whoa...

School

Well, I'm in school now. I'll be juggling that with my own personal creative time, practicing my drawing skills and following Preston Blair and John K's lessons. I've already started, but I'm slow and a perfectionist. I need to stop over-thinking things. Hell, I might even start going to the zoo to draw animals. Maybe that's too pretentious. I should probably stick to drawing my girlfriend or my cat for a while.

I'm taking sculpture though, which should be good. I've always loved sculpture, and I feel like it will be a good skill to develop. I'm also taking photo, which I'm mostly clueless about, but it's also a good skill to have.

Oh, and thanks to Jenny Lerew for the comment on my last post! I'm pretty happy that someone from the industry has looked at my blog-- and who worked on cartoons I grew up on! She also corrected me on one of my many embarrassing and pretentious Cartoon Brew comments. I've said some stupid things in my time, but I've never been corrected so warmly.

On Laziness

I love my girlfriend. I bought her a book of Dan Decarlo pin-ups. She loved it so much, she got me this book:
The Classic Pin-Up Art of Jack Cole, Published by the good folks at Fantagraphics.

I'll talk more about Jack Cole later, but right now, all I have to say is that he's really inspired me to get off my ass and do something. The guy had almost no art background, other than a mail-order cartooning course. This reminded me of John K's cartooning course, so I figured I should take action.

Here's another thing that motivated me to stop being lazy:


And then of course, this Brew post...

Turns out I was stupid

Upon looking at Cartoon Brew's recent post, and finding the Lauenstein brothers' website, I now realize that I was in fact being stupid. According to their website, they worked on a number of commercials involving the characters from Balance. I've looked on their website before, so I don't know why I didn't notice this before.

They don't actually list the Sega CD commercial on their website, but this is probably because it's not really worth mentioning. The commercials they do mention are for MTV and several PSA's, which are more impressive than a promotional video for a video game console that failed miserably.

I was watching a tape of Liquid Television recently, and saw the sequence with the Balance guys, and was even going to post about it... but then I read the CB post... so, yeah.

Balance and Sega-CD ad

So, here's something I've been meaning to talk about for a while, even before I started this blog. It's been bugging the hell out of me.

I saw the Oscar-winning German animated short film Balance (1989) when I was about nine. It was one of those shorts that really got me into foreign animation, and also helped to show me what the medium of animation is capable of.



While watching videos on YouTube, I stumbled across this (the part I'm talking about comes in after 45 seconds) :



The similarities can't be denied. The look of the characters, their actions, the object of interest that is in front of them... well, you be the judge. It's worth noting that this is the European Sega CD commercial, and this may have something to do with it. I really have no idea if the two are related, or if it was a work of plagiarism. I can't find any info about it anywhere, and yet I feel like I'm being stupid by wondering. Hopefully I'll figure this out...

Worst. Birthday Present. Ever.

This movie is coming out the day after my birthday. Wonderful. It should be a double feature, right after Space Chimps.

They should just stop making movies. Now. Like, everyone should just stop making movies. They all need a movie time out.

Here's the trailer, if you dare, although I strongly suggest the much more entertaining version, which accurately shows how most (not stupid) people, including myself, felt about the film.

AFI's Top 10 Animated Films - Disney Dominates

So I was watching AFI's 10 Top 10 on CBS. They had a good lineup of gangster movies, romantic comedies, epics, westerns, etc. It was a little slapped together, but that's sort of to be expected, and I personally think top 10 lists are kind of flawed anyway.

However, I shrugged at their list of animated films. Here's the website if you're interested.

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. Pinocchio
3. Bambi
4. The Lion King
5. Fantasia
6. Toy Story
7. Beauty and the Beast
8. Shrek
9. Cinderella
10. Finding Nemo

First off, as many people will also point out, animation is not a genre, but an art/medium/craft. Second of all, what's with all the Disney/Pixar, and why is Shrek the exception? And finally, why is Shrek placed above Cinderella?

The segregation of animation and live action is really part of American culture, viewing it as children's entertainment, etc. It's also to make room for more live action films in the other categories, since live action does dominate in film history. However, if we're looking at Disney animation, those common labels of "for the kiddies," fairy tales, and the like are actually true.

Disney is animation and cartoons in the mind of many Americans, it can't be helped.

The list seems to have been put together by film enthusiasts. It includes classic directors like Cukor, Wilder, Hitchcock, and even includes a few silent films. So you'd think they would have at least included Nightmare Before Christmas or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Maybe Wizards or Fritz the Cat even, but of course, surrounded by so much Disney, it would feel creepy to TV audiences. You sure as hell wouldn't see Allegro non Troppo, Coonskin, or The Thief and the Cobbler on there.

Like comics, animation will only be truly understood and appreciated by nerds. It's a fact I've come to accept. I'm actually quite proud to be a nerd. It's not like I ran into Platform screaming "excelsior!" But, of course, if everyone in the world loved Wizards and Allegro non Troppo, I'd be sick of them and not want to watch them anymore. So it works out in the end.