Dondi was a daily comic strip about a large-eyed war orphan of the same name. Created by Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen , it ran in more than 100 newspapers for three decades (September 25, 1955, to June 8, 1986).
96-936: Interviewed before a Comic-Con audience in San Diego, illustrator Hasen told TV-comics scripter Mark Evanier the origin of the strip during a trip to Korea: I belonged to the National Cartoonists Society , and we had USO trips to Korea during the war. I went to the frontlines with six cartoonists ... And Gus Edson ... he and I got to be very close on the trip. One day, he asked me, "What are you doing?" Now usually, when you're not working, you say, "I'm in advertising." I wasn't doing any advertising. So then he said, "Well, would you be interested in anything?" I said yes. I would have done anything at that time. Finally, we got back to New York. Three days later, I get my mail and I'm sitting in my car going through it, and I come to an envelope: "Gus Edson." Inside
192-555: A matador , wearing a cape, while two of his friends from the Boy Scouts played the bull. His second work, created when he was 14, was Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941), which Anger has often called his first proper film. It was made from footage of children playing during the summer, accompanied with popular songs by bands including the Ink Spots . The next year, he produced another amateur film, Prisoner of Mars , which
288-602: A "magick ritual of light and sound in the context of a live performance", in which Anger plays the theremin and Butler plays the guitar and other electronic instruments amid a psychedelic backdrop of colors and skulls. Anger made an appearance in Nik Sheehan 's 2008 feature documentary about Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine , FLicKeR . He also appeared alongside Vincent Gallo in the 2009 short film Night of Pan , written and directed by Brian Butler. In 2009 his work
384-422: A bruised eye, a story he told in various interviews, although partly changing the assailant in various versions. A notorious incident occurred when Anger was invited to appear on Coca Crystal 's television show in 1984. Upon arriving at the studio he demanded that somebody pay for his taxi ride there, and when they refused, he attacked talent coordinator Maureen Ivice and tried to drag her into his taxi before she
480-599: A care facility in Yucca Valley, California , on May 11, 2023, at the age of 96. The announcement of his death was delayed until May 24 while his estate was being settled. Several recurring themes can be seen in Anger's cinematic work. One of the most notable is homoeroticism , first seen in Fireworks (1947), which was based on Anger's own homosexual awakening and featured various navy officers flexing their muscles and
576-801: A clown who stares up at the Moon, where a rabbit lives, as in Japanese mythology . Anger produced 20 minutes of footage at the Films du Pantheon Studio before he was rushed out of the building, leaving the film uncompleted. He stored the footage in the disorganized archives of the Cinémathèque Française and retrieved it in 1970, when he finally finished and released the film. Cinémathèque Française head Henri Langlois gave Anger prints of Sergei Eisenstein 's Que Viva Mexico! , which he attempted to put into Eisenstein's original order. [D'Este was]
672-499: A compass inside. Several fireworks then explode, accompanied by a burning Christmas tree . The final shot shows the young man lying in bed next to another shirtless man. Of this film, Anger said in 1966: "This flick is all I have to say about being 17, the United States Navy , American Christmas and the fourth of July ." He continuously altered and adapted the film until 1980. It was distributed on VHS in 1986. One of
768-519: A dance floor, and you look across a crowded room and you say, "That's the woman I'm gonna marry!" What inspired it was that during the Korean war, officers were adopting war orphans. That was where it was started. And then we just made it World War II, instead. Gus wrote it. He wrote it in longhand — no computer, no typewriter. He couldn't use a typewriter. He drank a lot. After the death of Edson in 1966, Bob Oksner teamed with Hasen, whose first strip
864-470: A feature film about Australian artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton . This project was unrealized. In 2000, Anger began screening a new short film, the anti-smoking Don't Smoke That Cigarette , followed a year later by The Man We Want to Hang , which comprised images of Crowley's paintings that had been shown at a temporary exhibition in Bloomsbury , London. In 2004, he began showing Anger Sees Red ,
960-618: A few years earlier. Anger played Hekate. He subsequently exhibited the film at various European film festivals, winning the Prix du Ciné-Club Belge and the Prix de l'Age d'Or, as well as screening it in the form of a projected triptych at Expo 58 , the World Fair held in Brussels in 1958. In 1955, Anger and Kinsey traveled to the derelict Abbey of Thelema at Cefalù in Sicily to film
1056-562: A film about Aleister Crowley titled The Wickedest Man in the World , but this project never got off the ground. In 1981, a decade after starting the project, Anger finally finished and released the 30-minute Lucifer Rising . Based upon the Thelemite concept that mankind had entered a new period known as the Aeon of Horus, Lucifer Rising was full of occult symbolism, starring Miriam Gibril as
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#17327796634221152-432: A film, but it was confiscated at the film lab for obscenity and presumably destroyed. Around this time, two of Anger's friends, the couple Renate Druks and Paul Mathison , held a party with the theme "Come As Your Madness"; Anger attended dressed in drag as the ancient Greek goddess Hekate . The party and its many costumes inspired Anger, who produced a painting of it, and asked several of those who attended to appear in
1248-476: A lawsuit Gloria Swanson filed against Anger and his publishers, he sent her a foot-long, sugar-filled coffin with "Here lies Gloria" painted on the lid and lined with a paper printed with Hebrew letters spelling "shalom". The coffin is preserved at the University of Texas Harry Ransom Center collection. After obtaining some financial backing from the publication of Hollywood Babylon , his next film project
1344-611: A letter from the French director Jean Cocteau in which he told Anger of his admiration for Fireworks (shown in 1949 at Festival du Film Maudit in Biarritz ). Upon Anger's arrival, the two became friends, with Cocteau giving him his permission to make a movie of his ballet The Young Man and Death , although at the time the project had no financial backers. In Paris, Anger continued producing short films; in 1950 he started filming Rabbit's Moon (also known as La lune des lapins ), about
1440-404: A middle-class family. Kenneth Anger, their third and final child, was born in 1927. Growing up, he did not get along with his parents or siblings. His brother Bob later claimed that as the youngest child, Kenneth had been spoiled by his mother and grandmother and became somewhat "bratty". His grandmother Bertha was a strong influence on the young Kenneth and supported the family financially during
1536-525: A muscled, topless man performs press-ups. Another recurring theme in Anger's films is the occult, particularly the symbolism of his own esoteric religion, Thelema. This is visible in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome , Invocation of My Demon Brother , and Lucifer Rising , all of which are based on the Thelemite concept of the Aeon of Horus and feature actors portraying pagan gods. Anger linked
1632-431: A new film he was creating, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome . Inauguration , which was created in 1954, is a 38-minute surrealist work featuring many Crowleyan and Thelemite themes, with many of the various characters personifying various pagan gods such as Isis , Osiris , and Pan . One of the actresses in the film was Marjorie Cameron , the widow of Jack Parsons , the influential American Thelemite who had died
1728-437: A police captain, and Hasen, as a police sketch artist. The movie (and especially Kory's performance) were negatively received by critics. Kory, the son of Rockette Diane Kory, had one minor TV role in 1963 and never made another film. Produced and directed by Albert Zugsmith , the film was released 26 March 1961. Dondi was listed in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time . Zugsmith says Allied Artists made
1824-528: A script and provided "'technical advice' about comic books" for Bob , Bob Newhart 's unsuccessful third sitcom for CBS . He has produced a number of comic books, including Blackhawk , Crossfire and Hollywood Superstars (with Dan Spiegle ), Groo the Wanderer (with Sergio Aragonés ), and The DNAgents (with Will Meugniot ). For the Spiegle comics, Evanier contributed lengthy essays on
1920-527: A secretive romp through a private garden, all for the masked figure's and the viewer-voyeur's pleasure." In 1953, soon after the production of Eaux d'Artifice , Anger's mother died, and he temporarily returned to the U.S. to assist with the distribution of her estate. During this return, he began to once more immerse himself in California's artistic scene, befriending the filmmaker Stan Brakhage , who had been inspired by Fireworks . The two collaborated on
2016-519: A sexual pervert . There are very few things I call sexual perversion, but he liked to fuck goats, and that is technically a perversion. —Kenneth Anger In 1953, Anger traveled to Rome, Italy , where he planned to make a film about the 16th-century occultist Cardinal d'Este . To do so, he began filming at the garden of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli , in which a lady in 18th-century dress walked through
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#17327796634222112-517: A short documentary, Thelema Abbey . Crowley had used the abbey for his commune during the 1920s, and Anger restored many of the erotic wall paintings that were found there, as well as performing certain Crowleyan rituals at the site. The documentary was made for the British television series Omnibus , but was later lost. The next year, after Kinsey's death, Anger decided to return to Paris; he
2208-437: A short surrealistic film starring himself, and the same year also began showing another work, Patriotic Penis . Anger soon followed this with a flurry of other shorts, including Mouse Heaven , which consisted of images of Mickey Mouse memorabilia; Ich Will! ; and Uniform Attraction , all of which he showed at various public appearances. Anger's final project was Technicolor Skull , with musician Brian Butler , described as
2304-548: A small group of people (estimated at six or fewer) who have attended every year. In 1973, he first hosted a panel at the yearly event and the volume soon escalated to the point where he was hosting as many as fourteen over a four-day convention. They usually include Quick Draw!, which pits fast cartoonists against one another to respond with drawings to challenges Evanier throws at them; the Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, Cover Story (artists discussing
2400-431: A soundtrack of popular 1960s songs, including " Blue Velvet " by Bobby Vinton , "Torture" by Kris Jensen , and " I Will Follow Him " by Little Peggy March . Anger called the film "a death mirror held up to American culture ... Thanatos in chrome, black leather, and bursting jeans." It immediately became popular on the underground cinema scene but was soon brought to court on obscenity charges. The jury ruled in favor of
2496-470: A time when homosexual acts were illegal in the United States , and he began associating with the underground gay scene. At some point in the mid-1940s, he was arrested by police in a "homosexual entrapment ", after which he decided to move out of his parents' home, gaining his own apartment largely financed by his grandmother, and abandoning the name Anglemyer in favor of Anger. He started attending
2592-620: A white fluid (often thought to symbolize semen ) pouring over the protagonist's body. There is similar homoerotic imagery in Scorpio Rising (1963), which stars a muscled, topless, leather-clad biker, and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), where a young man sensually polishes a car, with close-up shots of his tight-fitting jeans and crotch. Images of naked men also appear in Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), where they are eventually filmed wrestling, and Anger Sees Red (2004), in which
2688-423: Is Latin for "light bearer". In many of his films, heavy use is made of music, both classical and pop, to accompany the visual imagery. In Scorpio Rising he makes use of the 1950s/1960s pop songs "Torture" by Kris Jensen, "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March, and "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton. He first used music to accompany visuals in the 1941 work Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat? , which uses tracks by
2784-558: Is a little piece of stationery and a very crude drawing of Dondi — a little kid with a big, oversized hat ... big, oversized everything. And Gus writes, "Dear Kleine — ("Kleine" means "short" in German. He was making a cartoonist's half-assed joke ...) — "Dear Kleine — The kid should look like this." He had told me he had an idea for a strip about an orphan ... and I'll tell you something. I looked at that drawing, Mark, and it's like that old story that you're on
2880-409: Is a real invocation of Lucifer. I'm much realer than von Stroheim . The film contained real black magicians, a real ceremony, real altars, real human blood, and a real magic circle consecrated with blood and cum. —Kenneth Anger Meanwhile, Anger, who had moved to a small apartment on Manhattan 's Upper East Side , took the footage he had filmed for Rabbit's Moon in the 1950s, finally released
2976-545: Is most noted in animation for his work on Garfield and Friends , a seven-season series for which Evanier wrote or co-wrote nearly every episode and acted as voice recording director. Since 2008, Evanier has been the co-writer and voice director of The Garfield Show , which won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for June Foray . Evanier credits himself with convincing Jack Kirby to stop using Vince Colletta as an inker, and he considers himself one of Colletta's "main vilifiers". He wrote
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3072-429: Is said to have introduced Anger to the work of English occultist Aleister Crowley . Crowley's philosophy of Thelema exerted a profound influence on Anger's career. CFA was founded to distribute experimental or " underground " films, such as those of Maya Deren and John and James Whitney , as well as Anger's and Harrington's. Anger's interest in the occult deepened in high school. He first indirectly encountered
3168-715: The Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing . Several of the panels he hosts at Comic-Con also appear at the annual WonderCon in Anaheim, California. In April 2022, Evanier was reported among the more than three dozen comics creators who contributed to Operation USA 's benefit anthology book, Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds , a project spearheaded by IDW Publishing Special Projects Editor Scott Dunbier , whose profits would be donated to relief efforts for Ukrainian refugees resulting from
3264-539: The Elgin Theatre ." The story of the film, its making, and the people involved inspired Zachary Lazar 's novel Sway . Having used up much of the footage originally intended for Lucifer Rising in Invocation of My Demon Brother , Anger made a second attempt to complete Lucifer Rising . He persuaded the singer and actress Marianne Faithfull to appear in the film, and unsuccessfully tried to convince Jagger to play Lucifer ; instead he offered his brother Chris
3360-594: The Great Depression . It was she who first took Kenneth to the cinema, to see a double bill of The Singing Fool and Thunder Over Mexico . Bertha encouraged his artistic interests and later moved into a house in Hollywood with another woman, Miss Diggy, who also encouraged Kenneth. He developed an early interest in film and enjoyed reading the movie tie-in Big Little books . Kenneth later said, "I
3456-524: The Hanna-Barbera comic book division. He also wrote a number of variety shows and specials, and he began writing for animated cartoon shows, including Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo , The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show , Thundarr the Barbarian , The ABC Weekend Special , Yogi Bear's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper , Richie Rich , The Wuzzles , and Dungeons & Dragons . He
3552-820: The Manson Family . Beausoleil later tortured and murdered Gary Hinman in a drug robbery gone wrong, for which he is serving a life sentence as of 2023. In the October 26, 1967, issue of The Village Voice , Anger publicly reinvented himself by placing a full-page ad declaring, "In Memoriam. Kenneth Anger. Filmmaker 1947–1967". He soon publicly reappeared, this time to claim he had burned all of his early work. The next year he traveled to London, where he first met John Paul Getty, Jr. , who became Anger's patron, and also met and befriended Mick Jagger and Keith Richards , members of The Rolling Stones , as well as actress/model Anita Pallenberg . Anger decided to use much of
3648-484: The Mills Brothers . His use of popular music to accompany his films has been cited as a key influence on the development of music videos and MTV , although he stated his dislike for the music video industry. On one occasion the band Combustible Edison asked Anger to direct a video to accompany its song "Bluebeard"; he declined, believing that while music could be used to accompany film, it was pointless to do it
3744-477: The University of Southern California (USC), where he studied cinema, and also began experimenting with the use of mind-altering drugs like cannabis and peyote . It was then that he decided to produce a film that would deal with his sexuality, just as other gay avant-garde filmmakers like Willard Maas were doing in that decade. The result was the short film Fireworks , which was created in 1947 and exhibited publicly in 1948. Upon Fireworks 's release, Anger
3840-460: The ancient Egyptian goddess Isis , Donald Cammell as her consort Osiris , Faithfull as Jewish mythological figure Lilith , and Leslie Huggins as Lucifer. Anger once again appeared in the film, as the Magus, the same role he played in Invocation of My Demon Brother . Soon after the release of Lucifer Rising , a PBS documentary about Anger and his films, Kenneth Anger's Magick , was made. It
3936-575: The biker subculture. For this, he employed a biker named Richard McAuley, and filmed him and some of his friends messing around, adding to it scenes of McAuley, or "Scorpio" as he became known, desecrating a derelict church. Anger incorporated more controversial visuals into the piece, including Nazi iconography, nudity, and clips of the life of Jesus Christ taken from the Family Films' The Living Bible: Last Journey to Jerusalem , images of Jesus which are intercut with those of Scorpio. The film has
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4032-746: The 40th anniversary of Fireworks . Soon thereafter, he appeared in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon , a BBC documentary directed by Nigel Finch for the Arena series. In 1991, he moved to West Arenas Boulevard in Palm Springs, California , living in what was formerly the estate of his friend Ruby Keeler , where the British Film Institute sent Rebecca Wood to assist him in writing a never-produced autobiography. Instead, in 1995, Bill Landis, who had been an associate of Anger's in
4128-636: The Changeling Prince was definitely "Anger as a child; visually, he's immediately recognizable". Anger's first film was created in 1937, when he was ten years old. The short, Ferdinand the Bull , was shot on the remains of 16 mm film that had been left unused after the Anglemyers had made home movies with it on a family vacation to Yosemite National Park . In Ferdinand the Bull , which has never been made publicly available, Kenneth dressed as
4224-565: The E in Wile E. Coyote stands for "Ethelbert", and comics for the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate. In 1974, he teamed with writer Dennis Palumbo and wrote for a number of television series, including The Nancy Walker Show , The McLean Stevenson Show , and Welcome Back, Kotter , on which he was a story editor. After leaving Kotter in 1977 and amicably ending his partnership with Palumbo, Evanier wrote for and eventually ran
4320-551: The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine . On May 26, 2006, Evanier underwent gastric bypass surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Having peaked at around 344 pounds (156 kg ) by then, he subsequently lost nearly 99 pounds (45 kg) by June 2007. Series head writer denoted in bold . Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer , February 3, 1927 – May 11, 2023)
4416-535: The Scientologists." Despite withholding legal action against the highly critical 2015 film Going Clear , the Church of Scientology is known to sue those making accusations against it. In 2019, he became the subject of the documentary short Cinemagician - Conversations with Kenneth Anger , by Swedish author and filmmaker Carl Abrahamsson, which features some of his last recorded interviews. Anger died at
4512-448: The U.S. in the early 1950s, Anger began work on several new projects, including the films Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Scorpio Rising (1964), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), and the gossip book Hollywood Babylon (1965). The latter became infamous for various dubious and sensationalist claims, many of which were disproved, though some remain urban legends . Getting to know several notable countercultural figures of
4608-506: The child wandering through a war-torn village. The soldiers brought the child back to the United States and Ted eventually became his adoptive father. Like other comic strip boys, such as Dennis in Dennis the Menace , Dondi's character never ages. This became problematic in later years, as Dondi's age made the origin story impossible. Eventually, references to his Italian origin ceased, and he
4704-428: The creation of film to the occult, particularly the practice of ceremonial magic , something of which Crowley had been a noted practitioner. Anger once said, "making a movie is casting a spell." One of the central recurring images in Anger's work is flames and light; Fireworks has various examples, including a burning Christmas tree . This relates to Lucifer, a deity to whom Anger devoted one of his films, whose name
4800-413: The day that cinema was invented was a black day for mankind. —Kenneth Anger In 1944, the Anglemyers moved to Hollywood to move in with family, and Kenneth began attending Beverly Hills High School . It was here that he met Maxine Peterson, who had once been the stand-in for Shirley Temple , and he asked her – alongside another classmate and an older woman – to appear in his next film project, which
4896-539: The early 1980s, wrote an unofficial biography of him. Anger condemned Landis's book, calling Landis "an avowed enemy". In 1993, Anger visited Sydney and lectured at a season of his films at the Australian Film Institute Cinema. In an interview given at the time to Black and White magazine, he said he was staying in King's Cross and putting the finishing touches on the final treatment of
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#17327796634224992-608: The emerging Aeon of Horus . He tattooed Lucifer's name on his chest and began searching for a young man who could symbolically become Lucifer, "the Crowned and Conquering Child" of the new Aeon, for the film. While living at the Russian Embassy, he met and lived with various young men who could fill the role, eventually settling on Bobby Beausoleil . Beausoleil founded a band, the Magic Powerhouse of Oz, to record
5088-595: The entertainment industry. In 1985, he launched the DC Challenge limited series with artist Gene Colan . He wrote the New Gods series of 1989–1991. Evanier collaborated with Joe Staton on the Superman & Bugs Bunny mini-series in 2000. For many years, Evanier wrote a regular column, "Point of View", for Comics Buyer's Guide . Evanier's illustrated Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of Comics ,
5184-423: The film Puce Women , which unlike Fireworks was filmed in color. It starred Yvonne Marquis as a glamorous woman going about her daily life; Anger later said: " Puce Women was my love affair with Hollywood ... with all the great goddesses of the silent screen. They were to be filmed in their homes; I was, in effect, filming ghosts." Due to lack of funding, only one scene was ever produced, eventually released under
5280-591: The film in 1972, and again in a shorter version in 1979. Around the same time he also added a new soundtrack to Puce Moment and rereleased it. Also around this time, the publisher Marvin Miller produced a low-budget documentary film based on Hollywood Babylon without Anger's permission, which upset Anger and led to a lawsuit. Anger also created a short film, Senators in Bondage , available only to private collectors and never made publicly available. He had plans to make
5376-553: The film to show they could make movies for children. He says the studio "arbitrarily cut the wrong twenty minutes out of it." A comic book adaptation of the movie was published as Four Color #1176 by Dell. The comic strip is featured in a scene in Kenneth Anger 's short film Scorpio Rising (1964), as well as Sweet Punkin, I Love You (1976). Hasen received the National Cartoonists Society's Award for Story Comic Strip for 1961 and 1962 for his work on
5472-514: The film's soundtrack. In 1967, Anger said the footage he had been filming for Lucifer Rising had been stolen, accusing Beausoleil, who denied it. Landis quotes Beausoleil as saying, "[W]hat had happened was that Kenneth had spent all the money that was invested in Lucifer Rising " and that he therefore invented the story to satisfy the film's creditors. Beausoleil and Anger fell out, with the former getting involved with Charles Manson and
5568-468: The first people to buy a copy of Fireworks was the sexologist Alfred Kinsey of the Institute for Sex Research . He and Anger struck up a friendship that lasted until Kinsey's death, during which time Anger aided Kinsey in his research. According to Anger's unofficial biographer Bill Landis, Kinsey became a "father figure" whom Anger "could both interact with and emulate." In 1949, Anger began work on
5664-400: The first time in the U.S., where it proved a success, selling two million copies during the 1960s. Around the same time Anger also translated Lo Duca 's History of Eroticism into English for American publication. The mid-1960s saw the emergence of the hippie scene and increasing use of the mind-altering drugs Anger had been using for many years. In particular, the hallucinogen LSD , at
5760-455: The footage created for Lucifer Rising in a new film, Invocation of My Demon Brother , which starred Beausoleil, LaVey, Jagger, Richards, and Anger, the music for which was composed by Jagger. It was released in 1969 and explored many of the Thelemic themes Anger had originally intended for Lucifer Rising . Author Gary Lachman believes the film "inaugurat[ed] the midnight movie cult at
5856-440: The gardens, which featured many waterfalls (an allusion to the fact that d'Este allegedly sexually enjoyed urination ), accompanied by the music of Vivaldi . This was supposed to be only the first of four scenes, but the others were not made; the resulting one-scene film was titled Eaux d'artifice . Landis remarked, "It's one of Anger's most tranquil works; his editing makes it soft, lush, and inviting. Eaux d'Artifice remains
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#17327796634225952-407: The homoerotic Fireworks (1947). The work's controversial nature led to his trial on obscenity charges, but he was acquitted. A friendship and working relationship subsequently began with pioneering sexologist Alfred Kinsey . Moving to Europe, Anger produced a number of shorts inspired by the avant-garde scene there, such as Eaux d'Artifice (1953) and Rabbit's Moon (1971). Returning to
6048-407: The house. In retaliation he called a press conference in which he ridiculed Page and threatened to "throw a Kenneth Anger curse" on him. Page's music was dumped from the film and replaced in 1979 by music written and recorded by the imprisoned Beausoleil, with whom Anger had reconciled. [Lucifer is] a teenage rebel. Lucifer must be played by a teenage boy. It's type-casting. I'm a pagan and the film
6144-427: The money on living expenses and alterations to some of his films, so that by the time he actually created Kustom Kar Kommandos , it was only one scene long. The homoerotic film involved various shots of a young man polishing a drag strip racing car, accompanied by a pink background and The Paris Sisters ' song " Dream Lover ". Soon after, Anger struck a deal that allowed Hollywood Babylon to be officially published for
6240-442: The pair), had English ancestry. Anger's parents met at Ohio State University and after marrying had their first child, Jean Anglemyer, in 1918, followed by a second, Robert "Bob" Anglemyer, in 1921. That year they moved to Santa Monica to be near Lillian's mother, Bertha Coler, who had recently moved there. There Wilbur got a job as an electrical engineer at Douglas Aircraft , earning enough money that they could live comfortably as
6336-525: The part. Anger subsequently filmed eight minutes of film and showed it to the British National Film Finance Corporation , which agreed to provide £15,000 for Anger to complete it – something that caused a level of outrage in the British press. With this money he could afford to fly the cast and crew to both West Germany and Egypt for filming. Anger befriended Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page around this time,
6432-612: The prosecutors and Scorpio Rising was banned; the ban was overturned on appeal to the California Supreme Court . Now living in San Francisco, Anger approached the Ford Foundation , which had just started a program of grants to filmmakers. He showed the foundation his ideas for a new artistic short, Kustom Kar Kommandos , which they approved of, giving him a grant of $ 10,000. Anger spent much of
6528-438: The skills involved in creating covers for comic books), and several panels about the art of providing voices for animated cartoons. For years, he hosted the annual Golden Age Panel featuring artists and writers who'd worked in comic books in the 1940s but it ended after 2010 due to a lack of available panelists and was replaced by That 70's Panel, celebrating comic book creators from that era. Evanier also serves as Administrator of
6624-530: The strip. Mark Evanier Mark Stephen Evanier ( / ˈ ɛ v ə n ɪər / ; born March 2, 1952) is an American comic book and television writer, known for his work on the animated TV series Garfield and Friends and on the comic book Groo the Wanderer . He is also known for his columns and blog News from ME, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, such as his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of Comics . Evanier identifies as Jewish . His father
6720-419: The subject through reading L. Frank Baum 's Oz books as a child, with their accompanying Rosicrucian philosophies. He was also interested in the works of the French ceremonial magician Eliphas Levi , as well as Sir James Frazer 's The Golden Bough , although his favorite writings were Crowley's; he eventually converted to Thelema, the religion Crowley founded. Anger discovered his homosexuality at
6816-621: The time still legal in the U.S., was very popular, and in 1966 Anger released a version of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome he called the "Sacred Mushroom Edition", which was screened to people while taking LSD, thereby heightening their sensory experience. By this time, Anger had become well known in the American underground scene, and several cinemas screened his better-known films all in one event. With his growing fame, Anger began to react to publicity much as his idol Crowley had done, for instance calling himself "the most monstrous moviemaker in
6912-539: The time was achieving success not only in the art world but also in the underground film scene. In 1980, Anger threw paint on the front door of a house Warhol had recently moved out of. In 1966, Anger moved into the ground floor of the William Westerfeld House , a large 19th-century Victorian house in San Francisco also known as the "Russian Embassy". Around this time he began planning a new film, Lucifer Rising , echoing his Thelemite beliefs about
7008-770: The time, Anger involved them in his subsequent Thelema-themed works, Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1972). After failing to produce a sequel to Lucifer Rising , which he attempted through the mid-1980s, Anger retired from filmmaking, instead focusing on Hollywood Babylon II (1984). In the 2000s he returned to filmmaking, producing shorts for various film festivals and events. Anger described filmmakers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière , Georges Méliès , and Maya Deren as influences, and has been cited as an important influence on directors like Martin Scorsese , David Lynch , and John Waters . Kinsey Today argued that Anger had "a profound impact on
7104-495: The title Puce Moment . That same year, Anger directed The Love That Whirls , a film based on Aztec human sacrifice; because of the nudity it contained, it was destroyed by technicians at the film lab who deemed it obscene. In 1950, Anger moved to Paris, France , where he initially stayed with friends of his who had been forced to leave Hollywood after being blacklisted for having formerly belonged to trade union organizations. He later said he traveled to Paris after receiving
7200-634: The titles of the officers of the Merry Marvel Marching Society . He made his first professional sale in 1969; that same year, through a mutual association with a Marvel Comics mail-order firm, he was taken on as a production assistant to Jack Kirby . Several years later Evanier began writing foreign comic books for the Walt Disney Studio Program , then from 1972 to 1976 wrote scripts for Gold Key Comics , including "The Greatest of E's", where he revealed that
7296-559: The two sharing a great interest in Crowley. At Page's invitation, he traveled to Page's new home in Scotland , Crowley's former residence Boleskine House , to help Page exorcise the building of what Page believed to be a headless man's ghost. Page agreed to produce the soundtrack for Lucifer Rising , and used the editing suite in his London home to shape the music. Anger later fell out with Page's partner, Charlotte, who kicked him out of
7392-515: The underground", a pun on the fact that British tabloids had labeled Crowley "the wickedest man in the world" in the 1920s. Anger's underground fame allowed him to increasingly associate with other celebrities, including Anton LaVey , the founder of the Church of Satan , who named Anger godfather to his daughter Zeena Schreck . Despite their differing philosophies, Anger and LaVey became good friends and remained so for many years. But Anger also resented some celebrities, such as Andy Warhol , who at
7488-585: The work of many other filmmakers and artists, as well as on music video as an emergent art form using dream sequence, dance, fantasy, and narrative." Kenneth Anger was born as Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer on February 3, 1927, in Santa Monica , California. His family was Presbyterian , but he became more interested in the occult . His father, Wilbur Anglemyer, was of German ancestry and was born in Troy , Ohio, while his disabled mother, Lillian Coler (the older of
7584-406: Was The Story of O ; it was essentially a piece of erotica loosely based on the novel of the same name featuring a heterosexual couple engaged in sadomasochistic sexual activities, although it refrained from showing any explicit sexual images. In 1961, Anger once more returned to the U.S., where he lived for a time with Marjorie Cameron. He began work on a new feature, Scorpio Rising , about
7680-522: Was Jewish and his mother was Catholic. He chose to be a writer after witnessing the misery his father felt from working for the Internal Revenue Service and contrasting that with the portrayal of a writer's life on The Dick Van Dyke Show . He graduated from University High School in 1969. Evanier attended UCLA but left before graduating. Evanier was president of a Los Angeles comic book club from 1966–69. In 1967, he suggested
7776-415: Was Mrs. McGowan, who was the mother of Whitey McGowan. In a rather startling development for a comic strip at the time, Whitey and his new bride died in a car crash on their honeymoon, leaving Dondi to Mrs. McGowan, who had initially resented the boy but came to love him and accept him as her grandson. This explanation was permitted to fade into the mist as the strip grew farther away from World War II. Dondi
7872-571: Was a child prodigy who never got smarter." He remembered attending the Santa Monica Cotillion, where he met Shirley Temple , with whom he once danced. Anger claimed in Hollywood Babylon II that he played the Changeling Prince in the 1935 Warner Brothers film A Midsummer Night's Dream , but the character was played by a girl named Sheila Brown. Anger's unofficial biographer, Bill Landis, remarked in 1995 that
7968-436: Was addicted to opiates (reflected in the character of Goofy , who's perpetually stoned on cannabis); and the nature of the deaths of Peg Entwistle and Lupe Vélez . The work was not published in the U.S. initially, and was first released by the French publisher Jean-Jacques Pauvert . A pirated (and incomplete) version was printed in the U.S. in 1965, with the official American version not published until 1974. In response to
8064-488: Was adopted by Ted and his wife, the former Katje Bogar. "Pop" Fligh, a former pro baseball player, became Dondi's adoptive grandfather when he married Ted Wills' widowed mother. Following this, Dondi was portrayed simply as an adopted child, although in the early 1960s there was a reference to his being an orphan of the Korean War. During the mid-1970s, there was a reference to his being from Vietnam. A recurring character
8160-533: Was an American underground experimental filmmaker , actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning in 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle". Anger's films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult , and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle". He has been called "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers", with several films released before homosexuality
8256-603: Was arrested on obscenity charges. He was acquitted after the case went to the Supreme Court of California , which deemed the film art, not pornography. Twenty years old when he made Fireworks , Anger claimed to have been 17, presumably to present himself as more of an enfant terrible . A homoerotic work lasting only 14 minutes, the film revolves around a young man (played by Anger) associating with various navy sailors, who eventually turn on him, stripping him naked, beating him to death, and ripping open his chest to find
8352-584: Was considered by some to be repellently wholesome; a Mad Magazine special issue in 1965 included a calendar that celebrated April 9 as "'Kick 'Dondi' in the teeth day." The Garden City Telegram (Garden City, Kansas) put it on its calendar, perhaps naïvely or as a joke (it was the April 1 issue). Dondi was adapted into a family-oriented film with David Kory in the title role and David Janssen as his American G.I. buddy, Dealey. Singer Patti Page also starred as Liz, and cameo appearances were made by Edson, as
8448-478: Was dated April 23, 1967. Oksner and Hasen remained with the strip until its 1986 conclusion. When the strip ended, it was carried in only 35 newspapers. Dondi's original backstory describes him as a five-year-old World War II orphan of Italian descent. The boy had no memory of his parents or his name, so when a pretty Red Cross worker said he was "a dandy boy," he thought she was naming him "Dondi." Two soldiers who spoke no Italian, Ted Wills and Whitey McGowan, found
8544-421: Was described at the time as being "extremely remote and lonely". In desperate need of money, Anger and ghostwriter Elliott Stein wrote a book, Hollywood Babylon , in which he compiled gossip about celebrities, some of which he claimed (with no corroboration or citing of sources) he had been told, including that Rudolph Valentino liked to play a sexually submissive role to dominant women; that Walt Disney
8640-859: Was directed by Kit Fitzgerald, who later recalled interviewing Anger in his Manhattan apartment on a very hot July evening, during which he revealed that he was so broke that he had been forced to sell his air conditioner. Anger himself considered producing other films that would continue on from Lucifer Rising in a series, and he began calling his finished film Part I: Sign Language , to be followed by two further parts. But those projects were never finished, and Anger did not produce any further films for nearly two decades. In need of money, he released Hollywood Babylon II in 1984, as well as continuing to screen his films at various festivals and universities and continuing to attempt to produce Lucifer Rising II ; around this time he began wearing an eyepatch to these public events, likely due to having been beaten up and getting
8736-644: Was featured in a retrospective exhibition at the MoMA PS1 in New York City, and the next year a similar exhibition took place in London. Anger finished writing Hollywood Babylon III but did not publish it, fearing severe legal repercussions if he did. Of this, he said: "The main reason I didn't bring it out was that I had a whole section on Tom Cruise and the Scientologists . I'm not a friend of
8832-533: Was heavily influenced by Flash Gordon . In this science fiction-inspired feature, in which he played the protagonist, Anger added elements taken from the Greek mythological myth of the Minotaur and constructed a small volcano in his back yard as a homemade special effect . Many of these early films are considered lost , with Anger burning much of his previous work in 1967. I've always considered movies evil;
8928-457: Was legalized in the U.S. Anger also explored occult themes in many of his films; he was fascinated by the English occultist Aleister Crowley and an adherent of Thelema , the religion Crowley founded. Anger was born into a middle-class Presbyterian family in Santa Monica, California . He began making short films when he was 14 years old, although his first film to gain any recognition was
9024-526: Was published in February 2008 by Abrams Books. It won the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book. Evanier collaborated with Aragonés and Thomas Yeates on the Groo vs. Conan crossover for Dark Horse Comics in 2014. In 1970, Evanier attended the Golden State Comic Con in San Diego, the first annual gathering of what came to be known as San Diego Comic-Con . Evanier is one of
9120-527: Was rescued by other members of staff. Anger reportedly escaped the scene by flinging a $ 100 bill at the cab driver and screaming, "Get me out of here!" In 1986, Anger sold the video rights to his films, which finally appeared on VHS , allowing them to have greater publicity. The next year, he attended the Avignon Film Festival in France, where his work was being celebrated in commemoration of
9216-565: Was ultimately titled Escape Episode . Revolving partially around the occult, the picture was filmed in a "spooky old castle" in Hollywood and was subsequently screened at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles. Around this time, Anger also began attending screenings of silent films at Clara Grossman's art gallery, through which he met a fellow filmmaker, Curtis Harrington , with whom he formed Creative Film Associates (CFA). Harrington
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