It's a wonder that Ralph Bakshi's name isn't better-known than it is, because we're living in the future he created.

Bakshi was a solid 30 years ahead of the adult animation curve, starting in 1972 with the R. Crumb adaptation Fritz the Cat. He went on from there to make an early animated version of The Lord of the Rings, which is still his most famous project, alongside original films like American Pop, Fire and Ice, and Wizards. At time of writing, Bakshi’s last project before his retirement from filmmaking is 2015's Kickstarted indie short Last Days of Coney Island, which was briefly made available for free on YouTube.

If there's a single abiding theme in Bakshi's career, it's that he was usually too weird and surreal for audiences, critics, film executives, or all three at once. At the same time, you can see hints of Bakshi's influence in the surreal R-rated cartoons of the '90s and later, such as Liquid Television, Aeon Flux, or half the programs on the Adult Swim block. Not a lot of people are familiar with Bakshi's work, but of those who are, many of them apparently went on to work in animation.

Bakshi's last full-length film, 1992's Cool World , was a box office bomb that was abandoned almost on release by its distributor Paramount, and it still has a shockingly low critical average on Rotten Tomatoes . This seems to be Bakshi’s lot as a creator; either you gel with his style of filmmaking or you hate it, with no middle ground.

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