The Soho Journal writes a spectacular review of Unfiltered with the knock-out opening lines: “Some publishers print books on or about art, while others publish books that are art. This is such a book. Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi is perfect.”
Shane Glines of Cartoon Retro calls Unfiltered “possibly the best animation art book since ‘Illusion of Life‘” on his recent post.
John Kricfalusi creator of Ren and Stimpy writes “I think this might be my favorite animation book yet” in his review on his blog. “Wow! An art of animation book that totally gives you what you want!”
Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew and Animation Blast calls Unfiltered a “must-have” animation book and a “visual feast packed with page after page of amazing artwork” on his early preview post.
Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi has also received positive press in print from Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, Playboy, and more. Interviews with Ralph in The New York Times, New York Magazine and BlackBook have also mentioned the book’s release.
May 13th, 2008
Ralph Bakshi will be appearing in person in New York City at the following events! Also you will find the co-authors of Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi Jon M. Gibson and Chris McDonnell and copies of the book at each event.
Thursday, April 17th:
Animazing Gallery Exhibition and Book signing.
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
416 Broome Street
New York, NY 10013
RSVP at their site.
Friday, April 18th
New York Comic Con Panel Talk & Book Signing
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
IGN Theater
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
655 West 34th Street
New York, NY 10001
Presented by MoCCA.
Saturday, April 19th
Anthology Film Archives Author Q&A, Book Signing & Film Screenings
7:00 PM Heavy Traffic
9:00 PM Coonskin (on a restored 35mm print)
32 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003
Tickets $8 at the door, good for one or both features.
April 7th, 2008
Posted on the Amazon.com page for the Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi
book, Steven Worth has written a piece on the book and specifically Ralph’s importance in animation history. Steve’s review:
If all you know about Bakshi is his rotoscope pictures, you’re in for a surprise. Ralph is one of the most innovative and wildly creative geniuses of recent times. His influence on animation is immense. On the back cover, Frank Frazetta is quoted as saying, “Ralph Bakshi is one of the finest artists I’ve ever met.” He isn’t exaggerating a bit.
If you are an artist working in animation, whether you know it or not, Ralph Bakshi is the reason you’re here. Don’t believe me? Throw your mind back to 1970. Look at what the animation business had turned into… Disney was cranking out Robin Hood, a film without a single new idea. On TV, Filmation was lowering the bar so Hanna Barbera could play “quality limbo” with them. Animation was dying, animators were choosing retirement over flogging the dead carcass of the art form they loved, and it looked like it the situation would never get any better.
Enter Bakshi. With his first three films, he turned animation upside down. He showed that it wasn’t just a medium for big bears with Phil Harris’s voice and crappy sitcom characters in outer space. His films shocked and terrified people… they were crass and sloppy. They were made on a shoestring, and sometimes it showed. But they had something honest to say, and that got noticed. Ralph showed that animation- the most collaborative art form ever- could be an intensely personal medium.
Ralph’s first three films- Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, and Coonskin- came totally out of the blue. They are the animation equivalent of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives. Great old time animators like Irv Spence, Ambi Paliwoda and Virgil Ross were offered the opportunity to cut loose and make films that weren’t just cats chasing mice and dogs chasing cats. These films dealt with what it meant to be an artist, the battle of the sexes, race relations, and the unsenimentalized realities of urban life. They were improvisational and had no rules.
These three films, made in the darkest of the dark ages of animation, offered a glint of hope for what animation could become. If all you’ve seen of Ralph’s work is Lord of the Rings and Fire and Ice you don’t know what I’m talking about here. All of the adult targeted animation you see in the US today has its roots in Ralph’s example in these three films. They stirred up controversy and caused riots at screenings back in the day, but now they seem to us like they could have been made yesterday, not three decades ago- except for the fact that today’s world has trouble accepting brutal honesty when it comes to politically charged topics. Ralph has never been one to pull punches.
In the 1980s, Ralph did for television animation what he did for theatrical features, blowing the lid off of CBS’s Saturday morning schedule with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Ralph took a chance on the ideas of a kid named John Kricfalusi, and set up the studio after the unit structure model used at Warners. Artists were cut loose to create cartoons. Without Mighty Mouse, there never would have been Ren & Stimpy or The Simpsons. The artists who worked on Mighty Mouse have gone on to lead the TV animation industry.
Ralph is an absolute genius when it comes to spotting raw talent. He can take a kid straight out of school and turn him into a pro faster than anyone else. Every film had its “graduating class” of kids. Those kids now populate the animation business on every level, from the top Producer at Disney feature to the creative sparks at Warners. I know of Bakshi alumni who are top dogs at Dreamworks and the CGI companies too.
As a filmmaker, Ralph is one-of-a-kind. He doesn’t make films for executives… he doesn’t even make films for a specific audience. He makes them for himself. You can count the number of animators capable of using this unweildy medium for personal expression on one hand and still have fingers left. Ralph is one of them.
But Ralph is not only the greatest living animation artist. He is the catylist that has more than once pulled the industry out of a hole so deep people had just about given up on cartoons. For that alone, he deserves the respect of any and all animators, whether they like his work or not.
If this business needs anything right now, it’s another go round with Bakshi. The era of shi-shi “distressed” animation desks complete with faux wormholes, and middle management producers driving Jaguars paid for by their bonus checks is over. That was great for the people lucky enough to hook up to the gravy train while it lasted. But times have changed. The people left standing will be the ones who REALLY CARE about the medium of animation.
You can take my word for the fact that no one loves cartoons more than Ralph. Sit down and ask him about Jim Tyer. (Ralph was Tyer’s assistant…) Listen to what he has to say about Spence or Maltese or any of the other old timers he brought in to work on his films. Ralph lives and breathes animation. His drawings are imbued with the whole history of the medium. He announces his retirement every once in a while, and swears off cartoons forever, but it’s in his blood. Just count the days till the bellowing voice out of the blue hollers “BAKSHI’S BACK, YOU BASTUHDS!” over the studio intercom again.
It’s time for Ralph to rent a warehouse, fill it full of kids with big dreams, raw talent and lots of ideas and crank out a film. It doesn’t even matter if it turns out crappy. It’ll be a shot in the arm to the whole business, and it just might lead to something even better. I know I’d love to be a part of it.
UNFILTERED: The Complete Ralph Bakshi isn’t one of those “art books” with postage stamp sized pictures floating in oceans of tasteful white space and huge text blocks of scholarly blather that crowds out the images. It’s just pictures, pictures and more pictures… along with just enough text to put them in context. Artwork by Frank Frazetta, John Kricfalusi, Barry Jackson, Louise Zingarelli, Michael Ploog, Ian Miller, Irv Spence, Robert Dranko, Mark Kausler and Ambi Paliwoda. The book is organized to show Ralph’s career from his earliest days at Terry-Toons, to his groundbreaking features, to his revolutionary TV work, to his most recent fine art paintings.
BUY THIS BOOK!
–Stephen Worth, Director, ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
March 3rd, 2008
A big thank you to all our digital volunteers for helping with cleaning up some dusty and worn out cels for publication in the book. We are done with that phase of the book so we wont be needing any more volunteers at this point. More book news will be coming soon…
September 25th, 2007
Over on the ASIFA Hollywood Archive page Ralph wrote an opinion piece with more to come. Ralph has a lifetime of experience with both fully animated cartoon films and laboriously rotoscoped live-action films. The real problem facing todays animators is coming up with something fresh to animate instead of rehashing the past, no matter what tools they choose, he indicates.
August 14th, 2007
