Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi: The Force Behind Fritz the Cat, Mighty Mouse, Cool World, and The Lord of the Rings

The first book to chronicle the full career of Ralph Bakshi, the animator who took the medium into X-rated, adult territory with Fritz the Cat in 1972 and kept it there through Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, Wizards and The Lord of the Rings.

Jon M. Gibson and Chris McDonnell follow Bakshi from his Brownsville childhood and his apprenticeship at Terrytoons through each film, television series and unrealised project, drawing on more than thirty years of material from the director's own archive: hundreds of pieces of pre-production art, animation cels, rough sketches, line drawings and doodles never previously published. Interviews and anecdotes from John Kricfalusi, Albert Ruddy, Bruce Timm, Peter Chung, John Sparey, Tom Minton and Frank Frazetta place his work among the animators he influenced. Quentin Tarantino contributes the foreword and Bakshi the afterword. The book was launched at Comic-Con International in San Diego in July 2008 and is now out of print.

Gibson is a screenwriter, journalist and curator; McDonnell is an artist and designer and the publisher of the comics anthology Meathaus. Bakshi (b. 1938) continued to paint and make short films from his studio in New Mexico.