Bright Red Rocket presents God Hates Cartoons

This DVD is a collection of cartoon shorts by some of the independent/alternative/small press comic market's more well-known and exposed artists.  I originally saw the DVD being sold at SPX.  I believe it is only available through the website and in comics specialty stores, I could be wrong about that though. 

The cover is an excellent original piece by Tony Millionaire, featuring "God" in a make-shift "Tower of Babel" watching a Kaz' like Mickey Mouse while below him people hold placards that read "God Says Kill Cartoons" and "Cartoons Burn in Hell", the back is simple with three scenes, a couple quotes and listing of the shorts and cartoonists/artists on the DVD.  I can safely assume if you don't know the names, they will mean nothing to a consumer, but I'm guessing the DVD was created for it's market and was probably produced in quantities designed for that specific market.

Following are my views on the cartoon shorts included.  This is not necessarily the order they appear on the DVD, some stuff actually seems to be organized quite haphazardly and the menu design is pretty "happer-dash" and lazy for being "animated".

Tony Millionaire's MAAKIES: There are 6 shorts here that, from what I recall, were originally produced for Saturday Night Live, but got dropped after the first or second one aired as the jealous Robert Smigel (most known as Triumph the Comic Insult Dog) and his toon production partner JJ Sedelmaier complained and demanded that TV Funhouse (which includes Ex-Presidents, Ambiguously Gay Duo and Fun with Real Audio) be the only cartoon on SNL.  This is at least what I recall Tony telling me at some point.  Anyway, all the shorts made are on this DVD and are probably the best part of the DVD itself.  Drinky Crow is one of the coolest characters ever and Millionaire's humor is surreal and esoteric, but also extremely balanced and far-reaching.  The animation is pretty on cue and the bits "read" (view) like an animated Maakies cartoon strip, but colorful, bright and with great voice acting (which I am sure they were going for).

Ivan Brunetti's “Diaper Dyke and Captain Boyfuck”:  Developed by Tim Maloney for Mike & Spike's Twisted Animation Festival, these four "episodes" were rejected.  They are direct moving/talkie versions of the four strips Brunetti originally wrote & drew.  It actually doesn't even seem like much was put into it.  The voice acting is quite poor and as much as I love Ivan's art, using them as static, but with slight animation doesn't work.  Maloney also came up with the idea of putting a laugh track on the scenes.  I never really thought the bit was good in print, so I wasn't going to like it here.  Ivan's bio in the "Artists" section is really well written though, but Ivan is a really good writer, even some of his sick gags, which there is a whole book of called "HAW!" are hilarious, but DD and CB is not Brunetti at his finest or a good example of his talent.

Sam Henderson's “Lonely Robot Duckling”:  Sam adapted a strip of his that I never personally found very funny for this cartoon short.  Henderson has done much better work in "Magic Whistle"; this is a sad example of his sometimes-clever wit.  I'm not a big fan of his art style, but it works for what he does.  The only saving grace this whole thing has is comedian/cartoon voice master Tom Kenny (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Kenny,+Tom+(I)) as the robot duck.  Of course Mr. Kenny is no stranger to playing robots, he could play anything, we're talking about Spongebob Squarepants here, the fourth funniest guy on Mr. Show (after Bob, Dave and Paul F. Tompkins, tying with Brian Posehn, although maybe, Brian and Tom take slot #1 and then Paul, and then Bob and Dave taking slot #3, I couldn't probably think about that forever.)  Either way, the voice acting was above the bar, but the humor was sub-par for Henderson is capable of and the animation was just… well, it didn't work for me.

Walt Holcombe's "The Courtship of Sniffy LePants": The second best thing from this DVD, this short is just pure genius.  Since Holcombe jumped on the "comics scene" with the Xeric Award winning "King of Persia", follow up by his short running series "Poot" I have been a fan of his style and humor.  Sniffy is just a wonderful follow-up to the career that he has established.  I probably couldn't properly praise Holcombe, so I'll stop.

Kaz' "Underworld":  I believe this was also developed for SNL and shut down production after only two episodes produced.  The episodes are as surreal and strange as Kaz's regular work, which I happen to sometimes love and sometimes despise. 

Lance Meyer's "Guts Man": While I did not care at all for the story telling in this short, Lance Meyer's is an awesome artist.  He did the art for Riddlin' Kids "Hurry Up and Wait" and that's good enough in my book.

Jim Woodring's "Whimgrinder": A simple animated version of a Frank sequence, this is technically as good as anything that Jim has done and Woodring truly is a master of the craft of cartooning and surrealistic/non linear story telling, so no complaints about this, but it doesn't JUMP out at me either.

Mark Newgarden's "Cartoons and You": This piece is actually a bit confusing, I'm not sure what it's aiming at, but the animation is quite good.

Tim Maloney, who produced the DVD itself, also had three shorts of his own without using someone else's work that really did nothing for me in the least.

As a whole if I had actually ever bought this DVD I would have been very disappointed in the selection.  I could see myself watching MAAKIES every few months, but other than that, its value in my opinion was not reached.  I also felt in terms of DVD mastering/authoring it was a shoddy production from what I come to expect from even self produced DVDs.  Although I am very happy to at least be knowledgeable of what exactly the DVD was all about and appreciate Shappy's "psychic nerdism" in bringing it as a trade-loan.