I may not remember the first Gahan Wilson Cartoon I ever saw, but I remember the one that got me to ask: Who is this guy. The biopic Gahan Wilson, Born Dead Still weird is a quiet low-key story of a man who comes across as quiet and low key. Un fortunately it also comes across as cookie cutter with entirely too much time given over to The New Yorker Cartoon editor talking to people, not Gahan Wilson about cartoons not by Gahan Wilson. All of that is better seen in the movie: Very Semi Serious.
For the record that first cartoon was of a stark and barren road side. In the forground was a gaudy lite roadside hamburger joint with a giant neon sign saying : EAT. Arising at the far edge of the panel is a monster with a gaping maw. One worker in the diner is saying to another person:"My God! Do you think it can read?"
Here there is some good pairing the events of his life with the dark, gothic macabre humor that was his specialty. Unfortunately, the default is not: give us more cartoons. Instead we get the usual parade of comedians, most of them not cartoonist, many of them having had no personal contact with Wilson; clearly there trading face time for strained efforts to tell us why they liked GW ‘s work. Too much screen time is given to the weekly luncheon of New Yorker cartoonists. Many of them would have had some contact with as well as inspiration from Gahan Wilson. Few if any talk with us.
The movie drags. Gahan Wilson’s personal story is not one of sweetness and light, growing up in a healthy home or a life in an always healthy luxurious and languorous high style. We certain get that he had personal issues, but not much about the process from fist publications, to self-sustaining status to fame; even if in the more restricted milieu of known single panel cartoonist.
This is a world with only a few remaining outlets. While the internet should be the place for this group to bypass editors and reach directly for a popular market, much of that field is crowded with internet memes. More or less random pictures, often cats or other animals and some ironic slogan edited in.
The intent of the movie is to honor a successful cartoonist. Such people are rare. The product is slow, formulaic, and shallow. Where it could have been bitter sweet, funny and honest, it is not much of any of these things.
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