Andrew Novick on Fritz the Cat, Adult Cartoons and Deviant Animation at the Sie

There must have been something in the ink that started coloring the world of popular animation, because adult animation really took off in 1972,

mixing sex, drugs and political messages with wild, eye-popping visuals. Fritz the Cat, a groundbreaking animated film made that year, kicks off Deviant Animation, a new series at the Sie FilmCenter, on Saturday, April 16. The series is hosted by local professor of fun Andrew Novick and leads up to a weeklong engagement for Belladonna of Sadness.
Eiichi Yamamoto’s Belladonna of Sadness was released in 1973; its tale — of a wife whose gang rape at the hands of a king’s court leaves her shamed by her husband and vulnerable to a deal with the devil to become a powerful witch — is told with exquisitely hand-drawn and watercolor images that reflect children’s animation styles of the time. But the film's themes of sexuality and revenge definitely aren't for the kids.