Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, May 13: GAHAN WILSON: BORN DEAD, STILL WEIRD
Steven-Charles Jaffe’s portrait of the subversive cartoonist debuted at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2011. It received a limited theatrical release last Fall in NYC and LA, and now comes to various VOD platforms via FilmBuff.
Between biographical details, such as Wilson’s near-still birth, as suggested by the documentary’s title, and copious examples of his artwork, Jaffe’s film serves as a love letter to the octogenarian cartoonist, whose mordant scribblings have regularly appeared in the pages of Playboy, The New Yorker, and National Lampoon, among other magazines. They’ve attracted a broad range of admirers, who lend their voices to the film, from Hugh Hefner and Stephen Colbert to Stan Lee and Guillermo del Toro, resulting in a fairly straightforward artist profile that seems largely suited for Wilson’s extant fanbase. A memorable exception that broadens the film’s reach is an edifying and entertaining sequence set in the office of The New Yorker‘s cartoon editor, Robert Mankoff, who reviews and rejects cartoon pitches for the venerable publication.
what (not) to doc 