The Pirates and the Mouse: Disney's War Against the Counterculture
They fought the Mouse and the Mouse (eventually) wonâ€"but it was a battle that left everyone bloodied... During a time of unprecedented political, social, and cultural upheaval in U.S. history, one of the fiercest battles was ignited by a comic book. In 1963, the San Francisco Chronicle made 21-year-old Dan O'Neill the youngest syndicated cartoonist in American newspaper history. As O'Neill delved deeper into the emerging counterculture, his strip, Odd Bodkins, became stranger and stranger and more and more provocative, until the papers in the syndicate dropped it and the Chronicle let him go. The lesson that O'Neill drew from this was that what America most needed was the destruction of Walt Disney. O'Neill assembled a band of rogue cartoonists called the Air Pirates (after a group of villains who had bedeviled Mickey Mouse in comic books and cartoons). They lived communally in a San Francisco warehouse owned by Francis Ford Coppola and put out a comic book, Air Pirates Funnies, that featured Disney characters participating in very un-Disneylike behavior, provoking a mammoth lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringements and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. Disney was represented by one of San Francisco's top corporate law firms and the Pirates by the cream of the counterculture bar. The lawsuit raged for 10 years, from the trial court to the US Supreme Court and back again. The novelist and essayist Bob Levin recounts this rollicking saga with humor, wit, intelligence, and skill, bringing alive the times, the issues, the absurdities, the personalities, the changes wrought within them and us all. Includes never-before seen art from the Air Pirates archives! Two excerpted chapters of this book in The Comics Journal in 2001 proved to be one of the magazine's most popular features in recent memory. Black-and-white illustrations throughout.
Customer Review: Interesting topic...bad book
The topic of this book certainly sounded interesting, especially since I was taking a Media Laws course at the time I read it. However, this book was bogged down with too many problems for me to recommend it. First of all, the book is full of small errors that make it seem like it was hastily thrown together and shoved onto the shelves. The author is listed as "Bob Levin" on the front cover, but as "Bob Levine" on the spine. A citation on the back page quotes an editor as calling the book "The definitive history of this wonderful, mad (and, I believe, signficant) episode in Amercan [sic] popular culture." And one of the illustrations and comics in the book are listed as being from 1971, even though Levin later says (correctly) that they were from the mid 90s. Aside from these annoying but ultimately forgivable problems, the author just doesn't have a very fluid or gripping writing style. Some of his sentences so grossly overuse punctuation marks that they may discuss three different topics in a single sentence. I will admit that he does a passable job describing copyright laws, but that was just one part of this book. His footnotes also tend to be places for him to get in his two cents rather than truly informative additions. And he ultimately fails to make the characters endearing to the audience, which is frustrating since he admits in the book that each author is trying to sell a story or viewpoint to the reader. It may be more objective to paint the Air Pirates as nothing more than a bunch of stoned twenty-somethings following an even more-stoned thirty-something, but it sure didn't sell to me that we should be rooting for them. The ending of the book also let me down. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that after discussing a series of lawsuits brought against the Air Pirates, the story ends very abruptly, without describing the final decision in any great detail. This should have been the climax of the narrative, and it just fizzles out. So while I appreciate Bob Levin pointing out this interesting case that has apparently gotten very little recognition, I wish that he would have discovered it, and then turned it over to a better author.
Customer Review: Too bad
The history outlined in THE PIRATES AND THE MOUSE is essential reading. Unfortunately, Mr. Levin has foreclosed the chances that a *great* history, as opposed to a good one, of the Air Pirates controversy will ever be written. As a researcher, Mr. Levin is fearless and gratifyingly thorough. As a prose stylist, however, he cakes on the pretension as if imitating--poorly--the academic and cultural-studies historical texts with which both his subject and his approach prompt comparison. He injects himself needlessly (as a participant in the counterculture, as a "wit," as an eloquent commentator, &c.) into the history wherever he can, and rarely uses one adjective or adverb when he can stack three or four atop each other like cords of wood. I'm perplexed that Groth and Thompson--two critical writers I've admired since I was a teenager, both of whom are enviably well-read in multiple genres--could let THE PIRATES AND THE MOUSE slip through their editorial fingers in this state. It's a beautifully designed book loaded with information and images that can scarcely be found anywhere else, but I can't read even three pages of it at a time without craving another kind of prose: matter-of-fact, eloquent, and focused. This ain't hairsplitting. The greatest archive in the world will reach no one if the text that mediates between archive and public keeps jerking the spotlight back upon itself.
Cinderella - An Original Walt Disney Records Sountrack 
Like the grateful emporer once said about Mulan, "You don't find a girl like that every dynasty." Same could be said for Disney's ever classic Cinderella, and the soundtrack should live up to the romantic magical tale. For those unfamiliar with the latest Disney soundtracks, they are composed of many background score tracks, along with the many recognizable songs known to millions around the world. If you wish to hear dialogue to string the songs together, then by all means, purchase the dvd movie.
Customer Review: A DREAM WORTH WAITING FOR
A dream is what your heart makes. And for years we've been dreaming and wishing that Cinderella would make a comeback. And thanks to the magic of Disney, our wish has been granted. (Please do not mix up this Cinderella with the punk-rock band of the same name. This is music; that is a mess.) We are happy to see (and hear) that extra tracks, including two demo recordings. And though we understand Disney's marketing techniques, we do wish that the added performances by Jim Brickman and Kimberely Locke would go away. Maybe if we close our eyes real tight and chant those three magic words. All together now: bibbidi-bobbidi-boo ...
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