A boy, a dog, and the artist who brought them both to life

There's his fourth-grade report on cartoons, featuring his first comic strip, "Pants & Harry." There's his first children's book, "Gary and the Monsters," written when he was 10, and a youth award from the city of Los Angeles, where he grew up and returned in 1997 to get a start in TV. He also mentions that his sixth-grade teacher called the other day: "I know why," he says. "He must have saved my artwork from 30 years ago. They knew even then. . . ."

OK, so now he's bragging. But he's probably right. What they knew was that Baseman, now 43, has talent, that his bold, sometimes dark, often wacky style of drawing and thinking stands out in any medium -- and Baseman is involved in most of them. A self-marketing machine, he's illustrated major magazine covers, had well-received gallery shows of his paintings, done corporate commissions for the likes of Nike, Microsoft, and Gatorade, and created the characters for the popular board game Cranium, which started at Starbucks. He's even designed a line of wrapping paper with bite. "Duh! Happy What-Ever!" reads one set, which features the dunce-capped, obedience-school dropouts he's turned into a line of toys for the Japanese market.

"I'm trying to build up the Baseman brand," he says. "I call the art movement I'm in `pervasive art,' in that it pervades all mediums."

Now Baseman is taking on the movies. "Teacher's Pet," based on the Saturday morning cartoon that sprang from Baseman's imagination after he wondered what his now-dead dog Hubcaps did when he was away, opens locally on Friday. In it, a dog named Spot attends elementary school as a boy named Scott and sets out to make the transition to humanism permanent. The voices of Nathan Lane and Kelsey Grammer star. Baseman is credited as both creator and executive producer. The screenplay is by someone else; the art direction is all his.

"Teacher's Pet" was done by Disney, and it is a stylistic departure for the mouse's studio. For starters, the animation is eye-popping, visual in a Baseman-painting-come-to-life sort of way: few lines, rich colors, weird-looking characters who somehow make complete sense. Director Timothy Bjorklund calls Baseman's technique "fine art cartooning." On-screen, the result is reminiscent of the 1940s Warner Bros. cartoons that both men adore.

"It doesn't look like anything Disney's ever done, that's for sure. . . ." Bjorklund says. "We spent a lot of time making the palette as saturated as one of [Baseman's] paintings."

Baseman was so in love with the result that he produced the original Spot/Scott toy, which will soon be ubiquitous in Disney stores, to prove it could be done. He can't say enough good about Disney, even if the studio did nix some of his ideas as too scary or controversial (a poster featuring Pinocchio's growing nose breaking Spot/Scott's glasses; another featuring the words "In the beginning, dog created man") and force him to negotiate details such as the color of the sky.

"It's a great garage film that just happened to be made at Disney," Baseman says. "People tell me it's not true, but I think it's the first feature movie based on one contemporary artist's style."

Hyperbole (or self-promotion) aside, Baseman's art is everywhere these days. He did a typically sardonic/ironic but hilarious cover for the Mother's Day issue of the New Yorker: a baby bird serving his mom breakfast in bed, with breakfast being two eggs, among other edibles. Last month he had a show titled "Happy Idiot and Other Paintings About Unattainable Beauty" at a New York City gallery. In one, a snowman selflessly melts himself down so the mermaid he loves can live within him, literally. This spring he's got another book coming out, called "Dumb Luck" and featuring both his art (which promotional materials describe as "freaky folks, maimed bunnies and weird wiener dogs") and his own collections.

Clutter becomes Baseman, in his head as well as in his house filled with furniture from the 1930s and '40s, and few surfaces are left uncovered. The move from New York involved 13,000 pounds, excluding cars. There are the unattainable beauties in the form of vintage dolls' heads and miniature mannequins. Spot/Scott dolls line an entire couch. Shelves are crammed with books laid on their sides to make room for more books. His three Emmys for the TV version of "Teacher's Pet" sit on one filing cabinet, along with vintage toys and cartoon memorabilia. Glass cases are filled with the stuff. Other treasures are hidden away in scrapbooks, such as his photographs of people in bizarre costumes or of people in costumes in bizarre situations. Baseman is only too happy to describe every iconic item in adoring detail. He'll even name his four black cats, down from a high of 13 after the kittens were born.

"My new book almost looks like a sense of chaos, but hopefully by the end of it people will get a sense of the way I think," Baseman says. "I do jump around from one thought to the next, but to me it makes complete sense. There is a sort of order to it."

A self-described workaholic whose wife of 10 years describes him as a responsible 11-year-old, Baseman is wearing the artist's uniform of black T-shirt, black shoes, spiky 'do, and chin hair. But he seems less edgy than high-energy. He does in fact worry that, critical acclaim aside, his art isn't pushing any boundaries, least of all his own. "I have so little perspective on this movie," he says at one point. "It's like my art. I look at it and think it's too safe, and other people think it's edgy. I haven't even begun to capture the human truth."

Strangely, or perhaps not for Baseman, he uses mostly animals and quirky characters to make his points. The kooky rabbit, for instance, has been around since grade school and will soon come out as a limited edition adult toy. The toy rabbit is holding a rabbit's foot for luck. It also has a peg leg.

As Baseman -- who grew up near a prestigious art school, which he says convinced him to avoid a formal art education for himself -- explains it, "I use cats and dogs and other animals to personify things. It's like we're all domesticated animals."

Baseman has made those animals popular, but he remembers when it wasn't always so. Starting out, some artists encouraged him, some told him to quit the business. One result, he says, is that he "will always give advice, always answer an e-mail." Another is that he's popular on the college speaking circuit, which gives him a chance to mingle with fans and also to put down his pens and brushes and get out of the house.

Some of those young fans have taken to emulating Baseman's style. He says he doesn't mind, as long as it's not too close to the originals and it's not imitative of his more recent work. After all, he knows what it's like to long to draw cartoons. That's why he was so relieved when renowned cartoonist Bob Clampett, a classmate's father, came to speak to their sixth-grade class. He realized he could make a living at it. Later he developed the confidence to throw away the technical pens and accept the rawness in his lines.

"I guess what I'm trying to say with my work is that there's a bittersweetness in life," Baseman says. "You enjoy your success, sure. But you learn from your failure."

In other words, you're human, even if Baseman's characters aren't.