No, I'm not a toady but it's funny that someone on the net called me that. What is a toady anyway? As a toady I assume it would be my job to defend the opinions of the Toady Master (John), even if I believe they're wrong, but do I do that? Not that I'm aware of.And to whom am I supposed to defend those opinions? Can I talk directly to John's adversaries or am I supposed to talk only to the adversaries' toadies, you know...toady to toady. I don't know, it's way too complicated. Anyway, I'm not a toady. John and I disagree about too many things for that.
For one thing we disagree about Wally Wood (above). How can John not like the guy? Maybe he's down on the later Wood who was forced to draw all those Marvel comics.
And what's this about Jack Davis (above) being over-rated? By way of evidence John says Davis uses fish scales to denote ground. What's wrong with that?
John is also completely unmoved by John Sibley, the Disney animator who did the best scenes in the Goofy sports cartoons. He calls Sibley "wacky," which is Johnspeak for the silly, pointless things that clowns do. Believe me, it's not a compliment. Me, I love Sibley. (Sigh!) I don't think we'll ever agree about this.
John and I disagree about a whole bunch of things but one of the things we do agree about is that cartoons need to be funny. They need to be written funny, drawn funny and animated funny. That doesn't sound like much to ask for but you'd be amazed how difficult it is to pull off.
To do it John had to figure out a whole new way of writing stories, a new way of organizing a studio, a whole new drawing style, and when he encountered a problem getting it on TV he worked with others to co-invent Flash animation so he could put it on the net. Later on he tried to teach that drawing style to potential employees on the net and in the process created a blog that was unparalleled in the industry. You don't have to be a sycophant to admire that.
Oops! There I go sounding like a toady again! I think I'll wrap this up now so I can hunt for some flies.
38 comments:
Wood is bad and Davis overrated? Well, at least Elder and Kurtzman have been left standing! Or doesn't John like them either?
Here's an intellectual, mature rebuttal to the person that called you a "toady": *Pppppllllhhhhh*!!!!
Seriously - I would say that you are a big fan of John's talents, Uncle Eddie, but I wouldn't say that you are John's sycophant. Anyone who has read the comments in both your blog and John's blog can see that.
-- J
I actually do like that Wood stuff a lot.
And I have nothing against Sibley. He's obviously technically great. I just don't find Goofy funny. Probably because of the gags and slow direction.
All that stuff is definitely wacky... which is sort of different than funny.
But thanks for the plugs!
and you left out The Fountainhead and Christianity. We almost fight to the death over those! Some Toady!
You both forgot a big hot button issue- IKEA!
ok, now i gotta know what you guys think about The Fountainhead. I thought it was pretty good until the build bombing. Good as entertainment, mind you, i don't think objectivism is can be taken very seriouly...
I would say that you are a big fan of John's talents, Uncle Eddie, but I wouldn't say that you are John's sycophant.
No! No! Eddie is the toadie. I'm the sycophant. The position of disciple is still open and we're accepting resumes.
See ya
Steve
P.S. Hey John, add Schnozzle to the list!
Lester: John loves Kurtzman. My guess is that he regards Elder as "wacky." John's currently feeling benign to Wood but I suspect that a beer or two might pry loose some criticism.
Jennifer: Thank you, thank you, thank you! That's an interesting varient on the Bronx Cheer: "Piplehah!
John: Christianity and "The Fountainhead!" I forgot about those! John thinks about Christianity and conjures up torture instruments. I think about it and conjure up The Golden rule and the transmission of ancient Greek values.
I love the Fountainhead, both the book and the movie. John thinks it's cheesey. You see how difficult it would be to be a toady to someone you have to argue with so frequently.
John's a fun guy to talk to. In addition to animation he should do a live action show something along the lines of Hugh Hefner's "Penthouse Party." The camera would eavesdrop on interesting conversations among the cartoonist guests and beautiful women would be all over the place.
you have to remember that this is the internet, and it's impossible to get out unscathed. It's really easy to make baseless claims and not have to justify them, which I imagine is why John turned off anonymous posting on his comments section.
Was this because you told everyone to go to his blog? Because it's seriously like 300 pages worth of text and images that I would qualify as one of the best (and only) textbooks on drawing for animation. Regardless of how you feel about the guy, his blog is awesome and you have to at least appreciate what he's doing.
John is posting Great invaluable stuff for the future as well as the past of animation... You don't HAVE to like his cartoons... There alot of stuff abouthis sense of humor that I don't like , but when you watch "em You notice a huge diffrence from everything else around...I mean those adult party cartoons.. Wow there's just nothing recent like those..
I think people just want to remain willfully ignorant,...
Wow, I remember both of those comics! Unfortunately, the only version I have is a reprint splattered with gross primary colors.
what do you think of Fred Moore? I read the illusion of life and Frank made a comment about how he "just couldnt hack it" when it came to their more techicaly demanding illustrative style which seems insane.
Frank and ollie seemed extremely embarrassed about the steamboat Willy days, they repeatedly use the term "cartoony" in a disparaging way and use terms like "realistic physics" to praise what they did.
Johns blog really articulated the confusion I felt after reading that book, its good to know theres still animators out there that dont feel "cartoony" is a bad word
Eddie,
In one of the MAD anthology hardback books that came out in the 80's, Kurtzman complained about Wood's draftsmanship in an interview. I can't remember the specifics of why he didn't care for it. Kurtzman felt that Elder really plussed his layouts, and made them funnier.
I'm a big fan of Wood myself. I like his use of shadow in his comic book work. His characters have a sense of realism but still have a caricatured look to them. Wood was an alcoholic and his work degenerated as he got older.
Sibley is definitely a great and underrated animator. I don't care for the humor in the Disney cartoons myself (except for a few exceptions directed by Kinney), but some of the cartoonier stuff like the sport Goofys are great to look at.
Don't forget Davey Crockett.
Ian: Actually John's blog was first and he plugged my blog.
Anon: Freddie Moore was great! Frank and Ollie were mistaken in my opinion.
Luke: Ah yes, Davy Crocket! Everybody I've shown that to hates it, including John. you hated it! I think it's a terrific film but I admit that it helps that I saw it when I was a little kid. My parents bought me the plastic flintlock, the coonskin hat and all that.
"and you left out The Fountainhead and Christianity. We almost fight to the death over those! Some Toady!" Who would I not kill to be a fly on the wall listening to this? Two of my favorite things debated by my two favorite people.
I love that John hates things* because it makes one think**.
And I think that he thinks that a lot isn't given much thought, just taken for granted, and that a lot of opinions are handed down and freely accepted without being examined or challenged.
I always took Harveys attitude toward Wood to be born of Wally not following his layouts that carefully. Probably ignored his staging more than Davis even.
I like the Fountainhead because it is cheesy, and plays on Hearst and Wright. A black and white world view can be a dangerous thing however, some people read Rand realizing that, others drink the Kool Aid.
* either apparently, or really, or mistakenly
** unless one is a stubborn kneejerk reactionary and refuses
I think I recall Kurtzman particularly disliking the way Wood had angled a foot to draw the bottom of a shoe, he thought it made it look like a broken ankle.
Hey, I don't think you're a toady, Eddie. It's easy to see that you've got your own theories (duh). We all should.
>>I always took Harveys attitude toward Wood to be born of Wally not following his layouts that carefully.<<
>>I think I recall Kurtzman particularly disliking the way Wood had angled a foot to draw the bottom of a shoe, he thought it made it look like a broken ankle.<<
Yes, that's exactly the interview I was thinking of. It was in reference to the "Superduperman" parody. Kurtzman thought Wood drew stiffly.
anonymous said: ...others drink the Kool Aid.
Actually, the drink at Jonestown was Flavor Aid, not Kool Aid.
From Wikipedia:
"Around 909 followers of Jim Jones committed cult suicide by drinking cyanide-laced grape Flavor Aid in 1978. Erroneous references to the mass suicide, in combination with existing references to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test of the Merry Pranksters, gave rise to the saying "to drink the Kool-Aid" as a reference to those who blindly follow an authority even if it leads to serious harm or death."
Hey Eddie,
You ask what a toady was, well here is the history of the word from Dictionary.com...
Word History: The earliest recorded sense (around 1690) of toady is "a little or young toad," but this has nothing to do with the modern usage of the word. The modern sense has rather to do with the practice of certain quacks or charlatans who claimed that they could draw out poisons. Toads were thought to be poisonous, so these charlatans would have an attendant eat or pretend to eat a toad and then claim to extract the poison from the attendant. Since eating a toad is an unpleasant job, these attendants came to epitomize the type of person who would do anything for a superior, and toadeater (first recorded 1629) became the name for a flattering, fawning parasite. Toadeater and the verb derived from it, toadeat, influenced the sense of the noun and verb toad and the noun toady, so that both nouns could mean "sycophant" and the verb toady could mean "to act like a toady to someone."
Hunsecker: Wow! I learned something! Thanks for putting that up!
I said you were a toady simply because of the interviews on the apc dvd. In my opinion, theres no need to have someones good friend telling all how great, genius, brilliant he is. Any creative personality on earth besides Joel Schumacher and the like can find someone to suck their ass. I'd rather have a half hour just watching John draw or some similar kind of behind the scenes type shit.
Toadie, I'd like to introduce you to Horse's Ass!
See ya
Steve
Anon: I think you misunderstood my motive for saying what I did on that set.
I argued that John was a fine artist, probably the best practicing artist in any medium in the world right now. I didn't do that to score points with John. He's probably embarrassed by talk like that and never thinks of himself in that light. I did it because it happens to be true. Do you know of anyone else better?
I agree with you that John drawing something on camera would have been more interesting than footage of me calling John a genius. At the time everyone, including me, was urging John to do that but there was just no budget for anything elaborate requiring professional lighting and possible retakes.
Anon, the word toady implies someone is compromising their principles. Just because Eddie feels like John is one of the greatest cartoonists ever doesn't mean he's compromised in the slightest.
As a toady I assume it would be my job to defend the opinions of the Toady Master, but defend them to whom? Can I talk directly to the Toady Master's adversary or am I supposed to talk only to the adversary's toadies, you know, toady to toady.
HAHAHAHAH
Toady and Horses Ass could make nice puppets on the Uncle Eddie Show (The kind kids like).
....said Pinocchio.
I honestly understand and appreciate John's intentions to make younger artists THINK about the cartoons they want to create and not hold back to make the best cartoons possible. No argument there.
I just don't understand why cartoons can't ALSO be dramatic, moving and use subtle acting and pathos to incite emotions OTHER than the belly laugh.
Can't all sides just accept that a animation can make whatever you want to convey? Why do some people declare that cartoons MUST be ONLY for teh funnay and nothing else?
Why do some people declare that cartoons MUST be ONLY for teh funnay and nothing else?
Nobody says that. It would be nice if some deference could be paid to what cartoons have historically been good at, and if we would let them be good at it again.
Brian: Thanks!
Anon: Puppets? Hmmmm.
Kali: I forgot about Ikea. I'll have to do a blog about them one of these days.
>>I just don't understand why cartoons can't ALSO be dramatic, moving and use subtle acting and pathos to incite emotions OTHER than the belly laugh.<<
People keep saying they want drama and subtlety and acting, yet never succeed at it.
Meanwhile nobody is allowed to do what cartoons can do well-be funny, magical and cartoony.
There's plenty of room in the cartoon business to try and fail at doing what cartoons are lousy at, but no room for cartoonists to do what they actually LIKE to do and are good at.
John: Well said! You should do a blog post about all the failed attempts to do serious animation. The only time I saw it done well was in the the animated space programs done for the Disneyland show and maybe parts of "Victory Through Airpower." Of course these were documentaries and they didn't attempt much by way of acting.
Well I guess I have to disagree too. Wally Wood is Godly.
Well, if you weren't part of the "inner circle" you can bet that you'd be flooded with long, gas-filled comments about how your opinions are wrong.
Any attempt to explain your position would be dismissed as the uninformed ravings and ad hominem attacks of a cartoon-hater who "just doesn't get it."
Don'tcha think... or don'tcha?
Im glad we agree that something more inspired could have been shown. Thats all I meant,I wasn't being a dick. I think your a good kid, and I'd take a couple hours of you and John, and that Jim Smith guy drawing any old day.
Most people just don't care about cartoony cartoons. It's not pro football, or Idol. If your into cartoons, your part of a cult. There's no changing that. The whole discussion has become as bland, boring, and as stale as the cartoons cited. Move on.
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