Ralph Bakshi is one of those rare artists who possesses a personality ever bit as colorful as the characters he creates. It’s no surprise then, that the man fit in perfectly amongst the Ren & Stimpy cast, when John Kricfalusi asked him to voice a part in his 2003 sequel to Fire Dogs.

That inspired partnership was also a happy reminder of the fact that, in spite of the animator’s remarkable ability to maintain a four-decade old grudge with a certain prominent underground cartoonist, Bakshi has long been a supporter of many of his talented peers.

In this final part of our hour-long interview with Bakshi, we discuss the artist’s favorite contemporary cartoonists and animator, and let him get off a few more shots against that aforementioned fellow counter-cultural icon.

[Part One] [Part Two] [Part Three]
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Ralph Bakshi has never been one for self-censorship, a fact that has readily manifest itself his work, resulting in some of the most ground-breaking and uncompromising films of the 20th century, animated or otherwise. As we discovered in our face-to-face conversation with the 69-year-old Brooklynite, such unfettered expression has a tendency to manifest itself in some of Bakshi’s professional relationships, as well.

The mention of underground cartoonist, Robert Crumb, for example, who created the title character for Bakshi’s 1972 film Fritz the Cat, was more than enough to launch the animator into a bare-knuckled diatribe against the artist—one which carriers over well into the third part of this interview.

It’s this same lack of creative compromise that has lead, for better or worse, to Bakshi’s inability to recapture the scale of success that defined Fritz, largely relegating the animator to the status of cult hero.

In this third part, Bakshi happily explains why he initially abandoned the mainstream and never looked back.

[Part One]
[Part Two]

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