I guess this is kind of a rant.
Why don't we have more cartoons with heart? Or perhaps I mean soul. What I'm trying to get at is every so often we get one. I would think Ren and Stimpy had heart and soul. You really felt the creator wanted these guys to live. Spongebob's the same. You really feel like you know him, or you want to know him.
Now no offence to the individuals/commitee's who create the rest of the cartoons we see on tv today, but I don't really feel I want to know the characters in the shows.
Heck, if I was walking down the street I might even go out of my way to avoid some of them.
We need more characters with heart and soul and less copying the characters with heart and soul.
My opinion.
Most cartoons are made as a marketing tool to sell toys, so I suspect the animators just go through the motions creating them. Justice League and the various Dini/Timm shows all had serious heart and respected the source material. Spongebob Squarepants, Avatar and Danny Phantom are cartoons that really have a good solid understanding of character development. I must agree however that a lot of newer shows, such as Ben 10 and a host of others on CN lack any heart whatsoever. The terribly made Marvel direct to video Avengers cartoon and the Superman Brainaic DVD are both examples of the worst animation has to offer. Unfortunately many shows lately leave me wondering why I ever bothered tuning in.
ReplyDeletei've been thinking of posting all my artistic influences on my blog - that way people will know whether or not they are allowed to like my stuff.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments guys. Hey Todd, I know your stuff well and I don't think you need to post your artistic influences. Your stuff is great and you're one of the few I know who never does anything half ass. Your H.R Puff'n stuff is a great example of a cartoon created with heart and soul. I would love to work on that and wish you the best with it.
ReplyDeleteAnyone interested should check it out. Link on my main page.
Just off the top of my head:
ReplyDeleteOne ingredient that makes a show interesting to me, are characters that have real mood swings. Extreme rage, extreme joy, extreme dispair... You mentioned "Ren & Stimpy", and "Spongebob Squarepants" -- both highly charged shows, emotionally speaking. The old Warner Bros Cartoons come to mind, too.
Many shows are afraid to portray such emotional extremes - perhaps for fear of scaring the kids?
simple...most executives who greenlight these projects have no heart and soul.
ReplyDeleteand anything great that does come along, they suck the life out of it...
It's not that most executives don't have a heart and soul. The
ReplyDeleteproblem lies in the executives'
ill-begotten belief that their
dealings with creative people
somehow makes them creative by
osmosis.
Imagine the response an artist or writer would get if he or she walked into an executive's office and tried to tell the executive how to deal with business.
Unfortuantely most studios care about profit more then content quality ... or exes. do really understand the creative process and make poor decision.
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to look any further
ReplyDeletethan the FunPak selection committee.Four executives and one
artist/director.
Wouldn't it have made more sense
to have one artist, one writer,
one director and one -maybe even
two- business executives on that
panel?
Some very good cartoons came out
of the FunPak series but I would
say that the creators succeeded
in spite of the process rather than
because of it.
Take a look at two of the cartoons
that were given the greenlight:
1. a bad acid trip atrocity about
big headed circus freaks.
2. a poorly animated tip of the hat to accountants.I know the poor
animation was the joke but it was
a one cartoon premise.One not FIVE.
There is no way in hell that you could convince me that those two
cartoons were among the ten best
cartoon proposals.
Well said..... we should demand bigger budgets for more pre-production.... I completely agree with you.
ReplyDeleteReally nice blog.... you have a great style... I'll be back for some more!
Cheers!