Thursday, May 24, 2007

JOHN K'S AMAZING BLOG


I should really break this post into two parts but I'm getting sleepy so I'll take a chance and try to say everything I have to say at once. Don't worry, I'll go fast.


Before blogs we had to rely on fan magazines and books for information about animation. Fan magazines were hard to get hold of and books tended to be coffee table books which were expensive and tended to take a safe, middle-of-the road position about everything. Every book started with Egyptian wall paintings and zoetropes. The coffee table books had big, wasteful margins, I guess to make them appear high class.


Cartoonists seldom had a say about what was in these books. Maybe Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas did but no one I know. Putting these things together was usually the job of professional writers and Vasser-educated New York editors. Funny cartoons were considered low rent and were hardly mentioned.

The first glimmers of an improvement came with Joe Adamson's "Tex Avery : King of Cartoons" and Leslie Carbaga's book on the Fleischers. At last something for the funny cartoonists! It wasn't much but it was something and we all eagerly bought the books and copied the model sheets. I'd hoped this would be the trickle that would become a cataract but that isn't exactly what happened.

Anyway, fast forward to the present. Things are a bit better now but the wine and cheese people still control publishing and there are only a few coffee table books about funny cartoons. That's OK, now cartoonists have the internet. Finally we can talk to each other and compare notes. We can put up favorite scenes on YouTube and argue about them. Now that the fans and the people who actually draw cartoons have a voice there's a big shaking out going on. Reputations are rising and falling and who knows who'll be left standing when it's run its course.
There are a number of good animation opinion sites but the best of them all in my opinion is John K's "All Kinds of Stuff:" http://www.johnkstuff.blogspot.com/ This is the most intelligent discussion of funny cartoons that I've ever seen.
Recently John wrote an essay about McKimson's characters shoving and being brash to each other all the time. According to John that's the way mild-mannered McKimson probably viewed his co-workers. John implies that we ought to be able to do things like that in cartoons too. Whether you agree or disagree you'll have to concede that this is the type of discussion cartoonists should be having. Let historians argue about who directed what and when. We cartoonists should be talking about the best way to have a character fall on his head.
In other posts John talked about comedic acting and what a pity it is that we see the same five expressions on characters all the time, even in features. He passionately argued for a re-evaluation of cartoon acting, backing up his argument with grabs from classic cartoons and "The Honeymooners." Once again you have to concede that this is the kind of discussion cartoonists should be having. You won't get it from clueless writers and executives and you won't get it from coffee table books. This is what happens when cartoonists talk to cartoonists.
John's blog is full of original ideas about background painting, writing, drawing, caricature, animation, direction, character design and the like. Before his blog all we had were Disney fans putting up old model sheets. You wonder why other cartoonists (including me) seldom put up our own theories in such an urgent and forceful way. My guess is that we were all anesthetized by the books that were out and were lolled into thinking that only professional writers and editors knew enough about the subject to have opinions. Well that era is gone. John shattered it.
What lies in the future for John's site? I don't know. I always worry that he'll get too busy to keep it up. He certainly shows no sign of caving in to convention. Recently John tackled stereotyping in cartoons. No one wants to bring back racism or gay bashing but the drunken Irishman, the buck-toothed upper-class Englishman, the thick-lipped black man, the Mafioso Italian, the effeminate gay, and the whooping indian were genuinely funny and no adequate substitute has ever been found. Speaking as a cartoonist to other cartoonists he seems to ask, "Wouldn't you have fun drawing stuff like this?" I can't wait to read the comments!

Well, it's a jumble but I'm too sleepy to rewrite it. My apologies to authors of good will who were slighted in my too-brief history of animation publishing.


31 comments:

  1. "No one wants to bring back racism or gay bashing but the drunken Irishman, the buck-toothed upper-class Englishman, the thick-lipped black man, the Mafioso Italian, the effeminate gay, and the whooping indian were genuinely funny and no adequate substitute has ever been found."

    Apart from the thick lipped-black man, have these stereotypes ever been away from modern entertainment? I see them basically on a daily basis on all kinds of shows. Infact, i don't recall ever seeing a Irish-man portrayed as anything other then a violent, drunken biggot.

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  2. Hear, hear! I learned more from his blog than I did at college!

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  3. Whoever cries the most will have their characteristics erased from entertainment. I guess the Irish(that's me)still have the thick skin to take some humor without crying! I love the old cartoons and I hated to see them edited for modern day release.
    Humans come in ALL flavors (just like IceCream)..we must celebrate our different flavors even in humor. Who wants all 32 flavors melted down into one pot of mud?
    There are 2 kinds of people in this world.....Racists....and those who are VERY GOOD at pretending their NOT racist.
    Sorry if my statement offends...grow a backbone! The rest of the world is laughing at our candy-ass soft society!

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  4. Anonymous6:38 AM

    I remember before John started his blog, it was so rare to hear anything from him. The Spumco official site went down, and the only way you could get any sort of info from him was to scour for his posts on that terribly slow MOTLOS forum.

    But now, things have changed! We all get a new post from John pretty much daily! I couldn't be happier.

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  5. Anonymous10:14 AM

    I hope John K continues with his blog too. I'm getting a first class cartooning and animation education for free. I certainly do appreciate it. And the fans comments are aften well-informed as well. Blogspot is the best thing to happen on the internet since email, imo.

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  6. I am a non-artist, and a sometime theorist and historian of the arts, and I can tell you that the sort of conversations between artists that Eddie is describing can be very interesting and enlightening to people like me as well as to artists. It is unfortunate that most theories of art are really about what the viewer is experiencing. The point of view of the producer is also needed. To do without it is like trying to understand a clock by looking at its face and hands. You've got to take the back off and look at the works.

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  7. I think we need some new stereotypes. The "types" you mention are all from the early 20th century. I've never seen REAL people that fit any of these types, but I'm sure that in the '30s there were REAL drunken Irishmen, Italian Mafiosi, etc - and it's the recognition of those types that makes them funny. Today, we recognize these stereotypes only as references to something we've seen on TV - there's no longer a relation to "real". David Gemmil has come up with some pretty funny "hipsters" on his blog. C'mon - there's plenty of stereotypes today worthy of being cast in satire - rappers, heiresses, goth kids, rednecks, We really need stereotypes for our own time that are fun to animate!

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  8. Although I am not an animator nor am I talented enough to be an animator, I really enjoy John's (and your) blogs very much.

    I love history, and I get history lessons from both of your blogs.

    I also love reading the comments to John from fellow readers who mention how much their work has improved since they started reading his blog. One comment that stood out for me was from a young man who read John's blog and followed his advice and lessons. The young man's teacher at his art school mentioned that he was at a higher level than the other students in the class.

    The thing that made me respect John as a person is when he (in conjunction with the ASIFA) offered free drawing lessons to the Internet community. He could have self-published the lessons and made really good money from the lessons. Instead, he offered his time and knowledge for free. As an extra bonus, he personally critiqued the students' work.

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  9. Anonymous1:02 PM

    kent, I've never personally seen some of those stereotypes up close, but I've seen plenty of effeminate gays and thick-lipped black folks.

    I remember when Fat Albert came on the air. Bill Cosby said the artists attempted to make all the characters just white kids with brown skin. Bill said it wasn't close to being authentic..it wasn't real. So he made them change the drawings to where the kids had black features. One of those features was thick lips.

    People are too thin-skinned nowadays. Even things that are obvious, people want to act like they aren't to be politically correct.

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  11. I'm obviously very happy he made a blog! I met and became good friends with Eddie, Mike, Katie, Marlo, and countless other cartoonists through it (last but not least, in fact most importantly, John of course!) I found a clique! I never belonged to any sort of category before, beside outsider. And now, I'm a cartoony type who has other cartoony type friends! Life is good!

    I really feel like I've learned a lot from John and everyone- my progress in the last year was ten-times faster than any other year in my whole life! Coincidence, I think not. I was starting to lose vigor and direction before I stumbled upon these blogs- it's true!

    Everything has come together very nicely since then.

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  12. Anonymous1:18 PM

    Stereotypical characters should be retained in animation for historical reasons. As has been shown in history, certain societies die out and are assimilated. Animation, like other media, is one means to both retain information about cultures and attitudes towards these cultures.

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  13. Kent: I agree with half of that. If someone can come up with good modern comedic stereotypes then we should plug them in. Valley girls, surfer dudes and goths are only mildly interesting and they're not as funny as the ones on my list.

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  14. Anonymous3:06 PM

    John's blog is an oasis.

    This site had lots of hilarious modern sterotypes.

    Look At My Striped Shirt

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  15. Anonymous3:34 PM

    Hillbillies and rednecks have been stereotyped in cartoons since I can remember.

    How is that a new stereotype, kent?

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  16. Anonymous3:44 PM

    And the rapper stereotype is the same old black stereotype wearing different clothes, kent. The're same temperaments that inspired all the old stereotypes.

    The reason they're stereotypes in the first place is because they're easily recognizable. Rap videos knowingly or unknowingly glorify the old stereotypes.

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  17. Anonymous3:54 PM

    If you want to see the old black stereotypes in action, watch VH1 shows like Flavor of Love, or I Love New York, or the newer one called Flavor of Love Girls - Charm School.

    Flavor Flaaaaaaave looks like he jumped right out of the old Snow White and the Sebbin Dwarfs cartoon. Same attitudes, gold teeth, etc. Just more modern ridiculous clothing.

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  19. HEY EDDIE! Your blog is 1 year and 2 days old!!! Congratulations!

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  20. The thing that made me respect John as a person is when he (in conjunction with the ASIFA) offered free drawing lessons to the Internet community. He could have self-published the lessons and made really good money from the lessons. Instead, he offered his time and knowledge for free.

    There's no charge for the $100k Drawing Course, but it isn't free... The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive depends on contributions to sustain itself and fund the creation of more resources. Everyone who is benefitting from the Archive should be giving to support it. Donations have fallen off in the past six months. That is going to impact what we are able to offer in the next six months.

    See ya
    Steve

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  21. Anonymous6:37 PM

    Eddie, have you and John ever compared how many hits you send to each others blog? I can't imagine many people reading one that do not read the other.

    I do read Eddie, more often, often because of bandwidth limitations. John posts a bit less frequently, but with a lot more volume of of imagery and text. Eddie seems to post more frequently, and he allows anonymous posts in his discussion.

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  22. Kali: What you wrote about John was very moving! And thanks for the one-year anniversary note!

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  23. Howzabout a stereotypical "cartoonist" character? Has anybody ever created a good one? How do we dress? What hideous physical deformities do we have? What are our most hilarious personality flaws?

    Remember not to factor in Jorge, or it'll skew the results something fierce. :^D

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  24. I don't agree with a lot of what John K. says. Honestly there's some of his cartoons that I can't stand and I'm not a gigantic fan of some of his character designs. However, I will say that the information he's giving in his blog made me go from a lack luster do-nothing into someone who got animation in a way he never thought possible.
    John K. constantly updates his blog, which is great. Honestly the guy's written an entire book by now, and I actually think he should concider writing a "funny cartoons" theories book. Getting the rights to all the media he wants would be a huge hassle, but I would buy that in a heartbeat.
    The man takes some bold stances on things I don't neccessarily agree with, and I think he tries to include himself can be a little off putting when I don't draw the connection myself, but it's always an interesting read.

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  25. Anonymous8:31 AM

    >Remember not to factor in Jorge, or it'll skew the results something fierce. :^D

    I WISH I was a cartoonist. Maybe some day...

    But I do wear glassses, have buck teeth and am puny.

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  26. There's no charge for the $100k Drawing Course, but it isn't free

    Excellent point, Steve! I've actually printed out the donor application yesterday and I'm going to mail in a contribution within the next few days.

    -- J

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  27. "Wouldn't you have fun drawing stuff like this?"

    I wouldn't really anymore.

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  28. for the past few years I have been teaching myself to draw cartoons and animate, and these cartoonist blogs have been one of my best resources. ASIFA is my favorite, but your blog and John K's are up there. John K's blog inspired me to put up my own blog. Though mainly I just post drawings and such without a lot of text. It is great to get the opinions from people who have been doing this stuff for a long time. I really feel like reading these blogs is making me a more rounded cartoonist.

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  29. Jennifer: Good point! John is remakably generous with his time and it's good to see him get credit for it!

    Steve, Jorge: Steve's right about ASIFA's archive needing donations. I can't think of a worthier cause. Even a few bucks would be appreciated. Thanks again to Jorge for contributing!

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  30. Anonymous6:54 PM

    Thanks, Eddie!

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