RIP Emru

I'm sad. I've never even met the guy, but I'm sad. The most unbiased, logical and articulate animation critic and enthusiast has passed away. Will there ever be another guy like him? I find that when many critics and bloggers write about animation, they can sound biased, inconsistent, occasionally difficult to understand... Emru wasn't like that. I remember his Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda reviews being very well thought out, while others were either blindly praising or bashing said films. I won't name names. I loved that his main complaint about Kung Fu Panda was the abundance of fat jokes. He is, after all, a panda. Who else would have thought of that? This was a guy who was thoughtful. Yes, thoughtful. Not fueled by anger against Adult Swim or Seth MacFarlane, just a thoughtful person who knew a lot about animation.

Emru Townsend was an expert on a wide variety of animation. I mean, this encompasses the likes of Looney Tunes, The Nine Old Men, Frederick Back, Norman McLaren, Rock and Rule, Ralph Bakshi, Aardman, anime and manga, animation installations, and just about anything related to animation, comics, cartoons, etc. Part of the diversity of FPS Magazine was due to the diversity of its contributing writers, but Emru himself had such a wealth of knowledge on the subject, he could have written the whole damn magazine himself. I'm not saying he should have, I'm just saying he knew a lot.

I'll still check FPS every day like I normally (try to) do, but Emru was FPS Magazine. It's still a great publication, one of the best out there. I know for a fact that Tamu, Kino Kid, and the whole FPS Staff are going to keep the website running strong.

Well, anyway... he will be missed. One more thing though. For those of you who donated bone marrow in reaction to Emru, keep donating when you are able to. If you didn't donate, but wanted to, you can still help save someone's life. Visit Heal Emru for more information.

Emru, Monsters vs. Aliens, Comics

Before I start the post, I just want to remind whoever might be reading this to visit HealEmru.com





So I went to a forum recently. We'll just call it "the fight club." On it, I made the following post, and I thought it was interesting to hear what random people had to say about this. I kind of got the idea from reading this post on Cartoon Brew. Just want to hear what casual animation fans had to say.

The post:

So here's a CG movie that isn't Shrek 5 or a crazy animal adventure. It's called Monsters vs. Aliens...

Anyone got anything to say? I think it looks pretty cool... and it doesn't creep me out like every character in the Shrek movies.

Comments on the post:

"just another piece of shit im gonna hate and everyone is going to love"
Reply: "You must have a miserable life."
Reply: "no i just dont like pixars work"

"WE MUST CAPTURE THAT GIANT WOMAN FOR..... RESEARCH"

"Goddamn viral marketing..."

"It'll either be really awesome or fall flat on its face. There really doesn't seem to be an in-between for this movie."

"I'm sure it will be filled with random humor and pop-culture references, thus making it a huge hit at the box office."

"That fish monster is going to have the voice of a wacky black comedian and he'll be making American Idol jokes left and right."

"So Mirage, Grey Matter, Bloo and the dog from Johnny Test team up to stop a giant chipmunk and the Blue Angels."

Other forum users replied to the aforementioned comment saying things like, "i cant unsee it!" Upon further inspection, it's true. That's what it looks like. And I'm really sad that I actually know what the dog from Johnny test looks like.

I thought the response was interesting, and worth posting...


On another note, I'm enrolled in a class called Understanding Comics Art, taught by Diana Schutz, Editor in Chief for Dark Horse Comics. It's a very informative class, and I'm having a lot of fun.

The great part is that we get to read comics for homework, including Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, Last Day in Vietnam, and Maus, among other great works. Diana knows the medium of comics inside and out, and was even a good friend of the late, great Will Eisner.

What's crazy is that this is a community college class. Yeah...

Heal Emru

I don't have any traffic on this blog.

I've posted an important message on my old blog.

Maybe there is some embarrassing high school stuff on there, but that's not the point.

Since this is an animation-related blog, if you're reading this at all, you should know who Emru is.

If not, go to fpsmagazine.com, healemru.com, or my blog post. This is very important. He has an amazing website called FPS Magazine. He has been diagnosed with leukemia. Go to the given links and get information on what you can do.

If people actually read this blog, I would have made this message more like the one on my livejournal...