Madeline, Bob Cannon, 1952. © UPA.	The Unicorn and the Garden, Bill Hurtz, 1953. © UPA.

I suspect that this decline of visual standards--this willingness to accept kitsch, and worse, this inability to recognize it--has something to do with a galloping infantilism, a product of lessening educational and loosening media standards, perhaps fed, literally, by the junk food we consume. "We are what we eat,"goes the old adage, and it may not be far afield of the truth. Whatever the precise reasons for this decline, Disney is enjoying an unparalleled success.

A mere waif at the turn of the century, the bitch goddess Success has become a reigning queen. And success has triumphed over the more solid virtue of achievement. This was brought home to me recently when I attended the National Magazine Awards luncheon. Inducted into the "Hall of Fame" by the Association was that cover-to-cover gossip magazine, People. I couldn't help thinking that in a world threatened by various apocalypses--nuclear and environmental--how could something as trivial and, worse!, diverting--be honored? Well, what was being honored was its circulation success, not its editorial achievement. What, may I ask, had People done to uplift our culturally impoverished (and financially impoverished--and perhaps the two are related) society? Nada. Zilch. Now back to Disney.

The cover of Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale(Pantheon). © Art Spiegelman.

A Cachet to Die For
I believe that the sea change in Walt Disney's popularity has a lot to do with the massive publicity machine spearheaded by that mother of all cocktail table books, the gorgeously written and produced Abrams volume, The Art of Walt Disney. Here was an imprimatur and cachet to die for, and it gave Disney a foothold in the American psyche that has become a stranglehold on independent animated filmmaking--at least in the theatrical area. Name a breakthrough in animated theatricals in the past 10 or 20 years? None that I've seen--none, at least comparable to those in the field of publishing such as Maus, or comic strip artists such as Joost Swarte, Charles Burns, Kaz or Mazzucchelli. In the world of theatrical features, what is there but Disney and Disney Redux, or else things pretested and pretasted in the animated kitschens of television?

Of course there are admirable types such as Bill Plympton who dare the impossible and work with 11 fingers on 25 hour days to produce their own features. But for filmmakers with only 10 digits and 24 hour days, or families to support, or studios to manage, there is little hope.

But Leonard Bernstein maintained that hope is a sixth (or is it fifth? I can't remember which) instinct. So there is always the hope that the telephone will ring--the fax machine will buzz--and there will be an offer from Pie in the Sky Productions, "Mr. Brilliant Filmmaker. We read your latest proposal (or read your latest book)"--either fantasy will do--"It would make a great feature..."

R.O. Blechman pursues a dual career as an illustrator and as head of his own animation studio, The Ink Tank, in New York. Starting this fall, Stewart, Tabori & Chang will be publishing three of his books: The Life of Saint Nicholas, a reissue of The Juggler of Our Lady, and a contemporary retelling of The Book of Jonah.