anybody else suprised by the fact that Baski's commentary on DVD makes no mention of underground cartoonist VAUGN BODE, whose work had particular influence on Wizards: Necron 99/ peace is heavily based on Bode's character Cobalt 60 and Avatar is Cheech Wizard, right? right?
any other bode fan's out there?
any news of his son, Mark Bode's film liscencing developmentation?
anybody know where/how one might be able to see a recording of the Vaughn Bode Cartoon Concert???
I noticed the similiarities right off the bat.Its a real shame that he failed to mention Vaughn, however the movie was made almost 30 years ago. Memories fade and it would be a challenge to acknowledge everyone involved during a film project(directly or indirectly). He did a good job on the commentary and that saying something given that most are absolutely horrid.
I'am a big fan of Vaughn bode and proudly own a great deal of his comics (even the dirty ones). "Man" is pretty funny. i have no idea where you would get the cartoon concert, although i seem to remember Rip Off Press releasing a bunch of underground cartoons on vhs in the mid to late 80's. Gilbert Sheldon and few other artists works were animated back then, but you know that.I would love to find said video especially if i could hear Vaughn bodes introduction. "Deadbone" should be animated now!
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Heaviertraffic,
I understand your take and agree that Wizards does NOT rip-off Bode, but I can also see some similarity in the art work. All those buxom little fairy women are present in quite a bit of Bode's work. Poses, facial expressions, and props have some striking resemblences between the two artists. Of course, nearly naked, buxom little fantasy women were quite the rage back in the 70's...LOL. In fact, I just finished watching the movie and extras on the Wizards DVD and was laughing quite a bit that some of the earliest sketches of Elinore had her as a Naked Princess Leia..LOL...must have been the Mark Hamil influence. Boy, wouldn't that have thrilled all the Star Wars fanatic teenage boys of the era! LOL
Has anyone heard any recent news about the animation of Cheech Wizard. I've seen a few on-line attempts with computer 3-D animation, but was hoping there's been some progress toward actually making a movie...
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i dont think its a question of blantant theivery or ripping off. the visual influence is clearly homage.
YOU DON'T SEE THE SIMULARITIES??--not even worth arguing, you must be blind.
thanks for the rippoff press video info--i'll look into it, but i highly doubt that a copy of the Bode cartoon concert actually exists..
i did want to use this opp to really get the BODE thread going. i just read the comics journal library "seduction" collection featuing a rather satisfying bode section. its really wild to finally get all this objective, straight forward info on da bode hisself. Every thing i've ever known about the guy was from his own books--intoductions, afterwards, journal entries....whatever...its alot of new age hippy dippy *beep* thats backed up fairly well by the man's body of work. now i feel like i really know the truth and a whole lot of questions i had have been answered
the cheech wizard 3d animation can be viewed at MarkBode.com--its not great. but its better than nothing--Because of Bode's masterful use of volume and perspective i think 3D (with a whole lot of countour inking )is actually the best way to represent and capture the feel of the work. it seems like bode's work would be a 2-D animation nightmare requiring one HELL of an ink and paint dept.
any thoughts on Mark Bode or his recent publication of "the lizard of oz"?...anybody have anything good to say?
how about Ecko unldt.'s liscensing of cheech and the lizards???
jesus god i love vaughn bode.
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considering bode never wrote an actual narrative that didn't go off in a million acid induced tangents, i wouldn't really worry about a full length feature film.
i agree that cg is inferior. it is. yo, son, I WORK in animation, yo. my point, which you didn't didn't pick up, is that the ink and paint dept. would have to be amazing. everyone involved with such a project would have to be right up at the top of their games. no matter what, it would be an art direction nightmare.
Cheech and avatar don't just have similar hats--actually their hats aren't really that similar once you get past the stars). the basic character constructions are very simular, look at the size of the feet in relation to the pelvic mass. LOOK AT THEIR RELATIVE HEIGHTS. cheech is kind of funny here, because as far as i know, the most bode ever revealed of him from under the hat was white flesh under the red stockings.
as for the simularities between NECRON 99 and COBALT 60?
the name, the mask, the face within the mask, the gun, the horse, the feet, the legs...
the work of vaughn bode: fantasy, death, psychedelia, the military, nature.
the wizards dvd/vhs cover and movie poster contain all of these things..we got the shrooms, the panzer tank (bode loved 3rd reich military images, characters, germanic language etc.) and the BUTTERFLY.
you're wrong. if you are involved in animation, comics, cartooning or storytelling, you must be really lousey at what you do.
ps zappa rules.
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As another artist (and animator in training, jeeze, there's a lot of us ain't there?), the trick, at least in my mind (and having been a friend of Mark Bode's since 1987), I see two things:
Cel shaded 3D animation if nessesary (2D as an option of last resort, but Cobalt 60 would look better, IMO), 3D backgrounds covered with texture maps made with scanned watercolor and marker surfaces. Gotta keep that organic feel in the art, but you also have to keep the energetic pacing and compositions that were in the original Cobalt 60s, and Mark's later expansion on the saga.
Maybe in a few years when I get tired of the continuous girly art and porn business, I'll have enough time to animate some clips, and do some collabs with Mark once more.
Ah, and lest I forget, there were two interesting points about Wizards:
Wendy Pini, creator of Elfquest, was largely inspired by the film, and secondly, the movie featured a lot of great art by Mike Ploog. Just thought I'd mention it.
hey!! NOW WE'RE COOKING!!
the Ploog art, for me, is one of wizards' many high points--using stills with voice over isn't a very complex way to kick the film off, but it works so well.
so what's mark up to these days? i've been meaning to shoot him an email--my favorite work of his is the tmnt book that he did--it was really nice to see him finally bring CW back in lizard of oz, but conceptually, the book was kind of a moot point, the color was amazing though, and some of the visuals really popped.
Honestly, I've been out of touch with him for about 5 years, been too busy to keep in contact as much as I should. I'm more or less stuck (until the economy improves) in the Pacific NW, and unable to attend very many conventions. Last I saw Mark was at DragonCon, and he was still doing his Cartoon Concerts.
I'm kind of an introvert, truth be said, it was easier to hang with Mark when I was living in Oakland and he in Berzerkely.
One thing I'll note, however, last time I mentioned watching Wizards to Mark, his response was, simply put, "Hey, business is business.". While Vaughan may have held a grudge, Mark apparently has made up his mind as to the relevence of the movie, that it may be derivative, but isn't a ripoff.
Now Fritz the Cat, that's another matter entirely.
But then that's the case of movie making during the 70s. Sometimes one might be addled and taken advantage of, in other cases, one might be brilliant and take advantage of the drug addled. Many of them are pretty much on equal sides of the line, the Hollywood execs who turned down Star Wars, or the Hollywood execs who approved the Star Wars Holiday Special, it's easy to point fingers around.
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I noticed the similarities, so much so I used to think the movie was based on some Bode cartoons. Peace looks like something out of a Bode strip.
I need a better sig
Yes, yes, I've always thought that the look of Wizards had to be either purposely or unconsciously inspired by Bode's work!
As he did not credit Bode in the commentary, I became convinced that it was a total rip-off... if the two artists were in fact contemporaries/friends, then I think Bakshi did Bode a disservice by not at least mentioning his name...
I first learned of Bode's work from it being featured in Marvel's classic Epic Illustrated mag back in the day. Sorry to say, I don't know the answers to your other questions...
EDIT:
So I just started looking up Bode's work, and I found this strip, which basically claims that Bode was the uncredited influence for Wizards: http://www.cannabisculture.com/library/images/uploads/4406-069_Bode.jpg
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Agreed, I shouldn't have said "total rip-off".
I guess I meant a "minor rip-off which was totally unaddressed by Bakshi in his commentary"...
Even that might be unfairly critical, but I think that SOME degree of influence from Bode is, honestly, undeniable.
But as long as credit is given where it is due, I have no argument with the man or his work. Derivative or not, I enjoy most of RB's work and its place in pop-culture history, the cinema equivalent of the underground and adult-fantasy comics of the 1970's.
Peace.
I don't normally post on IMDB but I figure I'd mention I'm a fan of Bode's work as well! I personally met Mark Bode when I was getting my tattoo done at his parlor in MA. I found him to be a very nice man and I was pleased with his artwork. (I got a Lina Inverse tattoo from the Japanese anime Slayers done).
For the record, when I spoke personally with Mark he informed me that Bakshi did indeed plagiarize him and his father's work. Just something to think about when comparing statements. :P
I love Bode's work and bumped into the movie poster for wizards and was all excited that he did an animation movie,which I somehow had managed never to have heard about.
Only to come check it out on IMDB and finding this thread.
It seemed so logical that Ralph Bakshi would team up with Bode seeing how he worked with other comic artists like Frazetta and Crumb.
While I did see alot of Bakshi's movies I never really delved into the backstory but I seem to remember there were some difficulties between him and Crumb right?
I havent seen the film so I don't know if it's a ripoff or not, besides, I have no grounds to complain about it anyway seeing as how I ripped my screenname from Bode's work as well.
hughe bode fan here.
adctually i had never before heard of the film and i just stumbled upon it through the imdb recommendations and looking at the poster my first thought was: "damn, that's cobalt 60, but drawn by someone else, isn't it?"
"any news of his son, Mark Bode's film liscencing developmentation? "
unlikely. i was in contact with mark like 10 years ago and he is an amazingly nice guy, but his business skills unfortunately seem to be a bit limited.
"anybody know where/how one might be able to see a recording of the Vaughn Bode Cartoon Concert???"
was that even recorded on video? i am still waiting to get my hands on the audio record for a decent price.