A Cartoonist’s Lush Life Gets Sober Look : Animation: Off-the-wall artist John Callahan has gone from the page to the screen with his short film ‘I Think I Was an Alcoholic.’

If the eyes are the entrance to the soul, then it doesn’t seem much of a stretch that an artist’s work may offer an invitation inside his brain. If that’s the case, cartoonist and writer John Callahan must possess a brilliant, and twisted, mind indeed.

The controversial artist’s animated film, “I Think I Was an Alcoholic,” is a highlight of the “24th International Tournee of Animation” running at the Nuart in West Los Angeles until Feb. 3.

The unbridled wit of the artist’s single-panel cartoons are accurately captured in this highly autobiographical black and white film, which he wrote, co-directed and narrated. “It’s all bone-crushingly true,” admitted the 42-year-old artist in a phone interview from his home in Portland, Ore. “It came out of some desire of mine to be self-incriminating.”

On that level, Callahan’s unflinching candor certainly succeeds just as it does in his popular cartoons, which are syndicated in 75 publications internationally, including the Los Angeles Times Magazine (rather more extreme ones appear in magazines like Hustler). His work blends the whimsy of Charles M. Schulz and the caustic fortitude of Daumier.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not an animated-film buff,” he admits. “Of course, I am familiar with the greats, like ‘Bambi Meets Godzilla.’ I gnash my teeth at night cursing to myself that I didn’t think of that one.”

Callahan’s autobiographical film, however, has its own cachet. “The first time I drank, I got drunk,” begins his narration to the 4 1/2-minute film. “After that, I drank anything I could get my hands on.” As Callahan speaks, a skinny figure heaves into a toilet, which evolves arms and a sign saying, “I Need a Hug.”

Callahan, who was adopted and raised in The Dalles, Ore., was educated by Catholic nuns who administered harsh discipline. “It was mind-bending,” he remembers, unfondly. “To take a child and tell him he is guilty--isn’t life hard enough already? They chant it to you when you’re in the embryo!”

He began drinking at 13. “I had some Jim Beam and just completely puked all over the top of the refrigerator,” he recalls. At age 18, he was jailed for drunk driving. Then, one July night in 1972, following a drunken spree in Anaheim with a friend, he passed out in his car, only to be savagely awakened when his friend, who was driving, hit an exit sign near Long Beach at 90 miles an hour. Callahan became a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chest down.

The accident may have changed his life, but it didn’t prompt him to quit the bottle. As his film narrates, he drank for six more years before he decided to become sober. “I had the bottle on my lap and was halfway drunk when I happened to drop the bottle. It rolled out of my reach. It’s very tortuous to be halfway drunk and not be able to finish the job,” he says. “I had an epiphany. It was a time of complete metaphysical insight.” He contacted a crisis hot line, and has now been sober for nearly 16 years. “I’m the very same person I was before--except now I’m not the one wearing the lampshade.”

Don’t bet on it. His edgy humor still manages to take center stage.

“The easiest thing was knowing that I’d never have to folk dance again,” he says. Then, seriously: “The hardest thing is the dependency that you have to have on other people. I’m very independent, even after all these years. That’s the toughest thing. But I don’t consider myself a victim. Well, some days I do. . . .” His voice trails off.

As it happens, Hollywood is going to be seeing a lot more of Callahan. Robin Williams has optioned the rights to Callahan’s 1989 autobiography, “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot,” and plans to produce and star in a film version. “John has a very intriguing story to tell,” says Williams’ wife and producer, Marsha Garces Williams. “He’s overcome a lot of odds and he’s funny in a very different way from Robin--and that’s interesting to us as well.”

Last June, Callahan visited Williams in San Francisco for a week. “If you get Robin alone, he’s this normal, nice guy. He was very protective of me. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have play me,” he says. “I hope he can sit still long enough to play a quad.”

Callahan is also in love. Sort of. “I have a girlfriend, Frannie, in Seattle.” They’ve been together for five years. “She called me up to say she enjoyed one of my works and I asked her out. I forgot her name on the first date,” he admits. “She’s got a lovely set of hogans.”

Callahan’s work, which lampoons everything from feminism to the Pope, has brought him avid followers and vehement detractors. “Rude, shocking, depraved, tasteless--Callahan gets called all of the adjectives that cartoonists crave to hear,” Matt Groening, of “Simpsons” fame, has said.

“My cartoons are very unconscious and dark,” Callahan explains. Moreover, he thrives on fanning the flames. “One of my all-time favorites was one with Jesus on the cross thinking ‘T.G.I.F!’ ” Outraged letters from staunch Catholics followed. Then there was the cartoon that elicited the ire of Asians; it depicted an Asian couple sitting in the front room with the caption: “Let’s wok the dog!”

“I look at life through a jaundiced eye,” says Callahan. “People say I’m cynical. I say I’m realistic. I guess I’m cynical within the city limits.”

Callahan is currently at work on a book of essays titled “Will the Real John Callahan Please Stand Up?” to be published later this year by William Morrow. Morrow will also publish “The King of Things,” his first children’s book.

Along with Callahan’s notoriety comes the attendant publicity, which can also make him sing the blues. “I was interviewed for a radio show for Sundance (in Park City, Utah) yesterday. They didn’t get any of my jokes,” he grouses.

What he doesn’t understand is that matching wits with this particular brain could put anyone at a severe handicap.