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From: @RUTGERS.ARPA:GOOD@ACC
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: WIZARDS
Message-ID: <1728@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 23-Apr-85 00:50:21 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.1728
Posted: Tue Apr 23 00:50:21 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Apr-85 02:21:18 EST
Sender: @topaz.ARPA
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 37

From: Greg Goodknight <GOOD@ACC>


I enjoyed WIZARDS. Bakshi is a good storyteller, and I remember being
thoroughly entertained. The animation was, of course, not up to what
Disney or even Warner Bros. used to crank out, but at the time of release
Bakshi was probably doing the best animation (measured in 
quality/kilobucks/minute) of anyone in the business.

HOWEVER, NECRON-90 (PEACE) was a fairly blatant ripoff of a character 
created by the late Vaughn Bode. Bode was probably best known
for a delightfully disgusting creature named "Cheech Wizard" that was
published regularly in the early '70s in the National Lampoon, until
Bode's unfortunate demise. 

Bode's best work was being published in the underground comix
of that time. His most haunting character, Cobalt-60 (sound familiar
already ?), was a mutant humanoid who spent most of his time hunting
down and killing non-mutant humanoids, in an attempt to establish his
own kind as "normal" and to punish the humans for creating a radioactive
wasteland. Bakshi's NECRON-90 was almost identical in form to Cobalt-60,
right down to the beast they rode into battle. The only difference to me
was that NECRON-90 decided to stop and smell the roses, and Cobalt-60
would have blasted them with never a second thought.

It was plagarism all right, but Vaughn Bode was already dead, and I
suppose his heirs just didn't want to fight it (I never was aware of
any legal action). Stealing ideas from dead artists seems ghoulish to 
me, and my personal respect for Bakshi dropped quite a bit. 
(Insert here the usual disclaimer about sketchy memories of things 
and people in past decades.)

			Greg Goodknight <good@ACC.ARPA>
			Hardware Bozo

"I think we're all Bozos on this bus"
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