![The Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_KqWRy3aDsokE_MKZPvSky0JCY5DtTUqNZ1YcuqLN4LzX6kUbISADnHe9CR8IEBlhVVcnUnXMjc1EY54oLPx-aOoWF_VdXOokJ2Y2smvV1WCxEu2TZguczGSloiFnkz4iQ_SkIi56dw/s1600/111Screen+shot+2014-04-01+at+10.jpg)
Carlos Fuentes was my teacher and friend at Cornell in the mid 80s. He taught me so much about being a writer and being an educator. The man was ferocious with life, dashing, brilliant, curious, and constantly engaged in the politics and culture of our times. I loved him and his family--his beautiful wife and his two children, now tragically both dead before their time. The Nobel Prize should have gone to Carlos many times over. Another artist would have shut down or grown bitter, but Carlos always chose the higher road in his work. His prize is his body of writing, his enormous artistic compassion, and the legion of young artists who learned from his example -- not only as a writer but as a man.
Love, Oliver
Oliver Mayer
Associate Professor
USC School of Theatre
Faculty Master
Parkside International Residential College
Affiliated Faculty: Dept of American Studies and Ethnicity
olivermayer.com
With much of its focus on stereotypes and ethnic American theories of subjectivity, it's easy to forget that a fair chunk of Tex[t]-Mex looks at the history of Warner Brothers animation teams--in particular, it's third chapter, "Autopsy of a Rat," pries into the work of Isadore, I, Friz Freleng and Robert McKimson, whose efforts on Speedy Gonzales are memorable to say the least. |
| Dan DeCarlo's Latina spy femme fatale. source: http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2010/01/yardbirds-by-dan-decarlo.html |
Before I was ever a writer, I was a cartoonist--thrilling to the sweet, sordid lines of Basil Wolverton (right), Bill Elder, Al Jaffee, Don Martin (Splorf!), Sergio Aragones, Wally Wood, Harvy Kurtzman, Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, Jim Aparo, Mort Drucker, Antonio Prohias, and Dan de Carlo (above, center), just to name a few. So while the motivation for my autopsy of Speedy Gonzales in the book might have been to out "the man" for making miserable "Mexican" mise-en-scènes, the desire to root out the workings of animators also belied my Walter Mitty dream of working on the Pixar "back-lot." Here's a page of crude pencil sketches I did in 2003:
