Woodring And Haeckel and Whim

by John Holbo on January 5, 2011

I like the fact that the engraving on Jim Woodring’s Nibbus Maximus is so clearly influenced by my own recent work (via boingboing):

Haeckel Haeckel everywhere and such a lot of ink.

If you don’t know Woodring’s work, the new Weathercraft [amazon] book is pretty good, and cheap. But what you really want is the The Frank Book. Which, it turns out, is crazy expensive. Gads. When did that happen?

But you can watch this animated version for free, anyway:

Oh, and here’s an animated version of the bit that really bothers Belle, really gives her the cold robbies. Whim (he’s the half-moon-headed guy) and his head-altering egg-beater device. Apparently it is called a ‘whim-grinder’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp95qKF4cDg&feature=related

{ 6 comments }

1

laufeysson 01.05.11 at 6:03 am

I’m willing to believe that there may be something to homeopathy, even if it just turns out to be a form of placebo that thanks to the specific ritual involved is even more effective than normal placebos — but so then I always thought the wittiest and most effective criticism of homeopathy I ever encountered was Jim Woodring’s offer someplace to do commissioned drawings made with homeopathic ink, viz., a drop of normal ink diluted in a gallon of water, thus resulting in drawings that were necessarily vastly more intense and powerful than ordinary drawings.

2

Ginger Yellow 01.05.11 at 9:47 am

“Whim-grinder” sounds like it should be a synonym for “intuition pump”, aka “thought experiment”.

3

John Holbo 01.05.11 at 12:54 pm

That’s a good point. I could also use a velleity buffer, for keeping my smallest desires shiny. Or, possibly, to insulate them from things that might damage them. Perhaps one product could do both.

4

John Holbo 01.05.11 at 12:58 pm

“Jim Woodring’s offer someplace to do commissioned drawings made with homeopathic ink”

I’m glad to hear he scooped our Daniel with that joke, because if you are going to be scooped, you might as well be scooped by the best.

5

Hob 01.05.11 at 6:41 pm

That’s a man’s man’s nib all right. Note, if you follow the YouTube link to madamew’s other videos, you can see some prototype stages.

The Frank animations are all… really good attempts, but I find them hard to accept for various reasons. The first one is technically lovely and gets the cosmic stuff right, but ordinary movement like walking is pretty stiff, Frank’s head is oddly angular, and they misspelled Pushpaw in the credits. “Hi-Rise Hopper” is the opposite of stiff, everything’s all floppy and goofy in a John Kricfalusi style, feels wrong. The last one… actually I don’t have anything to complain about there; maybe the Frisell music makes it all all right.

6

John Holbo 01.05.11 at 11:27 pm

I agree about the animation.

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