A bunch of cartoon fans actually getting along
a few people have suggested I put up a FAQ (whatever that is) about what this blog is for and what I expect in terms of behavior from
commenters.
Well honestly 99.9% of the comments are fine with me and that's how many I post. I don't care, obviously, if people want to dissent and argue - to a point - as is evident from all the arguments in the comments.
However now and then I won't post a comment if it's really extreme or slanderous, so I thought I'd explain once for posterity just what kind of comments I'm not interesting in sharing with decent and mannered folk.
1) Extreme cursing:
I would ask you not to use the F word or even other foul language. It's rarely needed and you can get your points across without it. I've slipped a couple times myself and will avoid it from now on. I don't want the kids who are learning to draw from the Preston Blair books to be banned by their God-Fearing Parents. Really, any unnecessary cursing I would avoid. You may have already lost an otherwise good comment just because of an unfortunate word.
2) Long-winded comments:Some folks like to post 1,000 word diatribes - sometimes without even a paragraph break. It's easy to make paragraphs, but if your post goes on for an interminable amount of scrolling, it's not fair to other posters or readers of comments.
Usually it turns them away from the whole list of other people's comments and kills the thread. So...my suggestion is - if you really want to write a long long post (or 4 in a row) why not
write a really good teaser paragraph to draw interest to your subject, and then post a link to your own blog for the rest of your story. Then you will also get the benefit of all the other folks who want to really get into your detailed subject with you.
3) Argument for argument sake:
There are a couple of
commenters who just instantly take the opposite position of anybody
else's statement and then go on to argue about it for no other reason. If I say black, Debate genius says white. If I say white, then it's black. Then they argue about who knows the correct way to argue and who is an expert at reasoning until the original point of what was being argued is lost. This is of course an
internet staple. Almost every thread on every site has long long circles of people yelling at each other about who is the best debater. I usually let these comments go by and just roll my eyes, but if the pest is persistent, then I get tired of it and just reject the string of redundant circular arguments. No one wants to read that stuff except the pest who posts it.
I remember pointing out that someone who doesn't draw but says he thinks visually can never prove it - without getting an artist to dig it out of his head, but that wasn't good enough, so he kept coming back with no way to prove his point except to say trust him, he sees pictures in his head.
4) Psychotic Rage:
There are obviously a handful of pure mental cases who use this and other blogs just to vent their rage against any and all comers. One has even admitted being in and out of mental hospitals and then goes on to blame the people who disagree with his screaming for picking on him just when they let him out.
Yeesh. What am I supposed to do with that kind of stuff?
5) Those who can't do telling those who can that they are bums:
There is a small handful of wanna be artists who can barely scrawl a stick figure who get on and yell at top professionals present and past and pronounce with complete certainty who is good at what and who isn't - as if it's a fact. I say, if you are gonna criticize someone with actual skill and talent, you better be able to back it up with your own drawings and considerable experience in performing the same or similar tasks, so you know what you are talking about. Post a link to your own drawings and I'll make a post featuring your work and your criticism of someone who has achieved something amazing.
I'm all for arguments between skilled pros. For example, Pete
Emslie and I might argue about the contrasting merits between Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons. We back up our arguments not only with our reasons, but a lot of experience doing our own work and teaching others.
It's
OK to
like one style over another, no matter whether you are a pro or haven't a talented bone in your body - and to freely say so. That's not the same thing as yelling with fury at respected artists with absolute certainty that masters are overrated or bums. I've seen this kind of outrageous stuff said about such giants as Rod Scribner, Grim
Natwick, Ollie Johnston and many more people and I have no tolerance for that - and neither should anybody else.
6) People Who Try To Start Fights Just For Laughs
There are a couple psychos who are huge fans and collect all kinds of
Spumco art who have nothing better to do than to try to revive long dead feuds between people who made some of their favorite cartoons. I have zero tolerance for that. To these people I say, take your pills, see your Dr. and go back to your hospital for treatment.
This kind of thing does nothing positive. Most of the artists they admire (and hate at the same time) are doing their best to try to make more cartoons in the style that these obsessed fans love. Trying to do good in a business that does nothing but offer obstacles in the way of making cartoons like
Ren and
Stimpy, Cow and Chicken, Dexter, etc.
7) Harassers and StalkersOne has been caught by the cops so far. 2 more are being closed in on.
What this blog is for:
I've stated this a few times, but now I think I will remind people.
It's not to convince the world that there is only one kind of cartoon - my kind. I have no problem with there being room for unfunny flat cartoons, sentimental CG cartoons, retreads of Disney formula features, non-
cartoony prime time cartoons and whatever other genres exist in animation.
For people who like any of those genres, there are tons of blogs and sites where you can go and talk or argue about who's the best arguer.
All I want to see happen is to have our business make at least a small place where
cartoony cartoons can exist and flourish. There is no place at all right now, yet pure cartoons are what founded the whole business in the first place and made it the newest and most popular art of the 20
th century.
We have been completely kicked out of the world our ancestors created. Is that fair? Is it too much to ask to have at least 10% of our business back?
Everything I have ever done in cartoons has been with that goal in mind - to make a place where cartoonists can be cartoonists and invent entertainment that can only happen in the magical creative world of cartooning.
I created characters in the 80s that completely went against everything everyone else was doing and 9 years later beat the unbeatable odds and finally sold
Ren and
Stimpy - then had to create a system from scratch that would allow cartoonists to do something they had never been allowed to do before and to constantly be encouraged to improve at it. I
graciously invited lots of other cartoonists to jump in and take advantage of the whole setup I had put together and for awhile it changed the business and proved that regular people in the audience liked
cartoony cartoons again. This led to a big boom in the TV business and for a few years cartoonists had it better than they had had it in 30 or 40 years.
But in the last few years that momentum has declined and
cartoony cartoons - well drawn and acted ones have again all but vanished.
So in the meantime I have created this blog with the purpose of slowly building up an encyclopedia of
cartoony techniques, clips of great cartoons, samples of great comic artists and illustrators. All for free with the hope that a few other like minded cartoonists and fans who miss the old qualities could learn about them on their own with the aid of my trial and error experiences and the introduction to tons of great cartoonists they might never have heard of.
Am I biased? Sure, but not as biased as most sites. I promote a ton of different cartoon styles:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/09/importance-of-having-lot-of-influences.htmlMy theory is, this could give the industry a chance again in the future because there might be enough really good funny cartoonists who can bring back what the readers of this blog enjoy about classic cartoons.
Would I rather be making lots of cartoons and keeping my mouth shut and not stirring up controversy? Sure. But since no one has encouraged it who is in a position to, in the meantime I'll give away information about how you can do it if you ever get a chance.
Maybe I'll even be able to take advantage of it before I kick off.
CARTOON COLLEGE
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/08/cartoon-college-for-free.htmlI started the private cartoon college blog for the first few artists that have really shown interest, talent, hard work and dedication. Those artists are improving with leaps and bounds and I'm sure they'll be happy to tell you so.
So with all this boring verbal crap, I'm letting everyone know that I welcome comments and even dissent and argument; I don't believe in "censorship" - but rudeness, psychosis, 3rd hand gossip and attacks intended to tear down honest attempts at bringing back cartoons are not going to be welcomed. Obviously.
If you love old cartoons and
cartoony stuff, I would expect you to support this and all the other blogs and cartoonists who actually put their money where their mouths are.
Most of you do and I thank you for it.
This is about cartoons and that's what we share an interest in. So let's stick to it. If not, maybe I'll make the whole blog by invite only.
You can see the same hierarchical principles in these frames as what I talked about in the last Toot post.
Even this assumed jumble of a broken horn is very carefully arranged to frame the character's head. All the negative spaces in the jumble are varied shapes and clear.
All important elements of the picture are separated. The blueish colors of the owl contrast against the reddish BG elements so he stands out.
Don't ever ask me to draw a school room! Oreb pulled it off easily. (I assume easily)
I love these opening titles. A masterpiece in the art of arranging shapes.
Here's the stock Preston Blair/Disney owl dressed up in a suit of angles to make him appear modern.
A problem with trying to make each scene perfectly composed is it restricts the animators. As soon as they move a head or anything, then the composition goes out of whack. That's why limited animation seems best suited for the design style. I should say the limited in animation in this cartoon approaches genius in some parts. - which again defies the goals of UPA's rebellion against Disney.
This is the scene that drives all the modern day hipsters wild. It drove me wild too when I first saw it. But my hipster period only lasted a couple years and I mixed it with funny. Funny and hip doesn't mix well.
Too Busy
No Focus. It's just a mish-mash of clutter.
Characters too close and spaced too evenly apart. Not pleasing designs. Lazy looking.
Ugly balance of shapes.
Wonky broken looking building. Uninspired tree shapes.
Too Busy, textures in BG interfering with characters because they are too contrasty
Background noise and nasty colors jumping forward, distracting from character.
Too even. Left side exactly the same as right side.
That comment goes against everything you would find in an economic or political science class.
I'm not at all surprised about that, and more's the pity. It's getting worse.Take a good look at who controls textbooks. They all come from a review board in Texas.
Democracy doesn't trump capitalism in my mind-- it trumps capitalism, period.
From dictionary.com:
Democracy:
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
2. a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.
3. a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.
4. political or social equality; democratic spirit.
5. the common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power.
Capitalism
–noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
Origin: 1850–55
Which one sounds like a place to live?
Take note of the origin; I believe it was first used by Marx as a perjorative. No surprise it surfaces around the time of the robber barons.
The word Capitalism did not exist during the American Revolution. It was not a goal of the founders, but Democracy is. They could not have relied on its definition in creating the country, nor is the definition we have the result of their aims and labors.
So why should we use it? What does it clarify, if you are not a banker or industrialist?
The founders were not crazy about bankers or industrialists, as both tend to take more and more control from the people. They saw them as necessary evils to be closely monitored, not saviors to be glorified.
I would state unequivocally that whenever and wherever capitalism rubs up against Democracy, that capitalism must lose.
12:29 PM
IDRC,
Okay, your altruism has made you incredibly naive. The founding fathers wanted private ownership,and the right to pursue private financial ownership, which are tenets, ta-da, of Capitalism. You are arguing for the denotative concepts of both democracy and capitalism without understanding the context and the connotation of both AT THE TIME in which they were used by the founding fathers. So yes, the founding fathers were very much concerned by private ownership, which is why they reacted against, you guessed it, TAXES -- which could be monetary and in the form of goods like potatoes or tobacco -- and who harvested the goods and tobacco? You guessed it again. THE PEOPLE! And in Greek, the word "demos" means people. You cannot project your idealistic view of a Democratic-Republic onto the past conception of the phrase's meaning. The founding fathers were very much acquainted with classics and philology and philosophy, so they were very understanding of what a democracy was and what the economic basis of democracy was. And they understand both the Greek form of democracy and the Roman adaptation of it. I like living in a Capitalist society -- I like overachievers who create a company in which my skills might flourish and pay my mortgage; I like people who have fire in them to achieve. Without Capitalism (and ta-da Capitalism even exists in communist societies or else there would be no international trade), we would have no internet, no industrial revolution, no farms, no produce, nothing. Socialism is the artificial product of a governmental system to provide for those who can't harvest with their own hands. So yes, I want to live in a Capitalist society, because capitalism implies private ownership and rewards for your own hard work and diligence. Does that mean people won't take advantage of the system? NO. Indeed there are leeches out there and parasites, but that doesn't mean the system is flawed. If you really think any form of democracy can exist without Capitalism, point out one successful governmental structure that has done so. Every socialist country was hypocritically capitalist at some point, and still is if they have international trade. You really don't have the benefits of a classical education. You should read Livy's the "Rise of Rome" in latine, books 1-5 for a clear understanding of democracy. AND you should read Alexis De Toqueville's "Democracy in America." Capitalism is rule by the people; democracy is rule by the people. You seem to think the collective trumps the will of the invidual -- hello! Have you heard of the freedom of speech!!! That is the right of the indivual. So championing democracy as an antidote to Capitalism is misguided. And don't quote Marx to me because there is not one truly Marxist regime. There are five stages to Utopia and the final stage before Utopia is the point at which the leaders of a socialist regime divest themselves of the private property and return it all back to the farmers and divest themselves of power. Has Castro done that? Has China done that? The Marxist is fundamentally flawed because those who achieve revolution can never step down from their throne. And Marx was opposed to any form of power whatsoever. So yes, give me Capitalism or give me death!
7:58 PM
"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian
Source: Democracy in America, Vol. II (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), Chap. 6 (HT Liberty Quotes)
8:02 PM
IDRC c&pd Democracy:
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
Then by definition the US is NOT a Democracy, IDRC. Because: We have many people in gov't that weren't freely elected by We the People; We have laws jammed down our throats that we aren't allowed to vote on or have any say about.
The people speak but the people we elected don't listen. That's NOT a Democracy.