A Self-Hating, Animal Version of Walt Disney Goes to Art-Camp Rehab in a New Graphic Novel

Sometimes it can be grueling to recall that the word “ Disney ” comes from a real person ’s name . The troupe that the legendary mogul make is frighteningly powerful and ubiquitous — and his last name has make out to connote , sometimes pejoratively , a certain esthetic esthesia . A new graphic novel called Von Spatz is a trippy monitor that there was an actual man behind the mouse .

create by cartoonist Anna Haifisch , Von Spatzis centered on an anthropomorphous Walt Disney have a breakdown and lead to an artists ’ settlement rehab that gives the Word its deed of conveyance . At Von Spatz , Disney falls in with Saul Sternberg and Tomi Ungerer , and the three of 20th - century illustration luminaries all give each other shit while strain to re - focus themselves .

The nominal location may be a rehab / health center for artists , but Haifisch ’s queasily bright chromatics and puckish sensibilities make it find like a weird small mirror universe . Doraemon stands around and hang out in an artistic production supply store and Gumby makes an anachronistic cameo in Walt ’s hallucination . Von Spatz comes across as a surreal slice of desert — complete with therapy penguins — that ’s a neighbour to George Herriman ’s classic comic funnies Krazy Kat , except that the anthro - creature here are chasing inspiration and a sense of well - being . Structurally , the study unfolds in a serial publication of small gag strips , tie together with a loose sensation of chronology . Despite all the dry - humor loopiness , a gist concern with the charge of the artistic spirit bubbles up throughout Von Spatz . When the artist goad each other , those import convey how deeply they ’re slave to their own churning insecurity and impulses .

Walt Disney reckons with his own mind in Von Spatz.

Walt Disney reckons with his own mind in Von Spatz.Image: Anna Haifisch (Drawn & Quarterly)

In a counterintuitive way , Von Spatz can be read as inspirational . Haifisch delivers a version of Disney broken by being chief locomotive engineer of a massive culture - making motorcar , shinny with incertitude and anomie . The tax return to smaller , solitary originative act does n’t quite seem to “ cure ” him but it makes refreshed insights about his capableness usable to both him and the reader . you’re able to be as messed up as this version of Walt Disney and still leave a mark on the world . Just check that you ’ve grow your own version of Von Spatz to pull back to .

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