Friday, September 22, 2006
LANDSCAPERS ARE MY NEW HEROES
That something is that landscaping is an art which is worthy of the respect we give to architects. Why aren't landscapers consulted before a major building is built? Why can't a new building be built to conform to a landscaping idea instead of the other way around? Maybe landscaping is the beacon that can lead us out of the dark age that Bauhaus plunged us into.
This is the only life we have. Everybody reading this will be dead in a few decades. we need beauty in our lives now, while we can still enjoy it. Architects don't seem to care about this. They're invoved in some insane competition to see who can build the most alienating concrete wind-trap. I wish someone would write a book explaining how architecture became corrupted and irrelevant, which is certainly where things stand today. Anyway Japanese gardens like the one in Balboa Park suggest another way of doing things. Somebody should ask landscapers how they'd solve the problem of urban blight.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
WHAT IS THE PROPER ROLE OF AN ANIMATOR?
What is the proper role of an animator in an animated cartoon? That's easy. I can answer in one word..."king!" In animation the animator is king. Everybody else's job exists to make the animator look good. The rest of us, even the director, are like the hairdressers and make-up people on a live-action set. We exist to make the actor, i.e., the animator, look good. We exist to maximize his chance of achieving glory on the screen.
In a saner world the animator would be a star. His name would be known to the public and the public would argue over who the best animators are. Animators would have groupies, artistic pique, scandalous divorces, punch-outs with paparazzi, would get fat for parts and write tell-all biographies. The best of them would also break their backs to make the performances that will be remembered forever.
It seems to me that the best way to achieve this is to bring the animation back under the roof of the parent studio. Why we ever let it leave is beyond me. Animators are our performers. In their absence we've had decades of souless cartoons. We've been trying to tell stories without actors.
We need to start training animators now. The studios should help art schools to organize their animation programs more efficiently. Good animators should be rewarded with good salaries and stories should be written with the kind of scenes that animators like to work on. Most of all we need cheap and easy to use pencil test programs and internet tutorials on their use.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
A TRIBUTE TO SALOON PAINTINGS
Of course we're cartoonists and if we were painting the bar picture we might put up something a little different. I could see this Milt Gross guy reclining in a bunch of grapes and cupids, couldn't you? Don Martin would have made a good saloon painter. Of course his pictures would have needed those long Baroque frames with all the gold curly-cues.
Bar nudes can't be too sexy. If they are the patrons won't try to toast the lady, they'll try to jump over the bar and rub her bottom.
Monday, September 18, 2006
THE NEXT NEW THING
HOW MY KID DISCOVERED BREASTS
What follows is a completely trivial story. It's so mind-numbingly banal that I can't believe I'm trying to foist it off on other people. I'm just too sleepy to come up with something better! Oh, well! Here it is.....
I've always been influenced by things I've read. A case in point is an article I read about something called childhood amnesia. According to the author in later life your kid will forget nearly everything that happened before the age of four. Isn't that interesting?
Now maybe I was eating chicken when I read this because for me the compelling application of this idea was that I could give my two-year old the legs of the chicken rather than the breast and he'd never remember it. The cute little twerp never ate most of the food on his plate and was indifferent to chicken. I, on the other hand loved chicken, especially the breast when it was slow cooked upside-down in an oven so it retained all its natural juices. I figured I'd introduce him to chicken breasts when he was four, that way he'd believe he had them all his life. It was a silly thought, I now realize, but at the time I thought it was a revelation from heaven.
As it happened I forgot to tell him about breast meat for an extra two years. That's two extra years of juicy, to-die-for meals for his grateful dad. One night when he was six my wife cooked a particularly succulent chicken and put it hot and steaming in the middle of the table. My kid eyed the legs and licked his lips as usual. I decided to celebrate the world-class chicken by opening a special bottle of wine I'd been saving so I went out to the kitchen to get it. Little did I know that my wife was carving in my absence and gave me a leg and my son a big, heaping slab of breast meat.
When I came in I poured some wine into my wife's glass and as I did so I heard my kid say, "Hey, there's something strange about this chicken." Strange? What strange? I looked at my kid and he was thoughtfully touching his tongue to a morsel of breast meat on his fork. Inside I had a fit! "Uh, Kid,...if you don't like that I guess I can trade my leg for it." I began but he stopped me. "That's alright, Dad. It's not horrible." I could see the moist flavor bubbles on the surface of his chicken. "Really, I don't mind trading, Kid." He waved me off. "Dad it's actually (Munch!)...mmmm...actually...(Munch! Munch!) well, kind of interesting." I frantically sniffed my chicken leg as if to savor it. "Yes but legs, AH, now that's flavor!" My son: "Yes but this is not just (Munch! Dribble!)...I mean... (Drool! Munch! Dribble! Munch!)this is REALLY GOOD!" No more thoughtfull eating after that. He shoveled it in like there was no tomorrow. "It's so odd that I never realized how good chicken was before!"
From then on he got the breast and I got the leg. I just couldn't bare to withold it from somebody who likes it so much. He's in his twenties now and loves chicken breasts as much as I do. He does remember that there was a time when he didn't find chicken so appealing but he can't remember why.
I
Saturday, September 16, 2006
SOME PERSONAL PICTURES
Here I am (above) with Theory Corner fan Sophorn. The man's amazing! He not only draws but builds terrific custom cars as well! The censor stamp is to cover a minor photo distortion that made me appear fatter than I am. I only covered up a little bit of the picture, nothing you'd miss.
Here I am (above) drawing at ASIFA. Once again I used the censor stamp, this time to cover up a tiny distortion in the photo that made me look older than I am. I just covered it up a tad, nothing drastic.
Here I am presenting a cake that Marlo, Katie and Kali made for John's birthday. You don't mind that I used the stamp again do you? It's just a little touch-up. Once again a tiny error in the photo made me look older than I am. Boy, there's a lot of lying camera lenses out there!
SOME PICTURES FOR A BOY'S ROOM
Here's (above) a picture of two gladiators. It's a grizzly scenario and it appears to have been painted in urine but boys like this kind of spectacle. Click on it to see more detail.
The busy black and white photo is a replica of Sherlock Holmes' flat on Baker Street. The man on the horse is obviously Napoleon. Every kid identifies with Napoleon but few adults do. Kids also identify with pirates. Thanks to The Pirates of the Carribean there's no lack of interesting posters on this subject.
Here also is Attila and his barbarians. As a kid this would have inspired lots of imaginary swordfights as I fought to defend Rome and my bedroom from the screaming hordes.