IN
HIS OWN WORDS:
BOB LEVINE
THE PIRATES AND THE MOUSE: DISNEY'S WAR AGAINST THE COUNTERCULTURE
1. The lesson is powerful people will try to squash people who make them look bad. In the last 10 years, courts have made it more difficult to use copyright law as a hammer. But parodists may still want to keep an an extra five figures in the bank. Just in case.
2. The value of the Air Pirates wasn't so much in their comics themselves -- which really weren't that good -- but in their actions. They were saying nothing was too sacred, pure or powerful that someone couldn't take a crack at it. They went after the biggest beast in their forest.
3. I'd been profiing underground and alternative cartoonists. I've always been drawn to people who, because they're braver or crazier or have less superego than the rest of us, take actions -- often at great personal cost -- that expand boundaries we more conventional folks profit from.
4. The mainstream media has pretty much ignored the book, but it's gotten good coverage in alternative papers and online. The book draws people who have a fond spot in their heart for the '60s or who are interested in Disney or intellectul property law. Nearly all that's been written about the book has been favorable -- except for those of refined sensibilities who hate how I write.
5. I was a little worried until I saw the art Fantagraphics intended to run. Then I was A LOT worried. But I refused to be the one writer to go down in history for censoring his publisher.
 |
From Salon:
"In 1963, Dan O'Neill became the youngest syndicated cartoonist in American history, up until his 'Odd Bodkins' strip got too comfy with San Francisco's counterculture, at which point he was summarily dropped by the Chronicle.
What pissed the Chron off more than anything else was the cartoonist's proclamation that Mickey Mouse had to be destroyed. For once and for all. What happened next is the meat of Bob Levine's book, and it isn't pretty." MORE