on the book’s spine and within its pages, the slightly more pleasing Disney’s Aladdin: A Whole New World – The Road To Broadway And Beyond.

Whatever the reasons for the change, it’s the same book inside, centering its focus on the current stage smash as some of Lassell’s previous works on Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid and Tarzan have done instead of being a comparison to the animated film – we’ll need to wait for Ritchie’s movie before we get as similar a volume as has documented the likes of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Beauty And The Beast.

The Road To Broadway And Beyond, as its title suggests, looks primarily at the original inception of Aladdin as a show bound for the Great White Way, taking its cue from Musker & Clements’ 1992 blockbuster – the highest grosser of its year – though not becoming a slave to it, a method that saw huge creative, critical and commercial returns on Disney’s previous box-office behemoth turned stage sensation The Lion King.

Lavishly illustrated with copious amounts of production photography from the original Broadway cast through to the recent London West End opening and any number of international variations – this book arriving just as a North American tour gets underway – as well as a generous number of behind the scenes images, character portraits and a most welcome sampling of concept drawings, it really is the spectacular design and final look of the show’s sets and costuming that gets the most page space, and suitably impressive it all is too.

Thankfully, the text matches up, presented in an interesting fashion that doesn’t exactly adhere to a chronological narration, but instead speaking to various members of the production’s creative crew, either by way of first person testimony or in an interview format. Even though we don’t strictly follow the “nuts and bolts” of assembling the production from scratch to opening night, there’s still something of a linear approach that retains the overall processes involved to the degree of being able to track the genesis of the show from the original film through to the international productions, right from the first chapter on Bob Crowley’s scene designs to global casting challenges. It’s a very nice approach that again doesn’t feel laborious to read, since the subject is always changing, but in the book’s three main headings (covering design, the actual staging, and international versions) we get a terrific grounding and understanding of everything involved.

The opening chapter, Arabian Nights, really does delve into the design aspects, from the sets, costumes, hair and makeup, to the lighting, sound and special effects, and each of the eight department heads offering up their experiences are as fascinating as they are interesting.

Seeing the model and final rendering for the Cave Of Wonders is enough to get one to book a ticket for the show in itself, and that’s without seeing the magic carpet in action, an illusion that gets its own fair share of page space! But again, as great as the images are, it’s the text that often offers more substance, continually providing a certain high level of insight that really explains the thought processes at play and the understanding of these craftspeople and the project they are bringing to life – there’s a reason these guys are working at the top of their respective games on something as big a ticket as Disney’s Aladdin!

Most interesting is how the show develops and changes between its origins as a read-through (the idea originally came from schools wanting to stage their own productions), Seattle and Toronto tryouts, and the final Broadway incarnation, as well as further changes once the production had been running for a length of time and additional tweaks to the international runs (such as the Cave in the Japanese edition being decorated in gold leaf!).

The second chapter, A Diamond In The Rough, brings out the big hitters: the Schumachers, Menkens, Ashmans and Rices most associated with the original film and its stage translation, explaining how Menken especially was able to return to more of the feel he and Ashman had originally envisioned for the film while it was in development, meaning the return of eventually deleted characters such as Aladdin’s pals, Babkak, Omar and Kissim, and songs such as the emotional Proud Of Your Boy and the comic Call Me A Princess.

Schumacher himself has the unique perspective of having been involved on the original film (as one of his earliest projects working at Disney Animation) and now as the head of Disney Theatrical, overseeing the Broadway production, and his recollections are most insightful, really providing, along with Menken and Rice, the backbone of the film’s journey to stage. Never initially intended to become a stage blockbuster – I can’t believe the thinking at the time was basically “who cares about Aladdin?” – the adaptation went through several incarnations, with Menken largely taking the lead in bringing back the original tone and feel that had been removed after the infamous “Black Friday” test screening of the animated film in which Jeffrey Katzenberg effectively killed off many of the characters and songs and turning the film into “Aladdin meets Indiana Jones”, as Menken puts it.

The writing of new songs, supplanted by lyrics by Chad Beguelin, who wrote the Disneyland stage version of the film and who additionally provides the new stage show’s book, is also touched upon, slightly to the detriment of Rice, who never quite seems to ever get the credit he’s deserved on this project particularly and who again goes a little short again here in just a two page overview that focuses mostly on his work for the film.

If being really picky, there are a handful of other oversights, too: a resume for Menken doesn’t mention his other Oscar-winning work for Disney past Aladdin‘s 1992 release, and a rundown of other pre-Disney versions of the story don’t include the classic 1939 Fleischer Studios featurette Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp, featuring Popeye the Sailor and a clear visual influence on Musker & Clements’ animated feature.

However, these are clearly minor omissions in a book otherwise filled with such good details, textually, and a huge assortment of images consisting of everything from concept art to set decorations and character profile shots so as to almost put one backstage itself to witness the rehearsals and processes that go on behind the curtain on a big show like Aladdin.

Although the last third of the book can become slightly promotional what with its cast profiles (including Jonathan Freeman’s reprising of his Jafar character from the movie) and a third chapter, A Million Miles Away, centered on the international shows, there’s still much goodness to be had in how the Magic Carpet and showstopping Friend Like Me number were developed (where, it seems, more is more!), although I was personally disappointed that Call Me A Princess seems to have been eventually dropped again from the show.

While not quite as opulent as a volume produced on the stage version of Mary Poppins some time ago, this is still a tremendous account of Broadway’s most recent Disney smash, what with its gold-leaf edging and several fold-out pages, and a relative dream come true at just $40, a price point that will surely drop further given online discounts, making this a must-have. For any fan of Aladdin, the movie, this is a very welcome addition to the number of books on the subject. For fans of the eventual stage show, this book is essential. And if you haven’t seen the show yet, it’ll make you want to rub that lamp and wish for tickets for whichever local or touring version you can get to see. This may well be the point, but The Road To Broadway And Beyond also works outside of that remit as both an exceptional document on the development and staging of a blockbuster stage show, and as a keepsake record of a groundbreaking achievement.

Following the huge media hoopla surrounding the return of Walt Disney’s original cartoon star, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, to the Disney Studio, it seems the company has eschewed various opportunities to showcase its amazingly storied history. Yes, there are ongoing efforts to preserve and restore a wealth of material across many different media, but with the demise of the Walt Disney Treasures line of rare and vintage shorts, television episodes and features on DVD, it has become harder and harder for long-time Studio fans to actually collect the films that made us love all things Disney in the first place.

With a handful of important titles – including Walt’s 1940s Package Features – still to make it to Blu-ray Disc and an almost total lack of the company’s legendary short subjects available on the format, it’s somewhat fallen to the company’s publishing division to fill the gap for the Disney collector, particularly in the formation of the popular D23 fan club and its various special events, while the Studio’s only mining of its back catalog these days is to cherry pick properties ripe for a remaking, from the early 1940s features (Tim Burton’s in-development Dumbo) to the films of the 1990s renaissance (the upcoming Beauty And The Beast and an Aladdin spin-off).

In lieu of this, and consistently serving up the goods, is the Disney Books Group, by way of their own Disney Editions imprint and licensing arrangements with the likes of Chronicle, Insight and Titan, publishers of various Art Of… volumes and various retrospectives on the Studio’s films, artists and history, including everything from individual theme-park attractions to Walt himself and his philosophies.

Over the past few years, and picking up where the supplemental extras and still-frame galleries on the home video discs of old left off, there’s been something of an explosion in such books that delve into the creative process of the classic Disney animated features, and in particular those that showcase previously unseen concept art for these films.

A few of these books focus exclusively on these artworks, but there’s never, to my knowledge, been a book quite like The Walt Disney Studios: A Lot To Remember, which focuses not on the films or filmmakers behind them, but on the actual buildings, rooms and spaces where those films were actually made. For even the most ardent Disney fan, especially those that have collected enough books to have started to come across the same art two, three or more times across various titles, this is a fascinatingly unique angle to take, and one that promises a completely fresh approach to the Disney story.

Of course, the term Walt Disney Studios applies to wherever Walt was based and was making his films and, although this book quite rightly focuses on the historic lot still to be found to this day at 500 South Buena Vista Street in Burbank, it does not ignore the earlier years, with a brief but perfectly informative opening chapter on Walt’s initial Kansas City digs in various garages and shops, and the original Disney Bros. Studio in Hollywood, to Walt Disney Productions’ first home at the historic Hyperion Studios and the golden age of the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony shorts that led to the creation of the game-changing Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (wonderfully documented in detail on the original Diamond Edition Blu-ray of the film).

Of particular interest amongst the number of photographs from this era are drawings of two of the main buildings, on Kingswell Avenue and Hyperion, that give a detailed approximation of how the Disney Studios of the time were laid out, revealing the Kingswell address’ restroom doubling as a dark room! (Later, in a similar fashion at the tail-end of the book, site plans for successive decades show how today’s lot has changed.)

And what is seriously impressive is the reminder of just how fast Walt, his team and his Studio needed to expand, and how quick the company grew, thanks to the success of the Alice Comedies and subsequent shorts. With the arrival of animated feature film making, space was in short supply at Hyperion by this time, but luckily cash wasn’t, thanks to the huge popularity of Snow White. Ever looking to the future, Walt knew he needed (another) new location, and one that could continue to expand in a planned method, unlike the topsy-turvy way the various expansions at Hyperion had occurred.

This is where A Lot To Remember kicks into high gear, detailing intricately the initial concepts of the eventual Studio’s campus approach and attempts to keep its staffers fit and happy, as well as shining a spotlight on a handful of instrumental names, including Kem Weber, who hardcore fans will remember as the overall architect of the site and whose work was detailed in an excellent Walt Disney Treasures compendium on the Disney Studios (if there’s one slight disappointment in this book, it’s that we don’t see more of Weber’s sleek and sharp designs, perhaps a valid basis for a volume of its own?).

The book progresses into a “tour” of the then-new facility, which pretty much became a victim of its own success as soon as it opened, from the expanded scope and less direct access to Walt resulting in a loss of camaraderie between the artists that led to the cartoonists’ strikes of 1941, to the outbreak of World War II and the requisitioning of the Studio by the US Army. These were dark days for the Disneys, with the war effort not only swamping the new site but influencing Walt’s films as well. Donald Duck was drafted, and Walt managed to stay afloat by turning out propaganda, training films and compilations, known as Package Features, which were largely made up of the kinds of shorts that had replaced the now-ended Silly Symphonies.

As current director of the Walt Disney Archives, author Becky Cline is well-placed to guide us through these facts and photos while her co-writer Steven Clark has worked in countless areas of the company, most notably in publicity for the Disneyland and Feature Animation units, but also at the Archives as an author with the legendary Dave Smith and, significantly, founding the D23 fan club, where much of this kind of information is often shared through its close ties with the Archives. The big attraction here, of course, are the images but where the book really scores is in the authors’ context, giving us just enough detail and depth without going over the well-worn stories of Walt’s betrayal by Charles Mintz and subsequent creation of Mickey, or too much about the making of certain films when they have been covered elsewhere.

The book also takes something of a chronological approach, too, so that as the Studio expands, so the timeline proceeds, from the Package Features of the later 1940s to the return of full-length films Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland and Peter Pan (all of which made use of the soundstages to photograph live-action reference footage) in the early ’50s, just as live-action features and television transformed the Studio again.

Here, the likes of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Davy Crockett, Zorro and Mary Poppins take over, with spots to mention the nearby Golden Oak Ranch filming location and a good portion devoted to the technological achievements to come from the Studio, mostly focusing on the formation of WED Enterprises and its developments for Disneyland.

The later, creatively leaner years are a little more sketchily drawn – although it’s always fun to see the Studio used as the Medfield College campus in the Dexter Riley comedies of the ’70s – before the coming of Michael Eisner signalled a revitalisation to both the newly named Walt Disney Company and the soon to expand again Studio (though it is decent that the birth of Touchstone Pictures is attributed to the Ron Miller years, even if one has to read between the lines to note it). Eisner’s regime ushered in the animation revival, of course, as well as the most recent Studio landmark in the Team Disney building, its roof held aloft by the Seven Dwarfs.

While this is something of an ironic dedication for a film that wasn’t made on this lot, it was the film that made it obvious Walt needed a bigger sandpit and provided the means to do it, so there is something to be said for having Disney’s headquarters resting on the shoulders of these giants, the statues almost literally being the foundations for the Studio that was built upon the success of Snow White. Mickey’s sorcerer hat Animation Building followed soon after, as did new CEO Bob Iger and the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm that brings the book up to date with mentions of the Pirates Of The Caribbean series and Saving Mr Banks, the latter of which, of course, filmed extensively in, and provided a fine showcase for, the recreated Disney Studio lot as it once was.

Somewhat mid-way between The Walt Disney Company’s recent 90th birthday and a centennial celebration on the horizon, The Walt Disney Studios: A Lot To Remember serves as an excellent and heartfelt tribute to the iconic location where the majority of our favorite Disney movies were developed and created. Never was there a plant, as Walt and his artists used to call it, like the Disney Studio in its heyday, and trawling through this book’s many delights, both in the bright text and phenomenal gallery of images, is a perfect reminder of the place itself. The reputation of the films themselves goes without saying, and we often remember the various artists and technicians that continue to emerge from Walt’s shadow and those that are still adding to that story with stories of their own today. But this is where they all worked, and never has there been a finer and more appropriately compiled volume on the subject than this book. Hghly recommended!

On Halloween night 1992, Fox premiered the X-Men animated series. The X-Men were already the most popular Marvel Comics property after Spider-Man by that point, but the series would elevate them into mainstream super stardom. For five years, the show would go on to be a critical and commercial success. Yet time hasn’t been too kind as numerous X-Men shows followed alongside the popular film series, leaving the pioneering program to collect dust in the closet. But then something happened recently. As part of the Secret Wars event, where numerous alternate universe stories were given the chance at new life, the animated series was reborn in the from of a new comic book series titled X-Men ’92.

Vol. 0: Warzones! collects the initial eight issue run of the series. For several months, there has been relative peace in Westchester between humans and mutants. So much so that the X-Men begin to wonder if there is any purpose for their being around any longer now that there is such little threat that they spend most of their training time doing laser tag. But following the sudden appearance of rogue Sentinels, they overhear a facility called Clear Mountain. Run by the mysterious Cassandra Nova, it supposedly rehabilitates dangerous mutants. Suspicious, the team heads over to investigate and find themselves getting involved in a lot more than just questionable methods of reconditioning people against their will. They will have to face their own personal fears while trying to prevent an assassination that could reignite tensions between humans and mutants to a more volatile degree.

The primary question to ask is whether or not X-Men ’92 is a faithful continuation of the animated series. The answer is yes. This is the X-Men as you know them from the show. They’re not dark and brooding, and yet they also understand that not everything is all roses and fireworks. Cyclops is the exasperated leader, while well meaning, is strict and stuck up. Jean Grey is his beloved wife playing mother to everyone. Wolverine is the loner who will relent and be a team-player when the going gets tough. Gambit and Rogue flirt just enough to keep from physically touching due to her powers. Storm is a worthy successor to take command when needed. Beast displays an intellectual vocabulary too great for any one to understand. And Jubilee is the teenager having the time of her life being part of the team. Even their dialogue is in character, not straying too far from how they talk on the show while allowing them opportunities here and there to play around after being dormant for less than twenty years.

Visually, the book looks pretty good. Illustrator Scott Koblish keeps with the style of the animated series while injecting some touches here and there to really play up the Jim Lee influence. The colors are bright, but not too much so as to be distracting. And there is a nice sense of fluidity at times so that the characters do not appear too stiff or rigid. This adds to the nostalgic feeling of the animated series as it evokes movement despite being still drawings. The action sequences are as spectacular as one would expect from the X-Men and is in line with how they look in the show. From the opening Sentinel attack to some pretty cool battles building up to the climatic showdown, they are presented with great affection for what fans fondly remember. It helps that there is a consideration for pacing so that the action is not splashed together for the sake of being there. But while the look, the characters, and the action recapture of the spirit of the show, they’re almost wasted by one thing. The story.

X-Men ’92 is going to confuse pretty much every reader. Regardless of whether or not you’re a fan of the animated series, there will be some thing in the book that will be bewildering to read. Be it the uncertainty of where exactly the story picks up chronologically or the obligatory Secret Wars tie-ins that are more distracting than subtle or characterizations that don’t fit with how the X-Men have otherwise been portrayed in comic books over the last two decades. There’s even strange instances where a character’s original dialogue bubble is crossed out and the “appropriate replacement” is pointed out. This is presumably a play on how the storytelling on the show seemed censored compared to how they were originally published in the books. But it is as much a head-scratcher to most as it is somewhat humorous to others. And yet for some twisted reason, this fits with the book’s clear love for the 1990s. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing.

The main narrative by Chad Bowers and Chris Sims is not going to be a simple read. I doubt even long-time comic book fans will be able to make heads or tails with the full spectrum of what is going on in the book. Sure you may have an idea of events that happen in the book, but it’s difficult to understand why it happens and how they’re connected together in a cohesive manner. Just like a good many of X-Men stories, both comic book and animated, from the 1990s. There’s no real logical reason for an X-Force team, who have never been seen as such before in the animated series, to suddenly appear. They just do. Trying to figure out why the antagonist does what they do in leading up to their ultimate goal? Don’t expect to know how it is supposed to work. There really isn’t much in the ways of continuity, not when there’s a great deal of fan-servicing going on. It’s almost as though Bowers and Sims only had one shot to cram as many references to the X-Men comics from the 1990s as they could in eight issues, not knowing the book would get picked up to be a full on-going series later.

Probably the best way to describe X-Men ’92 is that it’s like a typical Michael Bay film. It’s less about the storytelling and all about the visuals. On the one hand, the book does fit in being some form of a continuation to the animated series. The characters are as they were and the action sequences are quite spectacular to see. On the other hand, it’s a book that is confusing as one would expect from the 1990s. There really isn’t a rhyme or reason for what is happening in the book, they just do. Throw in elements that contradict one another, be it the Secret Wars tie-ins or the how different everything is from the main comic book universe, and this is a book that no fan will have an easy time digesting. And yet I can’t deny the joy of seeing its love for the 1990s on display, both good and bad. I can’t recommend it because it’s such a confusing book to read, but there were bits and pieces that made me smile nonetheless.

If there’s some money left in your purse after the holidays, here are some neat book suggestions that may interest you.

It is now customary to have a Chronicle art book accompany the release of a Pixar film, written by documented authors able to offer a true insight into the making of their movies. The Art of The Good Dinosaur follows that tradition of Pixar’s quality books. Indeed, it proposes another collection of beautiful artwork, be it sketches, storyboards, color scripts, models, sculptures and more. One can’t help but notice the particularly exquisite and expressive lighting studies by Sharon Calahan. Particular attention was given to the backgrounds that are the most represented here.

But here lies one of the paradoxes of the present approach. When watching the movie, the photo-realistic design is particularly stunning. Whereas Disney’s Dinosaur applied computer-generated dinosaurs onto live-action settings, The Good Dinosaur’s characters take place in a true CG environment, particularly detailed and textured, that truly looks realistic. Consequently, it is difficult to retrieve in them the painterly quality of the concept art and the connection between the pre-production work and the final result seems a little harder to find.

That said, I had appreciated the fact that the authors of these books brought a point of view on the process. Now the artwork is just given without any comments or quotes. So, the whole book loses some part of humanity and personality. The production of the book may have been faster and cheaper that way, but for me, it was less interesting. The adorable film certainly deserved something else and despite the undeniable quality of the book, there’s a kind of a disappointment in its reading.

Finally, I regret that this collection focuses only on the final version of the film. People who buy such books are perfectly aware of the creative juggling behind the making of The Good Dinosaur, with Bob Peterson’s initial concept having a notably less photo-realistic approach of the backgrounds. That’s part of the process and there’s no problem with that. It would have been even more interesting to do justice to the original artwork, which was arguably even more imaginative than the content we get here. This should not prevent Pixar collectors from adding this title to their collection, even as I wish the book offered more than it did.

The absence of a definite author is less prejudicial to the other book published recently by Chronicle, Funny! Twenty-Five Years of Laughter from the Pixar Story Room. Indeed, story sketches have to speak from themselves and are indeed inefficient if not understood that way. From Toy Story to The Good Dinosaur, some of the most iconic and hilarious moments were first conceived by the artists featured in this book.

But, whereas in The Art of the Good Dinosaur, it was more about the final version of the film, the present book takes into account the hundreds of gags that don’t make it past the cutting room floor, like Mater from Cars as a ninja or Sadness from Inside Out wearing “mom’s jeans.” The drawings, doodles and storyboards in the book reveal the moment a spark of an idea takes shape and turns into something the world can enjoy. So, this is funny, spiritual, and smart. The delightful illustrations give a hint at Pixar’s own unique creative process and identity. So, no need to add words to them. They speak for themselves easily, and it is rather pleasant to read it one or two pages at a time, just to start a hard work day. It both nourishes our admiration for Pixar’s story department and our pleasure to discover all these gems made at last available to the public. If you are a Pixar fan or simply want a book that blends art and humor, this one is for you!

The Art of The Good Dinosaur
is available to buy now from Amazon.com

Funny!
is available to buy now from Amazon.com

The Good Dinosaur artwork by Noah Klocek and Armand Baltazar
Funny! artwork by Matthew Luhn, George Cooley and Ted Mathot
Our thanks go to April Whitney at Chronicle Books.

Just when you thought Disney couldn’t possibly draw out its Frozen phenomenon any further, a new short – Frozen Fever, attached to currently playing Cinderella – comes along and nothing less than a full blown theatrical sequel – only the Studio’s third officially (counting The Rescuers Down Under and Fantasia 2000, though of course the Package Features were all “more of the same” back in the day) – gets announced. This is already on top of record-breaking box-office and Oscars for the first film, a hit Billboard-bothering soundtrack, unprecedented demand to meet its stars at Disney’s parks and appearances in a recent sub-plot of the company’s Once Upon A Time ABC program – plus plans for a Broadway adaptation of the original film!

All of this, of course, is to keep the characters in mind for when the next film arrives in 2018, when Disney hopes to catch lightning in a bottle for a second time, as well as to produce new elements that will keep that must-have merchandise jumping off the shelves and into the arms of its lucrative audience of, primarily, young girls, their older sisters, and their mothers. The latest to come along in the line might initially smack of the Studio starting to reach for ideas to keep the ball rolling, but this poster-book selection of Frozen imagery turns out to be a visual souvenir that could well appeal to the older kind of Disney fan.

At first glance, Frozen: The Poster Collection isn’t at all what one might expect it to be, and instead of a hardbound “Art Of…” styled book that explores the film’s marketing and publicity campaign, the initial feeling on holding the actual result might actually be described as, if I may be so bold, less than substantial and, dare I say it, even a little “cheap”. This it is certainly most not with a $25 retail cost, and despite my initial reaction that it felt, from the outside, like an overblown calendar minus the dates, I was pleasantly surprised when I eventually pulled the shrinkwrap from its cover.

Promising “40 removable posters”, the book is actually printed on thick card stock, and the oversized, approximately A3 layout means that each image has room to shine and is exceptionally well presented by way of top-notch printing. The outer front cover turns to reveal a second, gummed rubber spine inside, which holds the pages together while also offering the chance to remove, quite easily, any desired poster image with the suggestion of framing them…surely aiming at an audience a little older than those that just enjoyed the songs in the movie.

Although a previous Art Of book deals with the production of the film and various concept pieces, the selections here still serve up one or two nice early renderings as well as the poster artwork that is its focus, from the initial Mary Blair-esque shot of Anna and Kristoff wandering through the windy snow, to character portraits, holiday themed ads and such generic art as was used for the soundtrack and home video covers. As such, many of these will have been seen before, although a favorite is one of a frozen landscape broken up to reveal the title within the splintered ice, an image I hadn’t come across before and looks visually striking.

The others are, as I say, more generic (a few are frame stills and alternate foreign language variants), though the genuinely excellent print quality and thicker card pages go a long way to justify that price tag. If there’s one caveat, it’s that the posters come double-sided, meaning that you may have to make a choice between displaying one or another if two preferred images are back to back (one might like to frame the run of three special holiday ads as a series, for instance, or in my case I was quite tempted with that broken ice poster…had it not been on the back of the aforementioned stunning concept image of Anna and Kristoff in the snow!). However, I should imagine most serious collectors will more likely be careful not to jostle the book around too much and keep the pages intact within their cover.

Although perhaps not an essential addition, Frozen: The Poster Collection at least comes well presented and of the typically fine quality associated with the good folks at Insight Editions, who have picked a generous selection of images that do their best not to overlap with each other too much. There’s a feeling, what with the soundtrack’s release on vinyl and the like, that Disney has been trying to woo more serious collectors to the Frozen brand with some pretty disparate merchandising, and although this offering could be seen as something slightly kitschy with its pull-out aspect, it does ultimately (just about) succeed as something more legitimate, the plus-size pages, alternative images and quality prints making it worth a look.

Even just before the movie opens, I’m finding it a little difficult to get too excited by the prospect of a Kung Fu Panda 2, knowing that the reason for its existence is down to its bottom-line commercial potential and little more. If the first film hadn’t performed as well as it did, there would not be a Panda 2, the first of a projected, and quite absurd, five sequels that will stretch the series to six films, as announced by DreamWorks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg shortly after the box-office success of the first film (the two events quite unrelated, obviously).

Of course I’m a realist, and can see that as a smaller independent company, DreamWorks needs a big hit out of at least every other film it releases just to stay afloat, hence the reliance on franchise pictures and past-their-sell-by-date sequels in the Shrek and Madagascar series. Kung Fu Panda is next, though it remains to be seen if the apparently much-developed mythology will support the kind of expansion six films and various spin-offs will demand, or if the projected six films suddenly become far fewer than that when one proves to fall short at the box-office.

The first Kung Fu Panda was actually a phenomenal smash from the DreamWorks Studio, and proof that the company was more than able and adept to match their Pixar rivals with more nuanced filmmaking and deeper levels of storytelling that was streets ahead of the largely pop-culture infused films that had come before. With the switch to all-CGI production after the majestic hand-drawn films The Prince Of Egypt and Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron, the DreamWorks animated films settled more and more on straight comedy, the likes of Shrek and Shrek 2 quickly slipping into the noisy and less inspired Shark Tale and Madagascar films, successful as that property has been.

So it was a real pleasure, in the summer of WALL-E, when DreamWorks also put out a real winner in Kung Fu Panda, not only a hugely entertaining and strangely old-fashioned kind of animated film, but a strong contender to take back the Best Animated Feature crown from Pixar at the following year’s Academy Awards. DreamWorks largely heralded the all-star casting that now proliferates animated film, but put that aptitude to inspired vocal casting, attracting some seriously big names to fill out its new stable of animated characters. With some equally excellent writing and directing, the result was a unique animated movie from the Studio, and a deserved success.

And so now we have Kung Fu Panda 2 about to descend upon us, and although anticipation is higher than usual (I even just purchased the new Blu-ray edition of the first film as an appetizer), I still sense there’s still a modicum of hesitation from certain core animation audiences who hope that the Studio won’t trivialize the creative and artistic success of the first movie and simply turn the Kung Fu Panda series into a basic, money-wringing franchise that winds up affecting the effectiveness of that first film.

Already, there’s a faint sense of that happening: those with the original Art Of Kung Fu Panda book may find that this new volume isn’t exactly a required addition to their collections, simply because there’s just not that much new to see here. That Art Of Kung Fu Panda book was genuinely one of the best compendiums of its kind, with Nicholas Marlet’s character designs truly striking highlights, but really here the message is one of being “more of the same”.

It’s all perfectly good material, some of it really strong, but largely it works best when it’s introducing the new characters – Baby Po, new villain Shen and other new allies Master Croc, Skunkman and Thundering Rhino – and some of the new locations the characters will cross during their sure to be eventful journey. But the rest of the book is filled with the characters we already know and were already documented in the previous book.

The overall initial impression I felt flipping through the pages of The Art Of Kung Fu Panda 2 was one of over familiarity. Not every animated film, it turns out, necessarily needs an Art Of… dedicated to its production. These tomes should be special publications, just like they used to be when such books weren’t always expected with each new animated film on the block. Some of the biggest and most important animated films of the last twenty years didn’t receive this treatment, but now nary a movie comes along that doesn’t have its developmental artwork collated in book form. It’s true that the sheer amount of animated films released has grown enormously, but with such films all drawing on each other for inspiration, some of these books can often feel like another piece of the marketing push, or at least a higher-class of merchandising. But they’re still more obvious merchandising than the once-in-a-blue-moon volumes of old.

That all said, where does this book fall? Well, author Tracey Miller-Zarneke certainly knows her stuff, having been involved in the production of several recent Disney pictures and written The Art Of Kung Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon (another knock out of the park for DreamWorks, and another successful film set to become a franchise), and here she documents the production well. As well as providing commentary on the process from development to completion, we also hear from a multitude of Studio personnel as well as the higher levels of the film’s crew, who make sure that we are fully aware of the new developments in technology that allow for deeper environments, and the importance of creating a new story for Po that maintains the levels set by the first film.

Adding a star name to the front cover but very little of substance inside is one of the film’s vocalists, Dustin Hoffman, replacing Jack Black who provided a Foreword for the first book. However, Hoffman’s words, stretching to just over a couple of paragraphs, don’t really provide much insight, merely reeling off a few platitudes about how performing as Shifu has been one of his most challenging processes of his career, and how he found each storyboard or character design illustration were “microcosms of information”. Not exactly worth the price of admission alone, and you’ll learn more about the film from just one page of Miller-Zarneke’s text.

But for a book of thus type, which otherwise pretty much follows the tried and tested route of providing character design images up front, the film’s environments and a look at a specific sequence’s development, it’s refreshing to find that there’s more real concept art than anything else, with more emphasis on actual development art as opposed to final frame renders, which are often used to fill out pages and don’t really add anything in the long run. Here, though, the pages are filled with unique art, from color scripts and story sketches, to some wonderful digital paintings and CG models…images that one wouldn’t usually see anywhere else than in a selection like this.

Ultimately, despite the fact that the artwork has been chosen extremely well and is accompanied by a useful and informative text by the author, The Art Of Kung Fu Panda 2 suffers from the over familiarity that can greet any sequel. As such the book is probably only of a mild interest to the casual animation fan (there are many other more unique and impressive Art Of… books out there to catch up with) and will more than likely be of more interest to real Kung Fu Panda and DreamWorks Studio fans specifically. But whichever side of the fence you may find yourself on, you’ll find The Art Of Kung Fu Panda 2 is a naturally well-produced collection of images that thankfully more than not forgoes the final frame stills to reproduce genuine concept art created during its production, which is much more appreciated.

THE ART OF KUNG FU PANDA 2
is available to buy now from Amazon.com

How better a way to keep the often bizarre – but absolutely brilliant – visions to be seen in director Gore Verbinski’s new collaboration with Johnny Depp, the animated picture Rango, fresh in our minds than with Insight Editions’ latest Art Of… compendium, The Ballad Of Rango: The Art And Making Of An Outlaw Film?

That’s a very apt description, actually, because Rango is quite unlike any other animated film you’re likely to see this year, or possibly have seen ever before. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, the film marks a major first in that it sees Pixar’s original parent finally enter the feature animation realm. Back in 1984, Pixar was of course the fledgling computer animation division of LucasFilm, whose Industrial Light & Magic visual effects department was the new kid – and quickly king – in the business. Star Wars had set a new template for quality VFX, with pioneering CG sequences, such as the Genesis terraforming of a new planet for Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Kahn in 1982, being seen as the way forward.

Despite this early success and much interest, Lucas’ graphics department had to be sold off, the departing unit renaming themselves Pixar and set to change the future of animated film. Back at ILM, computer graphics continued to pop up in various films, from the stained glass warrior of Young Sherlock Holmes, to the wonders of a liquid-metal assassin in Terminator II, before the dinos of Jurassic Park changed the industry in 1993, some two years before Pixar were to debut their groundbreaking Toy Story. With the two companies so intertwined in their history, it was quickly expected that ILM would enter the feature animation fray, but despite an abandoned attempt to reanimate Frankenstein, the company has largely remained content to provide extraordinary effects for blockbuster films as the undisputed leader in their field.

Arguably Lucas’ own Star Wars prequels featured as much animation as a fully-animated feature on the short end of the spectrum, and so the timing must have seemed right for ILM to create the completed frames for a feature movie. But why Rango? The answer seems to lie with director Gore Verbinski, he previously of the underrated and hilariously dark Mouse Hunt, the spooky The Ring series and, of course, the phenomenally successful first three Pirates Of The Caribbean pictures. Wanting a change of scenery from the exhaustive process of shooting Pirates 2 and 3 back to back, an animated film would at least keep the director out of the water, and who better to provide the images to his warped vision than the company that set sail on those seafaring adventures?

It’s this combination of talents that truly sets Rango apart from the crowd, with Verbinski also pulling on board another trusty collaborator, Jack Sparrow himself, Johnny Depp (himself no stranger to animation as a veteran of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Alice In Wonderland). With all three in the mix, Rango becomes its own animal, and the resulting film really is like nothing experienced before (the closest approximation I could find in its acknowledged Chinatown-like story of power and corruption was Who Framed Roger Rabbit). Verbinski’s handling of the material, Depp’s performance bringing the title character to life, and ILM’s expertly rendered visuals all work together as a whole in a way that can only recall the uniqueness that Pixar bring to their films.

As The Ballad Of Rango reveals, Verbinski chose ILM precisely because it wasn’t an animation studio and, as the book is at pains to point out, this was one of many intentional decisions made so that Rango really would be a creation borne of a previously unknown quantity. And if you think their joint collaboration’s final results are anything to marvel at, wait until you get the in-depth peek at the development of Rango, from concept art to final renders, that The Ballad Of Rango provides: page after page of, quite frankly, striking production art, much of it the work of veteran illustrator – and Rango’s eventual production designer – Crash McCreery, and the rest of his talented team.

But The Ballad Of Rango is so much more than just a great collection of inspired images: after an (all-too predictably brief) introduction from Verbinski, writer Cohen serves up an excellent account of the film’s creation, from its very early concept stage (dating back as far as even before the first Pirates movie) and Paramount’s initial involvement, through ILM being persuaded to jump on for the ride, to the eventual animation process. Having storyboarded his films, Verbinski was familiar with this first phase of animated filmmaking, but the usual processes took an unusual turn unlike that for any animated film before it.

Instead of shooting straight live-action reference or simple vocal tracks, the director assembled his crew and “shot” the film not as a motion-capture exercise, but in an “Emotion Capture” experiment, designed to record the vocals while the cast gave real performances: performances that the animators could then reference directly in shots pre-boarded and directed by Verbinski. The book excellently touches on these aspects, as well as dedicated looks at the different characters and the creation of specific sequences, but if anything feels a little “missing”, it’s any seeming involvement from Depp, especially given the huge impact his performance has on the resulting film itself.

Other cast members do offer up some interpretation and reports of their experience working on the film, however, and it’s always interesting to me to hear both “sides” of a character’s being, the voice and the artist. And here the artists certainly get a chance to shine, with the sheer quality of the printing bringing their drawings and paintings to life. I was (perhaps) a little surprised that some of the final render full-page blow-ups didn’t look as sharp as I had expected, but rest assured this is restricted to only a few limited instances and that practically the entire book is full of eye-popping visuals so vibrant that one could almost reach out and touch them – and all for a film that wasn’t (yay!) even released in 3D!

Also happily, despite the book’s title (a cue from the film), we’re not offered any flippant or jokesy take on any made up “ballad”, such as a feeble attempt to replay the film’s storyline with accompanying images that so many of these tomes can resort to as a way to fill pages. Nope – this Ballad Of Rango is simply as good as animation Art Of books get, with thankfully serious and engrossing discussion on the subject by its author, and more than an archive full of really, really great imagery.

THE BALLAD OF RANGO
is available to buy now from Amazon.com

Is this the book no one asked for, or the book no one will believe? That’s the question I asked myself repetitively while perusing its pages.

By common consensus, the Fleischer Popeye cartoons of the 1930s are the gold standard for the sailor in animation. Unless you simply hate black and white, there is hardly a bad thing to be said about them. The Fleischer Popeyes were extremely well animated, exciting, inventive, and funny. Along with the original Segar comic strips, the Fleischer cartoons define how we see the sailor and set the standard for quality.

On the other hand, there is… everything else. The TV cartoons get the most negative press, while the Famous Studios version falls in-between. Famous basically grew out of the Fleischer Studio, when their distributor, Paramount, decided to muscle the Fleischers out and simply run a cartoon studio themselves. Many of the same folks stayed on to direct, draw, and act in the cartoons, so one can’t say the personnel was inferior. In fact, had the cartoons stayed under the guidance of the Fleischers, they may have evolved in a similar fashion; we’ll never know. The fact is, they did evolve, and in ways that most would say was not in a positive manner.

Yet, one voice cries out in the wilderness— Steve Bierly. Bierly is a pastor by occupation, so I cannot help being obvious in stating that his book comes off a little like preaching. He wrote the book with one purpose— to “convert” those of us that have held the Famous Popeye cartoons in disdain for so long. Using a deluge of examples, he tries to point out just how much more was going on in those cartoons than we ever appreciated.

He does acknowledge their weaknesses. Yes, they became more formulaic, and Popeye relied more and more on spinach. The animation was also drabber. And yet, there were other qualities that, Bierly contends, made them extremely appealing in their own right. Aside from some increased violence, his main point seems to be that Famous turned Olive Oyl into a sex symbol, and the cartoons in general became more preoccupied with the art of love. Right from the first chapter, he states, “They turned Ms. Oyl into a sexy beauty who could hold her own against any other attractive animated female. Hubba hubba!” Now, if you’re like me, then any disagreement with that statement will likely hinder how much you can buy into Bierly’s view of these cartoons. I can agree that she was prettied up a bit, but… sexy? Tex Avery’s Red was sexy. Olive Oyl never rose much above “mildly agreeable” in my book.

Nevertheless, Bierly re-states his feelings about Ms. Oyl repeatedly throughout the book, which is somewhat necessary for his book’s premise; because without us believing that Olive was totally desirable, the rest of his thesis falls apart. Regardless, he makes the valid point that the rather unsophisticated grab & snatch “romance” of the Fleischer shorts was replaced by a whole lot more wooing. He mentions seeing more lust, love, and late Forties and 1950s-style romance in the Famous cartoons. This may be so. I just could never quite get over his constant references to Olive being a “hot babe.” It borders on creepy, while being oh-so-contrary to popular opinion.

Aside from his Olive fixation, he does spend time deconstructing Popeye and Bluto. Here, it seems Bierly clearly favors Bluto (note that when he says “Bluto” he is really referring to all of Popeye’s adversaries in the cartoons). Popeye is given his due for all his well-known attributes of righteousness and loyalty, but he is also depicted as being weak, unattractive, stupid, easily victimized, and even “square.” Again, these statements are often true in these cartoons, but this doesn’t seem to support the argument that the cartoons hold special appeal… until Bierly discusses Bluto, with whom he is clearly impressed. He refers to Bluto and Olive as “”the hottest animated stars of all time!” During my reading of the book, I couldn’t decide if Bierly was more in love with Olive or Bluto, who is described as having all the qualities that Popeye lacked— handsome, muscle-bound, clever, attentive, and— above all— not dependent on spinach. Even when he admits that Bluto can be a lout, he does so apologetically, with a sense of absolution. Bierly’s viewpoint only wavers when discussing Bluto’s one fatal flaw: impatience. In Bierly’s view, greater patience would have always allowed Bluto to win Olive and beat Popeye every time.

His admiration of Bluto, though, does indeed play second fiddle to how he is enamoured with Olive. He even loves her bad qualities. “The roving eye of the Famous Studios Olive could also be seen as an aspect of her appealing personality, rather than a character defect.” Really? I just can’t relate to statements like that one. Personally, I often felt that Popeye was thrilled with a girl that he shouldn’t have been, and we’ve all been there. I wouldn’t really glamorize Olive for her shortcomings.

Much of the text, at least in the early going, contains material that will come as no surprise to cartoon fans… such as explaining that characters’ appearances changed between cartoons because different artists worked on them. Or that the voice artists contributed a lot to the cartoons. So did the music. So did the directors. And the writers. And so on. Such rudimentary remarks seem out of place in a book that spends much more time discussing the, uh, intimacy of human relationships. (At one point, he even warns the reader to have a cold shower.) He also has the habit of speaking for the larger audience, with such statements as “Some of us began to ask questions of the cartoons…” or “viewers started to root for Bluto.” It’s a writing style that I personally find a little annoying, since we know he didn’t really poll all of us to find out what we were thinking while watching these cartoons as children. Worse, I found many of these remarks decidedly off the mark.

Seventy pages into the book, I found myself unable to relate to the author’s point of view, and wasn’t buying into his arguments. It’s funny, but I have another “Pastor Steve” in my life. He’s my next-door neighbor— an excellent fellow, who has given me a lot of help with various projects over the years. He’s also a Star Wars nut. In this case, I can totally relate with my Pastor Steve. Love of Star Wars seems entirely rational to me. That, I can buy into. Pastor Steve Bierly’s views on the Famous Popeyes just fail to convince me. He sure does try, though.

The next 130 pages examine several of the cartoons in detail. Lots of detail. If Bierly didn’t have me with his relatively concise essays that appeared earlier in the book, he sure didn’t get me with the extended synopses of the cartoons. It turns out, which will surprise no one, that watching a seven minute cartoon is much more fun than reading a twelve page description of it. The next 85 pages describe each of the remaining dozens of cartoons in lesser (albeit more palatable) detail. All of it might be more palatable if there were some decent pictures to view. Unfortunately, all that appears are some rather washed-out, low-resolution screen grabs that look like they came from taking a photo off a television running a VHS tape (likely the case, as these cartoons are largely not available on DVD). I understand the need for the images to be in black and white, due to publishing costs, but it’s unfortunate that the images could not have been better; or, if nothing else, more numerous. Constantly, Bierly strains to tell us how gorgeous Olive is in a particular cartoon, or how handsome Bluto is, with no evidence in sight.

Appendix A goes unnecessarily further, discussing the King Features Syndicate television cartoons of the 1960s, including short synopses of nine of those cartoons. Appendix B sees Bierly talking about random things in pop culture that remind him of his beloved Popeye cartoons, including Honeymoon In Vegas, and an Archie comic book. He also summarizes a couple of the Popeye comic books. And, just to make sure that I finish the book in a really disagreeable mood, he brings up the atrocious Superman Returns, where he compares Kryptonite-poisoned Superman to spinach-deprived Popeye. (Of all the times this has happened in the comics, cartoons, and movies, why on Earth would he have to bring up the despised Superman Returns?)

Bierly does make a number of sound points about the Famous cartoons. I just don’t see how his ideas justified this book’s existence. An enthusiastic post on an Internet message board might have sufficed. With little to offer beyond some remarks about Olive Oyl being sexy, and Bluto being a better man than Popeye, plus a whole pile of not-so-interesting plot synopses, I can’t say there’s much here to recommend. Better use of images would have helped immensely, but in the end the text just isn’t all that involving. Bierly obviously has enthusiasm for these cartoons, but his writing efforts may have been better directed elsewhere.