The Joys Of Working With Vincent

It's hard to imagine 2 cartoonists with such different styles as Vincent Waller and I - and that's one reason why I like working with him.
Vincent draws much better than me on a technical level, and his influences are probably a somewhat different group than mine. I suspect he's a big Robert Crumb fan- I'll let him tell you who inspired him. But his style is totally unique to him and he gave animated cartoons a big kick in the ass -which it needed.
What I like about collaborative animation, as opposed to independent animation, is that you get to combine the best of a bunch of artists' talents - in theory.

For example the comic book cover above is drawn by Vincent, probably inked by Shane and beautifully rendered by Rick Altergott of Doofus fame.

FUNNY RICK ALTERGOTT COMICS AND BOOKS

Like I said, I always liked the idea of working with artists who have different styles and abilities, but there was no studio I ever worked at that encouraged it. Instead, they always encouraged everyone to draw exactly the same and to always use the same colors. The only way I could ever even get my own style into a cartoon was to build a studio that not only allowed it, but actively encouraged it. I had to redesign the whole production system of TV animation just so I could have a fun place to work, and others with strong styles could actually see their input in the finished product.


Vincent was one of the main cartoonists on Ren and Stimpy and quickly worked his way up to director. It was because he has a really strong style and original point of view, he works super hard, and he makes it really easy for people to work with him. He believes in collaboration too.

These comic pages are nice examples of collaboration between different cartoonists.

Before we ever started drawing a finished cartoon or comic, we would "write" it. We'd start with a gag session between a few cartoonists, write a structured outline to keep the story in order, then I'd assign someone to draw the story in rough sketches like these. Along the way the story sketch artist would add lots of extra gags and do the continuity.I would sometimes scribble on top of Vincent's drawings if I wanted to use a different staging or expression. Once the roughs were completed, the final artist- Vincent here, would draw tighter more detailed drawings. Then I'd get an inker (I think this is Shane) to make the final art look super polished. A good inker is a Godsend. Shane preserves the guts of which ever artist he inks, but also brings his own style into the work - without changing the art underneath.
If you wanna see how much influence an inker has over the finished look, go and find some Jack Kirby comics from the 60s. Every inker made the stuff look different - and some of them actually hurt the art underneath. Joe Sinnot was my favorite because he preserved Kirby's style and dynamism and made it feel even more solid - like Shane does.

Sometimes I would throw a post it on top of a panel if I wanted a completely different staging as in the lower right panel on page 28.I would like to make a pot about the difference between "individual style" and "group style". Vincent, Jim Smith, Katie Rice, Bob Camp, Gabe Swarr, Nick Cross, Helder Mendonca and many of the top Spumco artists (I could name a ton more, so don't feel left out) of the past have very strong individual styles. I of course, blended my own and other artists' styles in the cartoons and that's what you see in the final work. It's usually pretty easy to see when one artist leaves off and another picks up a scene. I, being a cartoon and comic nerd and huge fan of cartoonists love to see different styles within the same worlds. That's one of the reasons I love Clampett, 60s Marvel comics and Terrytoons.

It's also why I hate model sheets - or at least the way they are usually used.

Besides the few really strong individual styles that exist, there are also the "group styles" - the Disney style, the Spumco style (which is really the "Games style"), the Anime style, The Canadian style. I discourage that in my cartoons. I've hired many talented Cal Arts graduates and had to encourage them to stop relying on stock expressions and poses and to just train their pencils to put their own personalities on paper. Some learn to. Others are forever trapped in whatever group style they have absorbed.


One Cal Arts kid who started at Spumco is now making the most cartoony cartoon on television. He is super talented and worked extra hard at Spumco.
I've known many cartoonists who personally have a ton of individual quirks-funny facial ticks and expressions, unique gestures and are great storytellers. Some of them have been so conditioned by a group style that they don't translate their natural personality traits through their pencils no matter how much I beg them to. It's because the other studios they've worked at actively frown upon it and they have made a habit of suppressing themselves at work.

Anyway, Vincent has no qualms at all about getting his personality into his drawings, in fact he can't help it - and also no qualms about mixing them with other quirky artists to try to get the best possible results through collaboration.

This is not to denigrate Independent animation. Some artists are so unique, they just want to say what they have to say and the only way they can do it is to completely make their own films. Bill Plympton is a super talented and unique and funny guy that has made whole feature length cartoons by himself!

I always wondered how he did that and then I did a show with him in Chicago and witnessed his secret for myself . But that story is for another day.

Today, let us honor Vincent for kicking our animation butts.



VINCENT

Writing For Cartoons 7 - Continuity, Personality

Continuity

Each idea has to be linked to the next idea. Each line of dialogue has to follow from the previous and into the next smoothly. Each scene should connect to the next.

There can't be gaps, where the audience wonders "how did we get from here to there?"

The outline should have the basic structure. It should link each scene.

The detailed continuity should be up to the person doing the storyboard.

This storyboard was done by Vincent Waller. Those little sketches were done by me, either in the layout poses first and then doodled onto the board to time from, or I doodled them first and then addedd them in the layouts. I don't remember...
Either way, pose artists animators, directors and assitant animators each fill in more continuity.


The storyboard artist/writer links the dialogue, the action and the acting. Between each major expression, there are smaller expressions that connect them.

The outline is where you contruct your story. The storyboard is where you write it and connect the dots.

Understand Personality

This is not essential, because many cartoons are not about personality. Tex Avery never used layered characters in his MGM cartoons, but still made some of the best cartoons in history.

Disney's characters are one-dimensional (if they are lucky!) but that didn't stop him from being pretty successful.

But you should know enough to not have your characters all of a sudden do or say something that is totally out of character-unless the story supplies a believable reason for it.

Your characters' actions and their dialogue should come out of their character.

Ren doesn't do things the way Stimpy does. Bugs talks and acts different than Elmer, etc.

I had a really good board artist doing a scene for "In The Army". Ren and Stimpy were doing KP duty, peeling potatoes, and in the board Stimpy was cross with Ren. He was chewing out Ren for getting them in trouble with the sergeant over and over again. It was beautiufully drawn, but out of character, so I asked the artist to rework the scenes so that Ren is the mean one and Stimpy thinks that KP duty is a reward. Stimpy almost always thinks that Ren's mischief is a good thing. You have to push him pretty far to upset him.

Needing to understand character seems obvious, but I have yet to meet another cartoon writer who can keep their characters consistently in character. I usually have to do that part myself, but I could sure use some help if someone exists out there! There are a lot of great and funny artists, but less that can create inspired characters and certainly none of the writers can. That's the whole history of the business. Warner Bros. seems to have been the big exception.

Character Treatment

I actually frown on writing up character treatments- a description of your characters' personality traits.

They (TV execs) make you do that when you start a project or pitch one. They make you write a "story bible" and as part of it you have to describe who your characters are and worse, what their catch phrases are.

The bad thing about this is that if you force yourself to try to figure out everything there is to know about your characters before you start making your cartoons, you end up restricting yourself to what you thought you knew about them early on. The execs make you stick to it and your characters are forever limited to being cardboard cutouts.

What you find from actually making cartoons is that you think of many more and better ideas along the way and your characters evolve as they find themselves in new adventures.
Ren and Stimpy, George Liquor, The Ripping Friends and old cartoons all evolved along the way. They would maintain some of their core traits, but they would get more shaded as more stories got produced.

Catch Phrases
If catch phrases happened, they happened by accident. They weren't "created" upfront, like they are now. How many times did you cringe as a kid when you heard "Welcome to the 90s!" or such other writer creations? (Hey share some of the most obnoxious catch phrases from your childhood cartoons here in the comments!)

When I had Ren say "You bloated sac of protoplasm!" and similar things, people would yell them at me at appearances. I would see them on t shirts. People make me say "No sir, I don't like it" all the time. None of the lines in R and S were ever meant to be catch phrases, but they would just catch on, and Nickelodeon would lean on me to use them again. I resisted as much as possible, figuring that funny dialogue in the next cartoons would also catch on naturally.

Characters should issue from your loins
If you are truly a good character creator, you understand your characters from inside. You feel what's right for them, but you allow them to breathe and grow naturally as you make cartoons. They aren't a list of arbitrary traits and catch phrases. They exist and you are just relating their adventures to the audience.

Many of the artists who work with me add shadings-although if they add something that I feel doesn't fit, I suggest something else. Voice actors would also bring new shadings to the characters when we rehearsed the stories, and their inflections would give me ideas for new stories and new ways to develop the characters' traits further.

If you watch the Ren and Stimpy shows, you can see the characters evolve not only in design, but in their personalities too. I would purposely write whole stories just exploring their personality traits-like Stimpy's Invention or Ren Seeks Help.

OK, enough crap...to get to the point, I did write up a character treatment for Ren and Stimpy-not for myself, but for the Nickelodeon executives and for the artists and story crew on the show. Here it is, if you are interested.



I have one for the George Liquor characters too if you ever want me to post it. Let me know.