Pen Pressure

Joe Williams, A Man Ain’t Supposed to Cry (1958)

This is an unpublished retrospect of the book God Is Red: A Native View of Relgion by Vine Deloria, Jr. (1994/1972 Fulcrum edition).

There is a feeling people have when they find and accept Christianity as their chosen religion. The conceptual perception is known as being blessed. As humans, we all experience different levels of a heightened awareness. Yet, when someone finds God, they go through an exceptional display of public affection towards religion. Like a peacock parading around its glorious display of colorful wings, fundamental Christians strut their ideals to not just assure their stature as human beings, but to also elevate a sense of social status and assure you of this moral placard.

Vine Deloria, Jr. eludes to the idea of Christianity dominating culture, but “falling victim to cultural values.” These values are the same moral fiber that inflict our lives throughout history: war, racial tensions, sex, violence. In this work, he extrapolates more thought into attacking Christianity than defending native religion. Expunging on thousands of years of the history of Christian thought, he pairs it down between the individual and the community. Through recent events, Deloria considers Christianity as a product of the individual, a failure to societies in general. Comparatively with native religion, the relationship lies between a “particular” god and “particular” community. He calls the individual in a tribal religion to be ridiculous.

What seems to be contradicting between the individual and community, Deloria quotes Shooter, a Sioux Indian, to expand on the concept of individuality in tribal religion. “All birds, even those of the same species are not alike, and it is the same with animals, or human beings. The reason Wakan Tanka does not make two birds, or animals, or human beings exactly alike is because each is placed here by Wakan Tanka to be an independent individuality and to rely upon itself.”

Yet, he blames native religion for not preserving the ideals of the old ceremonies as they have been obscured with what is taught in the schools and church. But as he parallels his view on the Old Testament, it shows a universal aspect of understanding any religion. “The Old Testament is probably extremely accurate in many respects, particularly when describing those events that changed the way people understood their world. It is difficult for many people to accept the fact that the Old Testament is primarily an effort to record first Hebrew and then Jewish history and not a volume of Divine admonitions about the nature of ultimate reality. . . . Our responsibility today is to discern from the many different human traditions the probably historical sequences that have shaped our modern earth and come into closer understanding of the nature of the planet on which we live.”

Native religion is not about preserving historical value. It is a reaction to the respect of nature that surrounds them. It is also a reaction to the outside influences that shape their existence be it social conflict or political motivation. As Deloria, writes about the bullying effect of Christianity (destroying nature and erecting large buildings as churches, holding televangelism, etc.), this comes hot off the heels of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.

In 1972, there was a social conscious of the Indian Rights Movement. Deloria painstakingly addresses it almost as much as he addresses the history of Christianity. His only fault is that he claims he wished he would have kept up with the trends throughout the years of modern Christian fallacies that have plagued society.

God Is Red is a reaction to the uncertainty of the moment, utilizing history as its foundation. American life was at a murky crossroads. As President Nixon reduced troop numbers in Vietnam (549,000 in 1969 to 69,000 in 1972), anticipated fears of a never-ending war ramped back up with Nixon’s Christmas bombings. Popular culture mimicked these fears with M*A*S*H* replacing Vietnam for the Korean War and airing on TV. In England, Richard Adams perfectly put into prose the uncertainty of the times in Watership Down. In science fiction, John Brunner builds a frightening dystopian world in The Sheep Look Up. David Morrell pens the causality and human effects of post traumatic stress syndrome with First Blood.

California rockers like David Crosby tapped into natural elements as a guiding force, but never is as poignant as Native American rockers Redbone. They followed up their Message From A Drum with 1972’s Already Here. The Native American rock group made a name for themselves by tapping into the collective consciousness of native culture.

Unlike the capitalization of fear these novels presented, Deloria used God Is Red as a call for alarm. He explains that an “important way for Indian authors to change the opinions and behaviors of non-Indians was to attack the fundamental principles of non-Indian world view (A Conversation with Vine Deloria, Jr. 1977, Words and Places Program 8). He does so by looking at American perception of Indian culture from tribal treatise to the American Western.

In Chapter 2, “The Indians of the American Imagination,” Deloria makes a critical analysis not only of American culture but many Native American authors who write about Native culture, fact-checking misconceptions in their ideas. But then he points out the books that should be read for their proper perspective of Native culture. In this 1994 edition, he notices a new wave of popularity of Indian religions. “Tribal religions have been trivialized  beyond redemption by people sincerely wishing to learn about them.” For Deloria, we still did not have it right.

The Pop-Up Book of Star Wars Random House

In correlation with the movie, Random House released this book in 1978. Like many kids of the late ‘70s, Star Wars was mesmerizing, and this was my favorite childhood books.

Wayne Barlowe did the artwork for this and fantastically preserved the essence of the Star Wars film franchise. He went on to do more wild Bosch-esque science fiction and fantasy work. I am surprised his Star Wars artwork is not a part of his online portfolio of artwork achievements as it is not impressed into his portfolio.

Ib Penick had this to say about paper engineering: “ "...there are only about 100 folds and tricks to [his paper engineering] trade. It's like playing a piano. You have only a certain number of keys, but it's the combinations that make the difference.”

This children’s book stands out from across the room like a beacon of psychedelic delight. The size of the book is unique. It’s vibrant colors and fantastical emotion on the hardbound cover is hypnotic. And with a title like The Rainbow Goblins, the intrigue is irresistible.  The 1978 Warner Books hardcover was a purchase I could not resist. I could stare at that cover for hours, and that’s just a gateway into Ul de Rico’s imaginative vision inside.

Italian born Ul de Rico, biologically named Ulderico Conte Groppiero di Troppenburg, is an artist from the Munich Academy, studying painting under the helm of Professor Franz Nagel and with Professor Rudolph Heinrich’s influence, he received his diploma in stage and costume design.

On his personal site, he describes himself as a translator of emotions. It’s a beautiful construct that makes you ponder this philosophy because of the results from The Rainbow Goblins and also his storyboard and set constructions of his work on The Never Ending Story.

If sifting through his work—separated into three stages: before, during, and after the Academy—does not excite you, then his working principles and philosophical ideas to the arts will. His work is a grounded perspective to an exorbitant vision of the surreal.

The Rainbow Goblins is a story that is nestled beautifully in its own context. The story is about seven goblins who roam the world sucking up the colors of the rainbow. The goblins are mischievous in nature and frightening in Rico’s aesthetic of them. Their slanted eyes and pointy noses gives them a reality of a mythological creature of the underworld, a demon, and a witch. As these goblins terrorized the land, there was one place the goblins have not touched, the hidden Valley of the Rainbow. Most of the story is about the goblins in search of the valley. As Rico breathes life into the characters of these goblins, it’s what exemplifies fright in the readers and a fear amongst the animals of the valley. Without the rainbow, this world would lose its magic. But in Rico’s world, natural wonder prevails.

Rico’s use of colors is almost overwhelming. When the landscapes have deep contrast like the darkness of a cave or a looming thunderstorm, visual emotions are exemplified.

The Ruff and Reddy Show Hanna Barbera

The Ruff And Reddy Show was the result of a tumultuous time in cartoon history. Both William Hannah and Joseph Barbera were working for MGM when they culled their job plus 110 other animators. MGM thought they could profit better by re-releasing older cartoons instead of creating new ones.

This gave Hannah and Barbera an opportunity to reinvent how cartoons were made. Coughing up 30K of their own savings, they built Hannah-Barbera Productions that used limited animation techniques and artists to build cartoons out of necessity using key poses and close ups to give the illusion of call and responses. This technique was conveyed to MGM but was ignored.

As cinema cartoons were transitioning to television, The Ruff and Reddy Show was launched before and after a Saturday morning children’s show. The cartoon was not just successful, landing a five-year contract with NBC, but it was the beginning to what we know as the Saturday Morning Cartoon craze of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

While MGM was rehashing Tom and Jerry cartoons, Hannah-Barbera constructed Ruff (a cat) and Reddy (a dog) not to be adversaries but good friends who help each other in weird conflicts. One, for example, had the two stuck in a hot air balloon. As a buzzard threatens their safety, the short provides plenty of shenanigans to be humorous as Ruff and Reddy work together to survive the conflict. Possibly, this was the best self-reflecting simile to their situation as businessmen.

Although not worth owning—currently running every episode on YouTube and the Boomerang channel—this cartoon is important that deserves its attention.

DC picked up the characters in the past few years, unfortunately giving them a more gritty and noirish disposition. The re-imagining fails to provide the two characters the reputation that was built up in the late ‘50s. There are cases where traditional aesthetics should remain traditional, preserving the classics in all of its glory. That is how Ruff and Reddy should always be viewed, just as Dell originally portrayed the two in their comic book series.