Nina Paley At Large

Wanna see the face above do something really amazing? Then check out the web site of Nina Paley, who bills herself as "America’s Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist." Nina stopped being unknown to me when I met her at the 1989 edition of Comic-Con International in San Diego. I quickly learned that she is among the funniest cartoonists around, male or female. Just root around in some out-of-print bookstore bins until you find Nina’s Adventures, the Pentshack Press collection of the comic strips she was knocking out back when she was content to let her drawings sit in unmoving, hilarious grandeur on pieces of paper.You’ll be rewarded for your industry. (There are some online samples of Nina’s old strip here.) Nina switched her sights to animation a few years ago and has already created some short-form Flash masterworks. Now I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to see Sita Sings The Blues, the full-length labor of love she is slowly creating bit by bit in her Brooklyn apartment.
It’s still years from completion I know, but the teaser clips viewable on her web site give a glimpse of the magic to come. Now I see that she’s auditioning voice actors for Sita. That makes the project seem yet one more step closer to reality. She needs investors to help her move forward on the movie, though, so if you’re rich, run put some of your smart money on Paley. (And if you’ve got any left over, I could use a few grand myself.) And speaking of my own petty needs, I know that some cynics among you may suspect that I’m raving about Nina today only because she wrote glowingly about Stuck Rubber Baby in the Nina’s December 29 entry of her blog. Hey, Nina’s and my mutual admiration society goes way back and transcends the blogophere by light years. Besides, I can’t help it if we both have discerning taste!