Butt-Ugly Politics

Hi all.

Congratulations, fellow US citizens, on your new President.

Now, I've known cartoonists to deliberately vote for the wrong candidate because it was easier to caricature them. Fortunately this practice was abandoned last Tuesday.

But there is no question that the losing side was a lot easier to draw than the winners. I am probably going to post a nice caricature of Mr. Obama in the next few days, but in the meantime, I'm posting drawing that some readers may find offensive. But, in my opinion, so was their campaign. I was worried to see political candidates actively appealing to racists and neo-Nazis in a way that I have not seen since the bad old days of governors Lester Maddox and George Wallace in the segregationist Sixties South. (Update: The Secret Service has just weighed in on this subject--and curiously enough the article is in a British paper.)

Most of my friends found it hilarious, and so I'm putting it here as a farewell to a truly bizarre political 'team', one half of which won't be caricatured again for...at least four years...

Those of you familiar with the French satirical magazine L'Assiette au Beurre will recognize the source of the imagery--a 1901 caricature of English king, Edward VII.

Corny Cole Fundraiser

Tina Price of the Creative Talent Network informed me in an email that the fund drive for Cornelius 'Corny' Cole has raised over ten thousand dollars. Update: the total from the CTN was $12,500. Way to go!

It's a small token of our appreciation.

I read a snide comment on another blog that Corny 'didn't deserve any more consideration than anyone else who lost houses in that fire.'

Well, he's an animator--and animators take care of their own. It's no surprise that they're the only cartoonists with a union. We don't work alone, we network and we have a strong sense of community. That community is worldwide, not just regional. It also extends through time and space; animators send messages to the future in the films that sometimes survive the makers. More about that later.

Another commenter on that same blog mentioned that Corny had thousands of 'brothers and sisters' in animation. Couldn't have said it better myself.

New Books and News

We have come to the end of reading week, an interesting Sheridan custom of allowing students a break from classes at mid-semester. So Week Eight of classes is actually in Week Nine (at least that is the way I reckon things to keep my class plans straight.) Faculty continue to work during the break of course; I spent the week working on new presentations and attended two faculty meetings. I do lectures in three different classes in the coming weeks, and have been determining what to do and where.
The power boats are now out of the harbour, sitting on the bank for all the world like a child's toys newly removed from the bath. A huge crane with bands like the ones they use to lift horses, got the boats there. I hope to get a picture.
The sailboats are often winterized in Bronte harbour, but some are still here in the water. It remains to be seen how many will winter in the club's parking lot. I saw the huge crane nearby so the decision must be taken soon.
I've gotten a fitness assessment at the club and will be exercising there this winter to try to keep some sort of activity going when there is no chance of riding a bike or walking around--the bad weather is just around the corner. There was snow a bit to the north of us and I even saw some flurries on campus.
Winter preps are nearly done; I've got the right coat, hat and hopefully boots for the year and all the summer clothing has been mothballed, and winter clothes taken out.
Two interesting books have arrived: THE ALCHEMY OF ANIMATION: Making an Animated Film in the Modern Age by Don Hahn and DIRECTING THE STORY by Francis Glebas.
Don Hahn's book is a very reasonably priced, easy-to-read guide to how feature animation is produced. It's beautifully illustrated too. Hahn explains the differences between the production of stopmotion, hand drawn, and CGI feature films with succinct and well written text and illustrates it with preproduction artwork that in many cases has not been published before. The layout is generally good (some pictures might have been larger but all are clear and printing quality is high.) This book is highly recommended for students considering animation studies who might want to know more about the different techniques.
Here's a heads-up: I helped get Francis Glebas' DIRECTING THE STORY published and worked as a copy editor on the text. So I'm pleased to see such a handsome book resulting; but I haven't had time to read the finished version as of this writing.But, as Boss Tweed said, I can look at the pictures.
And guess what? They are all rough boards! Yes, that's the way story artists do it--and DIRECTING THE STORY will be an eye opener to people who try to do presentation boards on the first pass. Glebas' illustrations are rough, but they tell the story--and since boards are reworked, and reworked, and changed again and again...it makes sense to keep it rough until the story is straight.
Francis has mucho story experience on a raft of Disney features and has directed one feature for Disney and a sequence from another, so he knows what he is talking about. This book is best suited for a more advanced student (and it probably helps to read my book first, since the two volumes complement each other. End of commercial plug.)
For it makes no difference if you work in CGI, stop mo, or hand drawn animation...the storyboard is always the starting point. If you do not have the story set when you start animation production, the picture can flounder, run over budget, and join all the animated feature shipwrecks that have struck the reefs of poor planning.
Check out the chart on Page 38 of THE ALCHEMY OF ANIMATION to see how long storyboard changes go on (hint: they run from the near-beginning to the near-end of the picture, longer than any other department's input)
Also received: Volume 6 of the Looney Tunes GOLDEN COLLECTION. This one is more for collectors than the casual animation fan (who else but an animation collector would know, or care, about BOSKO and FOXY, the original Warner Brothers animated 'stars'?)
The Warner shorts were the birth of the music video, since they were created solely to plug music that played in the feature films that these shorts originally preceded. SHUFFLE OFF TO BUFFALO, SMILE DARN YA SMILE, are the titles of the music and the cartoons themselves; they consist of vignettes, characters singing the lyrics, rather than solid stories.
But collectors will have a field day. Hear the original 'trombone gobble' in YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOIN'! And I just hope they put in the 1931 cartoon that features--I kid you not--a chorus line of Donald Ducks rowing boats across a stage! Yep, I got the date right at least, and this cartoon is three years older than THE WISE LITTLE HEN. Now I just have to find out if a fellow named Freddy Spencer worked at Warners in 1931. (Ken O'Connor told me that this was the man who designed the Duck at Disney's.)
Some very rare cartoons are on this disc, including the disturbing FRESH AIREDALE. Listen to Greg Ford's commentary to find out why Chuck Jones made such a bitter cartoon.
But the biggest treat on Volume Six is the Leon Schlesinger Christmas Party, with 'sole survivor' Martha Sigall telling us who those people all are! Meet the Warner Nuts and see how they were just as crazy as their cartoons...the spirit of that long gone studio is beautifully caught in this ridiculous footage, in which management actually gets into the act satirizing themselves!
(I can't imagine that sort of thing happening now, at any studio, anywhere. Tell me if I am wrong.)
RUSSIAN RHAPSODY and HERR MEETS HARE, two wartime cartoons that at one time were relegated to the 'do not show' bin, are also included along with one of my favorites, Bob Clampett's HORTON HATCHES THE EGG and the first Tex Avery Warner cartoon, PAGE MISS GLORY. (the only period cartoon designed in the then-contemporary Art Deco style).
But I will wait in vain for the wonderful Road Runner/Coyote cartoon WILD ABOUT HURRY. It is not included here, and there will be no more compilations. But at least we have the six sets to play with. Thank you, all who made the sets available to all of us who love the Warner cartoons.
I'll have an update on the Corny Cole fundraiser sometime soon...the Creative Talent Network's fundraiser ended on Friday. Thank you to all who helped spread the news and to those who contributed to the fund. May we all be there for each other in times of trouble.

It's raining here today so the planned trip to Niagara on the Lake will keep til next week.

Corny Cole design

BABETTE from RAGGEDY ANN, design by Cornelius (Corny) Cole

A Tragedy that You Can Help Remedy

I have just received the shocking news that animator Corny Cole, a fifty-year veteran of the Disney, Warner, and Dick Williams studios who currently teaches at Cal Arts, lost his home and everything in it in the Marek brush fires currently burning north of Los Angeles.
Corny's entire life work was burned beyond recognition. He also lost all of his feline and canine friends, who apparently could not be evacuated with him. This, to Corny, was the greatest tragedy.

The CREATIVE TALENT NETWORK is running a fundraiser for Corny. His entire earthly posessions are now contained within his office at Cal Arts. Please give what you can, here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=485564
Thank you for helping a brother animator in his hour of need. My sympathies go out to Corny for the loss of his home, possessions, and friends.

THE NEVER NEVER by Old Man Pie

I really love this song. Old Man Pie is a group from England that writes songs of social significance and satire.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/nevernever

An Outing on the Lake

The weather was cold and overcast without a hint of wind on Saturday, but THE DUCHESS, captained by Jock Macrae and his son, departed at 2 PM as scheduled, for a sail on Lake Ontario. And they took me along.
The sail had been arranged by the Oakville Club's dockmaster, who is very kind.
(Yes, I'm going to join the club within a week or so. It's worth it.)
Once we motored out a bit further from the shore the wind came up, actually rather briskly. I'd wondered whether the heavy leather jacket and hat I was wearing would be necessary. They were. The chill was palpable, but not intolerable. "This is the last sail of the season," Mr. Macrae said. Winter comes early here and the boats have to go into dry dock very soon. They will spend the winter in the club's storage lot. A wooden boat has to 'breathe' and have air around it when in dry dock, but THE DUCHESS was fiberglass unlike its sister ship the ANITRA, so she'll be bundled up like a silkworm to shield her from the snow and wind.
Once we were on the lake the view of the Oakville waterfront became much clearer. Immense mansions line the shore of the lake. The hoi polloi (that's me) can walk along the lakefront with frequent detours to the street, to avoid the estates. Others have large walls divorcing their property from the public way below, rendering them invisible or (apparently) smaller than their actual size. From the water their true dimensions were obvious. The sheer scale of some of these places boggled the mind. At least one of them had a small outbuilding which Mr. Macrae said was a chapel. (They get tax breaks for having a church on their property. One of the mansions has a statue of Buddha). One monster mansion, built by the CEO of a famous brewing company, in the Dutch style, was nearly the size of Buckingham Palace (I am not exaggerating here.) The minute it was finished, the company terminated the man's contract since they thought the house a bit on the ostentatious side.
Another mansion is so large that a seven year old girl and her servants live in one side of it, and her parents have a separate wing, like royalty. I asked how normal the child could be with this sort of upbringing. No one really knows. The parents have willed the house to the state in the coming time, to keep their taxes down.
There were a few older, smaller houses there as well, but they will probably be bought up and knocked down (if the Canadian market doesn't follow the American one) for more mansions. One of the mansions that is less than a decade old is going to be razed for a larger one.
The DUCHESS had two red and two green ribbons on opposite sides of her mainsail to indicate starboard and port and to keep her into the wind. You handled the wheel so that all four ribbons lay in a straight line, and that meant you were sailing properly. I'd never seen anything so simple yet practical. The younger Macrae told me that night sailing was much better than in the day. I asked how he saw the ribbons then; it appears that there are lights, and moonlight would also give them some indication of a view.
I took the wheel for a short while but since the wind was shifting rapidly, I thought it was better that the pros handled it. Gusts kept springing up from all quarters and we even saw a probable waterspout off the starboard bow --at a safe distance, thankfully.
A 'turkey race' was in progress on the lake. Numerous sailboats were cruising for the reward of a large Thanksgiving turkey. I don't know who won.
The sail lasted a little over two hours. It was very generous of these kind people to take a total stranger out, and we parted friends.
Afterward, I went to Toronto to the NUIT BLANCHE, but did not get very far. The turnout for this event, where hundreds of artists had projects viewed for free, was immense. Toronto was jammed and every venue had lines going around the block.
I got to one large artists' loft in the Queen West district, but couldn't see any of the shows. (all right, so I don't like crowds.) I bought a handmade hat by a well known hatmaker. It's shearling, very well designed and warm, covers my ears and neck, and looks very feminine. At first I balked at the price but when I consider that one of my colleagues at work is already coughing, and that other folk are suffering from flu (and it's only early October!) I considered this money very well spent.
So now I'm set for the winter with warm coat and hat. I think the boots will last for another year and the gloves and winter clothes are fine.

A Wonderful Trip to the Back Yard

Last week the Greater Toronto Area (which includes Oakville at the extreme west) had an Open Door celebration where various historic buildings allowed people in for free tours.
I'd been busy in the morning and --after nearly deciding not to go--I decided that well, I'd take in a few of the Oakville attractions.
I began at the home of Oakville's first mayor; it's now Canadian Sound Systems. No, they don't work in film. They design home sound systems. And the inside of the house wasn't open at all, negating the promise of the Open Door. O well. I looked at the map and was pleased to see that the next nearest tour location wasn't a house at all. It was a boat called the ANITRA, quite naturally docked in the harbour nearby. So I walked down to it and sat in the back with a group of good natured people, listening to the story of the ship. She was built in the Twenties for the wonderfully named Montye Macrae, who had already built two other ships called ADANAC (Canada spelled backwards.) Someone suggested that he name the new ship ANITRA after the Egyptian dancing girl character in PEER GYNT, since "she had lines like an Egyptian dancer and was very exotic." So he did.
The ship has been in the Macrae family ever since. She has won racing prizes and also was clearly designed as a party boat--a trip below decks showed brilliantly designed spaces (there are eight berths down there, a kitchen, a head, a closet, and an icebox, all neatly framed in teak.)
I walked over to a small dock to see the ANITRA from the water. Some of the ladies who had been on the ANITRA with me were getting into a small launch. "Do you want to go over to the club?" the man at the helm asked, indicating the Oakville Club across the way. I assumed that it was also open for the Open House Day. I said I did not want to be any trouble, but he replied that it would be a very long walk for me up to the bridge and over, so I might just come along with them. So I got into the little motor launch.
The man, whose name was Larry, asked us if we were in a hurry to get over. "Does anyone want to take a trip up the creek?" he asked."There are hawks and herons there in the water."
No one objected, and so up the creek we went.
What a change. My apartment building, which was about 100 feet from the creek, was invisible. A few townhouses associated with the building across the street were barely visible. A whole new world opened up on that creek: reeds, weeping willows, pristine water (they caught a 5 pound pike there the other day, Larry told us) and best of all, wonderful little private patios and ladders from the big houses on the other side of the creek. Yachts were also parked along the eastern side.
The western side did not reveal herons, but the family of hawks was out hunting. "The water is two feet lower than usual," Larry said. "The Quebecers take it."
He took the launch up the creek for what seemed like a mile, then headed back, saying he'd better go since he'd be missed. He is the Dockmaster for the Oakville club.

Well, what can I say about the club itself? We had the tour, and I am determined to join. It won't be immediately since my finances at this stage are not yet recovered from the move, but it will be this year. They have a gym, a restaurant, social events, and best of all a feeling of community. I certainly could use a bit of that right now.

Larry was generous enough to arrange for me to go out on a boat with one of the club members; it turns out that the gentleman is a relative of the man who owns the ANITRA. So tomorrow I am going to go out on Lake Ontario with some very kind people who will--so I'm told--put me to work doing something on the boat.

And there is a Nuit Blanche in Toronto that same evening, with hundreds of artists showing projects for free all over downtown. I also get together with a new friend on Sunday. It should be a fun weekend.

So I'll stop writing now and come back when I have something to say about these events.
Happy weekend, all.

THE STARKER

I drew this caricature of the
infamous Jewish gangster, BIG JACK ZELIG, for author Rose Keefe. Her new book THE STARKER is the biography of this very unusual gangster--and it conclusively solves a famous early 20th century murder case. (The Rosenthal-Becker case was the second biggest news story of 1912.) Ms. Keefe was kind enough to send me a signed copy of THE STARKER, and this is my way of paying her back...

Learning Something New

Sheridan College hosted a group of First Nations artists, storytellers, and elders for its first-ever outreach to the Native people of Canada.

I only wish that I could have attended more events; I was at the opening dedication and then, after class, went to hear a Meti woman speak about her culture.

The Metis are the descendants of Native women and French trappers. They have been in Canada for several hundred years, but were generally 'neither fish nor fowl' in census. The culture remained undocumented, the speaker said.

For it was a separate culture. The Metis wore specially woven sashes, played spoons and special fiddles (made partially of birchbark) and danced to an unusual asymmetrical beat.

"Have you any time after your talk? I think that there is an animated film that is about your people," I said. The lady acquiesced and we walked to the library, where a print of Frederic Back's CRAC! was easily obtained.

Sure enough, the film is about the Metis. "He's got the Hudson's Bay blanket right! and there is the sash! and there is the whiskey jug next to the musicians!" the lady exclaimed joyously, while wondering at the work that went into Back's beautiful Oscar winning film.

So, the film that I thought was about French Canadians, was in fact about a particular kind of Canadian--most of whom lived in Ontario; though a few went West.

I wondered if Back himself was a Meti. No, it turns out he is not. He was a European immigrant to Canada. In which case CRAC! is a meticulously researched film.

It is about a culture that is forgotten and relegated to a museum, or so I thought.

Not so, my guest said. It is about the disappearance of the family.

I think that we are both right.

Another Environmental Film

Here's a film from the excellent Steve Whitehouse, link courtesy of Dermot O'Connor (whose idleworm.com site features some of the best flash gaming around as well as trenchant commentary on Things as they Are)

http://www.whitehouseanimationinc.com/commonscents.htm

All Better Now

Hello all you well wishers,
My film THE OTHER EDEN is now on Channel 4 and Aardman's new beta-site, 4mations.

I have watched a few of the films and while they are a mixed bag there is great potential here: a Youtube type site aimed solely at animators.

I wish them well, after the early fracas... and the film is getting some good reviews. This is really an interesting development. I've always thought that the internet was the animators' best friend since it enables us to get our films out before the public without dealing with predatory distributors (as I and some other animators have had to in the past) or dismissive festival programmers. We can put up the film, people can watch it, and the middleman is eliminated. I'm all for that.

So try 4mations. See what you get.

THE OTHER EDEN

I made this film at RIT to gain the last six credits I needed to graduate.

Since I had only ten weeks to complete it, I used after effects. THE OTHER EDEN is my first paperless movie; and I thank Professor Chris Jackson for helping me learn this excellent program.

I wanted to do something like Frederic Back's CRAC! which was rendered beautifully in pencil, and I think that the shot with the polar bears comes closest to the look. I can only wish that I could do a film that is as amazing as Back's work, but this is sufficient for what turned out to be eight weeks' work. The "pencil" rendering was actually done with the program's 'hair' filters, put in 3D, rotating at high speed in different directions. And I used Photoshop to create all the original artwork. Though it is flat artwork most of it is actually working in the third dimension.

Chris Jackson said that I was using the program in a manner that hadn't been originally intended, and that this was a good thing.

So here it is.

Ottawa Animation Festival or part of it anyway.

Well, folks, since I was only at Ottawa for the weekend, I really can't report on the entire festval. I can only report on what, and who, I saw. So here goes. And it's a bit of a stretch since the humungus traffic jam that closed off the entire highway just outside of nowhere, kept us sitting in the traffic for three hours. I got in at 1:30 this morning and taught two classes today without falling asleep once. (snore) But now i'm awake. I have never loved trains more than I did this morning...but if I'd taken my train back, I'd have not been able to attend Eric Goldberg's seminar on characters on Sunday afternoon. And that would have been a bad thing.

So on to the show...
I got to Ottawa by train on Friday the 19th with no trouble, met a nice lady on the way going to a writer's convention in the same city, and chatted for most of the trip. We shared a taxi to our respective hotels, and I had my passport waiting on the dresser, so I dropped the baggage off and attended Skip Battaglia's reception first. There I met Tom Gasek, Jeremy Galante, and a few RIT students who'd made the trip. Nice times.

The reception at the local Ami Cafe later on featured animator chow (heavy on the convenience food) and some good hummus, and better art. There were original drawings by Brian Larkin and some interesting robots made of metal found objects (I love stuff made of found objects.) After a while I wilted and went to bed.
There in the hotel were my roommates Marion Kulyk, an assistant director at Nelvana Studios, and a young animator named Nelson, who is designing a video game. Marion had brought cheese and berries and enough food for a small army, from a trip to nearby Quebec. And they found a balloon that said "Happy Birthday" floating in the parking lot, so they tied it to my bedroom door. Thoughtful and fun, and very pleasant roommates. We hit it off very well at once.

We were in a centrally located hotel that had a small cafe, but for my birthday on the 20th I went over to the Chateau Laurier, a fantastic French confection built in 1912 by Charles M. Hayes, president of the Canadian National Railroad and one of the more prominent victims of the Titanic sinking --he did not live to see this fine hotel open. I ordered French toast for breakfast and the hotel gave me a lovely mess of seasonal berries as a birthday present.
I heard people talking animation nearby and was recognized after a bit by Chuck Gammage, owner of the eponymous studio that turns out a very nice reel (go to the site and view the reel to see what I mean.)
After breakfast I went out to the Teletoons Animation Scholarships to see how the Sheridan reels competed with the other student films from Canadian schools. Well, it was really obvious that the Sheridan animators were doing some wonderful films. I thought some of the ones that did not win, place or show, were worthy of attention, but I don't think the Teletoons people wanted to give all the awards to one school! I was particularly impressed with Vladimir Kooperman's C BLOCK, but I also liked the very nice and understated ROMANCE IN GRAPHITE by Melissa Maduro.
Jeremy Galante, formerly of RIT and now teaching at Edinboro, took me out to lunch for my birthday, and I then went to what Lily Tomlin used to call the 'piece of resistance'- IDIOTS AND ANGELS, by Bill Plympton. Dang, this guy just keeps getting better and better. A subtitle to this film could have been BAD LUCK WHITEY...there's actually a reference to Tex Avery's BAD LUCK BLACKIE short brilliantly woven into this animated noir story about a horrible man who learns to be a mensch, courtesy of a pair of beautiful white wings that inexplicably grow out of his back. Watch the Avery cartoon and then the Plympton and see if you can catch the reference: to me it was loud and clear. Hint: It involves paint.
Charlie Chaplin was working on a film called THE FREAK toward the end of his life. It, too, was a story of a human who grows wings and is not understood by other humans. But the nameless protagonist of IDIOTS AND ANGELS not only isn't understood by others...he doesn't understand his own metamorphosis and is ridiculed by the grubby inhabitants of the sordid, grey and brown bar he seems to spend nearly all his free time in. (The art direction of this film is unlike that of any other Plympton picture: it seems marinated in cigarette smoke and auto exhaust.) Even the pretty butterfly that evolves, significantly, from a worm that lands on the man's head, is only a pale yellow and not a brilliant burst of color. The symbolism is there, but the man is dead to all beauty and finer things, and soon after that, so is the butterfly.
The subject matter is not the stuff of the usual American animated film--a man dueling with his own soul --but Plympton gets his message across with a few dashes of his trademark sexual humor. It's all in full service to the story, which is told entirely without dialogue.
Charlie Chaplin would have loved this.
I went to Barrymore's for the allegedly famous party. Got there after traversing a minefield of a street, to be hailed by Mike Sporn, who was here for a retrospective of his work, and Candy Kugel, up visiting the festival after winning an Emmy for writing PBS's BETWEEN THE LIONS. Congratulations to both!
After a while we realized that we seemed to be the only people in the line who were over the age of twenty (ahem, I was celebrating my twenty-first birthday), and so Candy announced that she was heading back to the hotel. I walked with her, and we had an interesting hike down and up a mess of stairs, past the fortresslike American Embassy that people kept teasing me about all weekend, and eventually I got to the Ami Cafe again (Candy stopping at her hotel.) There I met some of the Sheridan third year students and talked their ears off. But they did not seem to mind.
I got lost getting back to the hotel, which was actually around the corner... and after a one hour walk through the very safe and clean streets I got back to more or less where I started.
On Sunday I had some of the excellent cheese Marion brought, and went to the National Gallery where Eric Goldberg was doing a seminar on Putting Life Into Your Characters.
Eric showed some early tests from ALADDIN and a surprising amount of work on Phil from HERCULES in his very entertaining lecture. The book is very good--I think he's replaced Preston Blair's, and also John Halas' TIMING FOR ANIMATION. Not bad.
There was no time to do any book signings, so all of us left around then. I did meet up with Luc Chamberland, whom I hadn't seen since 1988, and whom I reminded of a famous incident with the story reels for a film called WE'RE BACK. You know what I mean, Luc. It's funny but I won't write it here!

And so now I'm back at Sheridan, with a good presentation today and more tomorrow and the rest of the week.

I had a good time. I'd like to see more but I always believe you should leave your audience 'wanting more'. It was a nice birthday weekend, filled with new and old friends and good films and the pretty city of Ottawa--pretty, until it snows, that is!

Ottawa Trip

I'm leaving tomorrow for a weekend in Ottawa. This will be my first time at the famous Film Festival there; I have never attended, not even when YOUR FEET'S TOO BIG played there about 25 years ago. Freelancing meant you could never take time off, ever!
There will be lots of people there whom I know, and I'll have a report when I get back on Sunday night.
I literally have to run out the door at the end of tomorrow's class to catch a bus to the station, then transfer from the GO train to the "Via Rail" that should take a few hours to get there. I look forward to the trip; Via Rail is a very civilized railroad, as I know from past experience.
The super and his wife will look after Gizmo, so that is one less thing to worry about.
So stay tooned, as the cliche goes: more anon.

David Celsi's Blog

David Celsi (also known as David Chelsea) has just started a wonderful new blog that can be viewed here.

David's book, PERSPECTIVE! FOR COMIC BOOK ARTISTS, is the last word on the subject. Hey, the man draws like Winsor McCay!

I look forward to frequently visiting David's blog and can recommend it to all animators and cartoonists who appreciate good drawing.

ADVENTURE TIME AND STORY TIME

I've just been reading the posts of my new colleague Peter Emslie on his blog,
The Cartoon Cave. One recent post discussed a Cartoon Network show based on a short film called ADVENTURE TIME, which some other blogs have praised and which Peter dislikes.
At first I couldn't watch this for more than ten seconds...the style was unappealing in the extreme. Then I remembered what my dear teacher and friend Ken O'Connor (a 50-year veteran of the Disney Studio) thought about THE SIMPSONS...Ken was hostile to the show because of its style, even when I argued that a more conventional cartoon style would be detrimental to the writing and absurd characters that made the show well worth watching.
So I tried to give ADVENTURE TIME another chance. I still couldn't watch more than three minutes. I lost interest almost immediately in the characters and their inexplicable transformations. And it wasn't because it was a 'non Disney' design. (I dislike imitation "Milt Kahl" style as much as poorly designed shows like this one.) No, there was a basic problem: ADVENTURE TIME was simply not appealing to me in any way--design, animation, and especially story.
I'm discussing linear and nonlinear storytelling in my lectures, and I'll be showing examples of both types of films for the remainder of term. I have always taught that there is no 'one way' to animate, design characters, or (certainly) to tell a story. But this film fails me on a very basic level: it does not entertain me, or make me interested in what any of the characters are doing. That, in the end, is all that a story should do: keep viewers interested in seeing what happens next.
ADVENTURE TIME is all over the place. It doesn't have the unifying elements that are found in the very first Terry Gilliam short film, STORY TIME; in "Doug the Cockroach" Gilliam parodies a linear story and has secondary characters run away with the film when the hero proves to be completely uninteresting, with no conflicts in his story. The second half of the film, "THE ALBERT EINSTEIN STORY" does have a structure to its nonlinear madness. The words 'Hands', 'Foot' and 'Dance' lead the action in an unconventional, but weirdly logical, direction.
The Christmas cards at the end are unified by subject (Christmas) and develop their own logic from the shapes and characters found in the standard card designs. A church steeple looks a little bit like a missile, therefore it becomes one. The Wise Men follow the star, so the star 'leads'--though not very well. A chickadee killed in one card falls into another card's scene, where it is suddenly violently out of scale. There is a highly entertaining logic in these unexpected developments that puts Terry Gilliam's work head and shoulders above ADVENTURE TIME, even though it may be no better animated in the 'classical' sense.
All films have structure, even the so-called 'experimental' ones. There is a development and variation, whether in color, music, or pacing, that serves to unify the film.
And I agree that Simon's Cat (which has a new example up, in addition to the two older, even more hilarious films) would be a far more appealing cartoon series than ADVENTURE TIME. I love these simple, well made little shorts and find them hugely entertaining.
But that's just me. And a few million others, from the number of hits on SIMON'S CAT'S videos.
De gustibus est non disputandum, but some things just are intrinsically better than other things. The artist 'becomes' an artist by learning the difference between mediocrity and quality. It's a good thing to aspire to in other aspects of life, as well. And no, it has nothing to do with budget, the number of drawings, or the number of big stars (animated or live) attached to the project. There are all sorts of big budget animated turkeys that don't have the charm and appeal of SIMON'S CAT.

Hans Bacher's Back!

If you look at the top link to the right, you'll see Hans Bacher's new art direction blog, ANIMATION TREASURES, at ONE1MORE2TIME3, !

Welcome back, Hans! This new blog is a must-see for all students of animation art direction.

A Beaver on the North Bay Carousel

As promised, I am printing a picture of one of the charming Canadian animals on the North Bay Carousel, taken during my recent trip to the area. The other animals (moose, lynx, loon, deer) are also charming, and I really loved the gorgeous gondola framed by two carved loons, done in finest Art Nouveau style. This is the less publicized of the two carousels on the North Bay waterfront.
I'm now into the second week of classes, and it's been a very interesting experience. My slide shows--a new feature of my lectures-- have to be shoehorned a bit to fit precisely in the 45-minute class time slot. The lecture is one hour on Mondays, and I have five two-hour studio storyboard classes during the rest of the week with the five sections of students in the second year.

In two weeks' time I will be visiting the Ottawa animation festival for the weekend. I've never been able to go before, and hope that I can manage it now without getting too overloaded! Fortunately there are cat sitters available, I can grade assignments on the following day, and there is a room to share in the city that isn't too dear. So the adventures continue.

I'll have a complete writeup on what I saw in Ottawa after I get back. Postings will be a little slow til then, due to the time spent on classwork and presentations.

cheers!

I makes a Lolcat

It r silly.

Getting Ready

Work starts in earnest on the second, when term begins; but there is a lot going on this week at the college. Today I am at a departmental meeting that then breaks up 'by year' so that we can discuss things that need discussing. I've got to pick up a laptop computer and give my lesson plans to my second year colleagues Mark Mayerson, Michael Hitchcox, and Scott Caple. And I got my OHIP Canadian insurance card, which means I'm fully 'covered' in the new country's medical plan as of September 1. Which is good news...I'll probably need it. Some kind of sinus attack is making me unhappy every morning and I need a few minor tuneups before school starts. It's nice to get all your ducks in a row before the real excitement begins.
Yesterday I went on a pleasant walking tour of parts of downtown Toronto with NCS member and fellow cartoonist Patricia Storms, whom I met at the Doug Wright awards a while back. We found a good used bookstore right on Spadina avenue that had some unusual and rare Canadian cartoon books. "Mine!" Patricia said, rushing for one small book and then explaining to me that the interesting cartoons featuring a bear character were very well known in Canada. I'd never seen it so I'm afraid I can't remember the artist's name or the title of the panel cartoon. (Thanks to the readers of the blog, of whom I have at least two, for informing me about J. M. Simpkins' JASPER THE BEAR. Is this the first cartoon character to have a public park named after him? Take that, Yogi.) Not much else to say except that I'll be spending the rest of the week on my first presentation, which will be done in-class rather than in the lecture hall due to the cancellation of Monday's class for Labor Day. The big classroom goes into operation in Week 2. I was able to plan the remaining lectures around Canadian Thanksgiving, which also falls on a Monday; (October 13). It's a lot easier to do this midway through the course.
The weather has turned sharply cooler and this is in some ways a Good Thing; but I'll probably be forced to take the herb garden indoors within a week or so.

Canadian Exhibitions

It's been a busy week or two...most of it was spent getting ready for school in September, but the weekends have been spent exploring more of my new country's attractions. On the 16th and 17th I was honored to be one of the invitees to Lynn Johnston's 'farewell and hello' party for FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, in Cottage Country.
A word about Cottages: These correspond to the USA's "cabins in the country". Everyone here in Oakville seems to 'go to the Cottage' on a weekend. So I was thrilled to be able to go to one, myself.
Lynn actually doesn't live in a cottage; it's a full sized, very nicely laid-out house on a pretty lake. Other small houses nearby correspond more to the 'cottage' description than her very comfortable home. Many are located on nearby Lake Nipissing, (pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, thankyouverymuch.) Lynn's friend went into hysterics when I got it wrong.
She kindly drove me up to Lynn's house; and we toured the city of North Bay after the party.
The area is lovely in summer, but in the spring a lot of the dreaded Black Fly and No-See-Ums are about. These legendarily bloodthirsty things bite and generally make life extremely unpleasant in May and June. There's always a catch to a beautiful area...
The North Bay waterfront had two wonderful carousels that Lynn and her husband helped create. This one,
http://www.northbaycarousel.com/
is a loving recreation of the great turn of the 20th century carousels; each handcarved horse is sponsored by a local business or resident. Many artists contributed to this gorgeous work of kinetic art. Lynn's characters are painted on two of the central panels and she sponsored one horse as well. (I wasn't able to ride on it but sat next to it on a horse named "Pearl". All the horses can be seen on the carousel's website.)
Next to this fine carousel was an extremely amusing one that featured Canadian animals. I rode on one of the carriages and photographed the beavers, moose, and other folk-art styled carvings and will try to post some of them in the next blog entry when the pictures are back. It takes a while to get film developed nowadays! but it will be worth the wait.
On Wednesday I went to the Canadian National Exhibition. Blog regulars might remember the ghastly 'cookbook' illustrations I printed from a 1956 CNE handout a while back. Well, the CNE had many more wholesome historical items on display in a special show, right next to the "Quilt of Belonging", which has a square representing every nation on the planet (as of 2003, when the quilt was finished). *Most remarkably, the quilt also has squares representing the First Nations of Canada (called Native Americans in the USA.) The work is superb and the quilt is a very pretty sight.
I took in a Gypsy Horse show performance at the Ricoh Stadium that featured trick riding by a young pair of pigtailed, blonde sisters in addition to some excellent acrobatic work by their elders.
There was also a Farm complete with live pigs, cows, ostriches, horses and chickens; the wonderfully named "Horse Palace", an artist' display, a surprisingly neat midway (Canada seems to have very little litter, which is a good thing) and guest performers including, of all people, Mickey Rooney.
I didn't stay long enough to catch his show but admire his spirit.
My one criticism of the event was that the "Sitting Pretty" exhibit on the history of the toilet was a bit too subdued. If you are going to do a history of the toilet, hyperbole should be the order of the day, not modest, half-hidden little cubicles. Something like the Mr. Rooter Marching Toilets...or the infamous marching toilets complete with the Toilet Bowl Queen from Pasadena's 1998 DOO DAH PARADE, which I had the honor of participating in. But I was marching that year with the Howl-a Lujah Chorus of bassett hounds, walking two of Ron Clements' pets on red ribbons--I was certainly not elected Toilet Bowl Queen!
I will post pictures of the carousel, etc. when I have them back. Meanwhile, another trip is planned for tomorrow...more anon!

FJORG at Siggraph

SIGGRAPH, the biggest computer graphics and animation show in the world, has just concluded its second FJORG competition in which sixteen teams consisting of three animators each has completed a short animated film to a pre-set story (with pre modeled and rendered characters and supplied dialogue) in just 32 hours.

The contest ended on the 12th and judging is today.

The FJORGERS must create the story, plan the scenes, animate them, and render the finished film with final track while dealing with 'distractions' such as fire eaters, belly dancers and visiting animators (thanks to Tom Sito for the heads-up about the contest ending!)

Two of the teams are comprised of RIT students, all of whom were in at least one of my animation and drawing courses; it'll be fun to see what they do and how they do.

Here are the RIT teams:

Team Rocketpants: Neil Bonsteel, Brianne Francisco, Riannon Delanoy

The Re-Animators: Wes Storhoff, Ignacio Barrios, Brian Monroe

Their topic this year was THE SADDEST STORY EVER TOLD.

Last year's competition was won by this outstanding film from Ohio. (The team was from Bowling Green University.) It's economically told, uses the provided characters and simple elements (no time wasted on modeling new materials) covers the subject matter ("An Impossible Escape") and is very well directed. And it's also very funny.

Watch this space for the names of the winning animators, either today or tomorrow!

Update: You can view each of the films by clicking on the "Animation" link underneath the team name on the left side of this page. http://old.siggraph.org/s2008/attendees/fjorg/

LYNN JOHNSTON SPEAKS

The fourth Doug Wright Awards ceremony was held at the Toronto Reference library on Friday, August 8. The winners are listed in the link; I particularly liked THE MAGICAL ADVENTURES OF LONG TACK SAM, the first 'graphic novel' adapted from a motion picture made by the same artist!
The Doug Wright award is named for Doug Wright, whose strip NIPPER (also known as Doug Wright's Family) ran for over three decades in Canadian papers. It had one strong advantage over most comics of the day--it was entirely without dialogue, an advantage in a bilingual country. And it was beautifully drawn.
There was also a special award called THE GIANTS OF THE NORTH. Lynn Johnston was the seventh inductee to this special panorama.
The logo for the award (and the awards themselves) were beautifully designed by Seth, who is also the book designer for the COMPLETE PEANUTS books published by Fantagraphics Books and a famous cartoonist in his own right. Seth looked rather like he could play Hildy Johnson in THE FRONT PAGE without any costume change; he dresses rather like a newsman of the Thirties complete with snappy fedora and tailored suit.
Lynn Johnston took the stage and looked at the GIANTS OF THE NORTH logo, which features three bearded men flanked by two Castor Canadiensis.
"I wonder which one of these characters is female?" Lynn enquired. There was a general intake of breath.
("The beavers, of course!" I whispered to the man in the next seat, who did not react. Canadians are generally very polite. I'm not acclimatized yet.)

Lynn then proceeded to give an amazing lecture on comics, comic artists, and the future of FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE. The last comic of this famous strip will run on August 31, but that is not the end of the story. Here's a brief summation paraphrasing what she said. Lynn has graciously given me permission to print some exciting news. Any errors in the report are mine.

The Hardest Story

"Story comes from within you. I had a personal connection to most storylines...they were based on people I knew...The hardest story I ever wrote--the best story I ever wrote--was when Lawrence (Michael Patterson's high school friend--n.b) 'came out'.
...I remember the anguish of a small-town editor in the Southern states. He was harrassed. He had to drop the strip...he liked it, but he wrote me 'My kids were harrassed at school, the dog was spraypainted...I have to drop the strip.'"

(The 1992 landmark series where a teenager tells his best friend that he is gay resulted in many American papers dropping FBOFW, but "for every one that dropped it, two more signed on!" There was laughter and applause as Lynn stated this. Here's some of the criticism she received.)

Lynn: "There is a 'code of ethics' for comics. My strip was seen as 'family friendly' but the syndicate approved the story line. Nowadays, they would probably be less upset..."

"...Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury) got away with it...I was nailed to the wall! There were 7000 letters. We made three piles: "Yes" (approve), "No" (rational) and "No" (inflexible). Very few of the 'noes' were rational--most were inflexible..."

"...April (the younger daughter) has been accepted at Guelph University!" (laughter from audience and applause) "You'll have to read about this on the last day."

(The story wraps up on August 31--n.b.)

"...The drawings were becoming stiff. I couldn't move. And I couldn't make jokes about little kids any more. Michael has children...but I have no grandchildren...and I couldn't really see it any more. It's better to end it when it's time. It all comes full circle."

For Better or For Worse: The Sequel

(The Universal Press Syndicate suggested that the strips be rerun, starting from the beginning.)

Lynn: "New material drawn in the old style will be added when the strips repeat. I want to go back and fix things! I draw so differently now...but you do the best that you can possibly do."

"...The comic strip page is called 'real estate'. Other syndicates are going after my papers! (There is only a certain amount of space on the comics page, and every new strip displaces an older one. --n.b.)
"The clouds are gathering! If it is going to run again, it's going to be the best I can make it."

Killing Farley

"...He's coming back. He'll be coming into the strip again, soon....All comics are written eight weeks before publication. Farley died on the same day that Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murragh building in Oklahoma City. You can't judge what the reaction would be...(Lynn told me that she received more negative mail when Farley died than when the grandmother died; she knows now that this was a reaction to the current events, not a mistake in priorities.--n.b.)

"...Farley is appearing in a new children's book, FARLEY FOLLOWS HIS NOSE. There will be a stuffed Farley toy. And a group of Ontario veterniarians licensed him for the FARLEY FOUNDATION, which pays the bills for sick pets when the owners cannot afford to."

"...The Twin Towers came down at the same time as Michael and Deanna's wedding. Deanna's dress designer said, 'You can't have them get married!' But the strips are already in the works, they can't be changed. The response was: "We're glad you didn't stop the wedding...we needed to see something funny."

"...The characters grew as my own children grew. The setup naturally mirrored that. My usual response to a gag is "And then what happened?" It's easier (to amplify the situation) than write a gag-a-day. That will drive you crazy. I developed the characters, but they were fantasy. Real life is BORING! There are times when you think you are brilliant, but how often does that happen? Everything (in the strip) was scripted. The characters developed as individuals; they weren't my own family."

On legacy strips:

Lynn worked with a staff of two other artists; she penciled and inked the main characters herself, one staff artist inked the backgrounds and the other did the color work. This will not be the case when the strip is reissued.

Lynn: "I can do it all myself now. The early style is much simpler....I tried to make it a legacy strip, I contacted an animator and spoke with him about his taking it over. You need to be an animator, have an animator's sense of perspective and body movement...we decided it would not work. 'It's your dream, he said..."

On newspapers and Web cartoons:

"...The newspapers are in trouble. It's not like it used to be. There was more space. There's now talk about the Web. Anyone who wants to test their mettle can put their mistakes on the Web and get feedback...(comic strips) are a little play. Anyone who doesn't work for an audience isn't going to make it. (The Web) is great for comic strip artists and animators."

On the difficulty of drawing cartoons:

"Someone young might not have the determination to do this for 25 years. They drop out."

(Audience member: "Why? Don't they drink as much?")

Lynn: "Six weeks dailies, 8 weeks Sundays. Six weeks dailies, 8 weeks Sundays. Jim Davis (Garfield) wants to put this on a shirt! (You must have strips ready this far ahead of publication--n.b.)
"...A lot of young people will shine for two or three years and then they just can't take it. It's a different era. I'm thrilled they can't make it!" (laughter from audience) I'm extremely competitive."

"...(Cartoonists are) the most generous, kind, warmhearted group of people. There aren't that many of us. We are very supportive, very strong. But it's a hard, competitive job."

On Fame and Cartooning

"...I'd like to take what I've done and do something good with it. The stupid thing about being famous is it's just crap. It's the sugarcoating on the M&M--and the good stuff is inside. It's really not good for you, not good for your family..."

"...I would like to do something for the betterment of society, rather than retire or disappear. Take whatever I've got and push forward....I don't know what I'm going to be doing, but I'm on my way!"

The Giants of the North--and the Giantess

And why not a few more photos?

Erchless (pronounced IRK-less) was the home of Oakville's founder, Mr. Chisolm. The mansion is now a museum. The gardes on Centre Island reminded me of Charlottenberg in Berlin. The Toronto Islands are really lovely, at least in the summer. In winter, they get the gales from the lake. There is also nowhere to buy food on the entire island, but the ferryboats go directly to the quay, and there is a small airport. The cottages are owned by artists who fought the city for years for the right to stay in their homes; a compromise was reached where they stay, and we get to meander all over the islands. The shot of the dog in the bike surrey was taken in front of the island's club. Most of the houses are delightful and very well kept up.

Some pictures of The Toronto Islands.

As promised, some pictures of where I live.

Kerr Street, Oakville, was formerly a bit of a dive. There are still a few low rent shops there, but it's safer now than it used to be. There is a jazz club directly behind me and a great little gelato store directly across from the French furniture store in the photo.

The Queen Mary apartments are a little better looking than most 1960s buildings, but the grounds are definitely the most photogenic part of the building. And Gizmo is the most photogenic member of my household. She's standing in front of the stereo, which is on a metal shelf concealed behind the old screen. This was originally a temporary measure; I am going to keep it there permanently since it looks more inviting and has better acoustics than a wooden cabinet.

A Preston Blair Moment

Hello again everyone; it's been a while since I've posted, and since a lot has been going on I really have no excuse not to write.
I have pictures too; and will post a few, I promise.
Thing is, I've been working very hard on a special project for Sheridan and have spent additional time getting my course outlines ready. This was a tall order since it involved working within a planned program; my storyboard classes have to provide a foundation for layout and character design and animation, just as they do in actual productions. Assignments had to synchronize with the ones in the other classes, and this was a bit of a tall order since I'm not familiar with how and when they are given out. Mark Mayerson gave me a rough outline which helped greatly. So it took a bit of rewriting and conferring with colleagues before my course outlines were in a shape that looked reasonable. Naturally they will be subject to change as soon as actual students test drive the assignments; but I'm reasonably certain that the workload is reasonable for them as well as me.
So....I've been doing some more exploration of Toronto, but not too often. The weather has been crazy, with very heavy thunderstorms alternating with bits of sunshine, which kind of discourages me from walking in the forest.
Now yesterday was balmy, lovely and so on; the perfect day for a bicycle ride. Naturally that was also the day that the forty year old plumbing in this apartment jammed so amazingly well that it was necessary to get someone with a fifty foot 'snake' to dislodge the accumulated detritus so that I and my neighbour could use our sinks. It took all day to get a plumber out here, which is good actually, since it's a holiday weekend and no one at all will be available during that time.
As if that wasn't exciting enough, Focal Press's new animation book editors informed me last week that my book PREPARE TO BOARD! was to have a second American edition. Unfortunately they informed me too late for me to have time to get permission from Disney to use four pieces of copyrighted artwork that appear in the first edition. Disney have never denied me permission when asked, but it is an absolute necessity for me to notify them by mail and receive permission for the use of the artwork in any new editions well in advance of publication; *update: Focal have informed me that they will hold the printing until the end of the month so that I can get the letter from Disney. It usually takes about 30 days. So there's a chance that the second edition will contain the four copyrighted illustrations. I don't mind replacing my own work so much--I have adequate substitutions; but I was very sad to note that Ken O'Connor's illustrations for FANTASIA that appeared in the first edition cannot appear in the second one. I have no non-Disney artwork by Ken, and so his interview will have only the portrait with the "Gluteus Maximus" statue illustrating it.
I repeat that this is not Disney's fault. They allowed me to use their illustrations in the upcoming Chinese edition of the book, since I had adequate lead time to get written permission from them. They do not do business over the phone or on email; my request must be in writing. Therefore I need about a month's lead time to get the legal matters settled. There are other changes to the book that are actually for the better. Nina Paley allowed me to get much higher-resolution images off her SITA website, so the color illustrations from this film are much better in the second edition. It makes a difference and keeps a generous art donor happy. I also replaced a very pixelated image from Bill Robinson's senior film with a much better render of his character that was in his project files all this time. And I replaced a typo in the back of the book where Dave Block was credited for a book instead of his brother Bruce. I even asked if they could put in a recommendation for Francis Glebas' upcoming book for them, DIRECTING THE STORY. I helped Francis get this book published and worked as a sort of unofficial copy editor, so I can assure you all that it's worth getting and doesn't duplicate materials in PTB.
You animation geeks out there might be aware that this gives PTB a sort of Preston Blair moment. Blair wrote the first good book on animation technique in 1942. He used a lot of copyrighted characters from MGM, Disney, and Warner short cartoons. The studios made him change the artwork, and while some (like the dancer RED HOT RIDING HOOD) survive in subsequent editions with a new hairdo, and the Owl from BAMBI is intact, more famous icons such as Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, and his own Wolf had to be redesigned and redrawn. The first edition of Blair's book (originally called ADVANCED ANIMATION) is fabulously rare and can be viewed here. Click on the links to see Part Two.
What I don't understand is this: Blair not only removed the famous characters, he also redrew the ones that were one-shot character types that appear in any number of studios' cartoons. Perhaps MGM was hoping that Meathead the Dog would become a star and Warners had plans for Beaky Buzzard, who knows.
I have no idea if PREPARE TO BOARD!'s first edition will become as rare as the Blair. It's unlikely, since the press run of the second edition is half the size of the first. If anything, the second edition will become the rarer of the two.
So the reprint of the book is a bittersweet moment for me. I was really delighted to be able to give Ken O'Connor his much-overdue 'due' as a storyboard artist. Perhaps PTB will have another edition and I'll be able to put them back. Time will tell. Meanwhile, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, I'd like to thank all the people who made this day necessary.