Speaking of psychedelic,

 

Bottaro rules.

Images from Disney Masters Volume 16, Jumpin Jupiter

Griffinology

 

I've always been fascinated by the psychedelic surf art of the great Rick Griffin. Here's some more of his Disney-inspired work:

Mickey Duck

Mickey Mouse Wants You (to die in Vietnam).

I had a photocopy of this Dylan Mouse on my bedroom wall all through high school.

This last image is from a really interesting article about the sixties and the symbolism of Mickey Mouse, a nice addendum to the Shary Flenniken talk at CXC.

Welcome to Wonderland....Alice.

The great SLG/ Disney experiment of 2005 must be fondly remembered by other people besides me, because when I tried to fill in some gaps in my collection recently I was gobsmacked by the Ebay starting bids.

These comics were available at every Hot Topic in every mall in America, get outta here with your "Reserve Not Met"!

Anyway, one Slave Labor book that is still readily available for a reasonable price is the Tommy Kovac/ Sonny Liew "Wonderland": 

Debuting at least a year before the great Skottie Young "OZ" series from Marvel, this six-issue miniseries was essentially a goth sequel to the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland.  Think the Tim Burton movie, only with less Johnny Depp and more Jabberwocky Death.

The main character is the Mary Ann the white rabbit was looking for at the beginning of the movie, a maid who works in the royal palace. Mary Ann is shocked at the destruction left in the wake of the events of the Disney cartoon.

The "Alice Monster" destroyed basically everything in Wonderland, like a Godzilla in tights, and now the assorted weirdos need to help Mary Ann pick up the pieces so they can get back to their royal business.

The plot is "ehhhh, who cares."  It's a series of vignettes and a chance to revisit your favorite characters, but there's not much in the way of dramatic momentum.

The star attraction here is the art of Sonny Liew, the genius artist behind The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye and The Shadow Hero.

This particular book is somewhat an outlier for Liew; it's definitely in that early aughts Gerard Way-James Jean- Kingdom Hearts-Korn album cover Emo wheelhouse, if that's your thing (that's totally my thing).

Check out these zombie treacle ladies, spooky!

On-panel murder in an officially licensed Disney comic!  I miss you, SLG.

Semisonic

 

This video takes a while to get going but it is worth it.

Motivation Monday

 

Really needed this today, thanks King.

 

Alfred, Let's Go Shopping

 

Went into town for holiday decorations today and saw a lot of cool stuff:

The Spirit Halloween had a lot of Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride merch, which I was kind of expecting, and a whole wall of Haunted Mansion stuff, which I was definitely not expecting.

Target had this Neca Goliath action figure:

and also some cool-looking figures for something called Disney Mirrorverse, which I guess is a cellphone game you can't play in the U.S.?  Seems weird to have merchandise for a game you can't download yet, but what do I know.