Random Erik

Randomness is in my nature. My brain is a non-stop chatter of ideas, images, conflicting impulses and a general stream of trivia. What sounds like a non sequitur emerging from my mouth is usually the result of someone saying something and my following the thought it evokes down paths, side streets, alleyways and through uncharted wilderness. If you’re talking about dinner and I mention a fascinating fact about Cary Grant, then there is definitely a connection somewhere. Maggie finds it endearing and sometimes stops speaking to me in admiration.

Sometimes it’s hours before she speaks to me again.

Anyway, let me share some random thoughts I’ve had over the past day or two: Read more »

(Wow, things can change fast. I’m leaving this one up, but for now, Vancouver is looking to be unworkable. At least for 2007. Family stuff comes up and you make adjustments. I’ll write more on the subject when I know more.)

Principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Founding Father. Third President. Inventor. The guy responsible for the Louisiana Purchase. The guy responsible for my final decision.

Well, folks, it looks as if I’m going to be spending a year in Vancouver, studying animation at VanArts. Barring logistical problems, next June 15th, I’ll start a year of intense study, frustration, excitement and achievement. I’ve wanted to do the full animation course since I attended VanArts in 2001 for a Summer Intensive. This year, I got accepted to the Vancouver Film School’s Classical Animation program, and flew up to Vancouver to meet with the school and get a feel for the program. While there, I also visited with VanArts. For several reasons, the latter school became my choice.

Vancouver Film School was very nice, but to me it seemed too large. Several groups are in various stages of the program at one time, and the sense of community wasn’t strong. One group had decided to curtain off their individual workstations, not an promising sign. VFS also claims ownership of student work, which would mean any characters I created for my projects wouldn’t be mine. That, I think, would really limit my creativity, as I wouldn’t want to give away any ideas I really liked.

VanArts looked like a stronger community. The school was founded specifically for classical animation, though they’ve branched out into 3D and visual effects. They don’t own your projects. Along with some philosophical differences, I felt happier about choosing them.

So I’ve been questioning any industry people I know about the wisdom of doing a year (many thanks to folks such as Aaron Romo of Squirrelworks, Tom Bancroft and Jessica Abel for taking time to really help me). I’ve been moaning and whining to my illustration group about how hard the decision is. I’ve been driving Maggie nuts, though Maggie is cool with the idea as she likes Vancouver and it has a strong stand-up comedy scene.

Back to Thomas Jeffereson. My illustration critique group, their partners and some related friends came over on Thursday to watch Christmas specials and eat junk and drink wine. We did much more of the eating and drinking. Many of the “partners and related friends” contingent kept saying “I hear you’re moving to Vancouver for a year.” News to me, as I was still very much on the fence. But after a while, as the wine took over, the whole party decided that the decision needed to be finalized. Then and there.

So, we decided on a coin flip, best two out of three. Heads I go, tails I stay. With a suave and confident motion, I drew a nickel from my pocket and flipped it. It went wild and landed on the floor. Hello, Thomas Jefferson: his face stared up at me. The second toss managed to bounce off of my skull before rolling to a halt on the floor. (Maggie chose to declare me the least cool person she knew, though I’ve decided not to call the divorce lawyers about that one). Second toss, and the Jefferson Memorial pointed upwards. A third coin toss, preferably one that wouldn’t dent my forehead, was called for.

Oh, the suspense. I flipped the coin and deftly missed the third catch in a row. When it came to a halt, I put my foot on the nickel. What was it? I knew the decision then: I hoped it was heads. The suspense in the crowd grew to a frenzy of mild curiousity. I lifted my stylish leather Converse One-Star.

Hello Thomas Jefferson.

So, thanks Tom. For one of America’s greatest documents and for overseeing the doubling of United States territory. For being a good President (oh, how we could use him now). And, most importantly, for helping me make an absolutely huge, potentially life-changing decision. What a guy!

By the way, the picture is indeed the actual nickel, which will someday feature prominently in a museum somewhere. Or end up in a parking meter, if I’m not careful. I’ll take donations to help preserve our national heritage.

Christmas time is here. As are the Christmas specials. And after around 50 years of animated television Christmas specials, you can still count great ones on one hand. And those are all almost as old as I am. Which, I’m sorry to say, is on the wrong side of the age tracks.

C’mon, I dare you to argue with me. The truly great cartoon Christmas specials are as follows: A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I can’t think of any others that achieve true greatness.

I can hear your cries for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Undeniably a good special, it has aged badly and also struggles to fill its hour long format. The songs are (mostly) great. The animation is classic stop-motion. But I have trouble with the attitudes. Santa’s obvious dislike of Rudolph’s “deformity” shows him up as an old bigot, one who likely wears a white hood on the other 364 days. When Rudolph’s dad tells Santa that the “glowing nose thing” will likely clear up, Santa reassures him with wise words like “it had better, if he wants to pull my sleigh.” Charming man. This strikes me as a Santa who skips houses with blind, terminally ill or wheelchair-bound children. If they want gifts, they’d better get themselves in line with the norm.

Props to this special, though, for featuring the first openly gay character on television. Hermey the elf steps out of the closet in a big way. I think cowardly censors overdubbed parts, though, because he talks about wanting to be a dentist. But he always pauses before he says it: “I want to be a… dentist”. The overdubbers were replacing a five syllable word with a two syllable one, so they needed that little breath to make it fit. While watching, simply translate “dentist” back to the original “homosexual”. And have a drink everytime it happens to make things more festive.

How about Frosty the Snowman? Sorry, that one mystifies me. It’s truly rubbish, an overly sentimental pile of melted snow crap featuring an unbearably sachharine cast and ugly character design. Some people remember it fondly from childhood, so they keep showing it. Watch it while bathed in the cold hard light of adulthood and you’ll see just how terrible this thing is.

I remembered that one with the Heat Miser as being pretty good, but a rewatching turned up a lackluster show with a couple of bright spots (The Heat Miser and the Snow Miser may take a bow, everyone else go backstage and hang your heads in stop-motion shame).

But the specials get worse. Every year the pile of perennial-wannabe new specials grows. You can always spot the ones with true feeling and imagination behind them, because those are the ones that use Dicken’s A Christmas Carol as their source. Please note that this was sarcasm. Some suit from the top floor decides they need a Christmas special to rake in the advertising dough over yearly showings. But it’s a cartoon, so a budget of $45 and a pizza for the animators results in a perfunctory retelling of the Scrooge tale featuring reasonably lucrative licensed characters.

So we’re in luck, because this is the season in which we may partake in the landslide of badly animated Tiny Tim rip-offs. Just from memory, there have been Christmas Carols featuring Mickey Mouse, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, the All Dogs Go to Heaven mutts, Mr. Magoo, Bugs Bunny and even the animated Ghostbusters. And this year, there’s a second Looney Tunes take on the tale with Daffy Duck in the Scrooge costume. Whoopee.

Re-read (or read for the first time) the book instead. It holds up wonderfully, and the writing is enchanting.

I now officially plead for an embargo on Dickens retellings. And no, you can’t do It’s a Wonderful Life knock-offs instead, that one has been done to death too. As a replacement, I recommend the uplifting Little Match Girl. You can’t change the ending though… if you want to remake the tale using Spongebob, then at the end Squidward has to find the cold dead body in an alley, with spongey fingers gripping the last burnt-out match.

My Mac has a built-in TV tuner and I often have it tuned to Cartoon Network as I work. So I’ll surely see lots of Christmas cartoons this year, though I’m quick with the remote to prevent the truly terrible shows. But on one special night, as yet to be scheduled, I’ll sit down in the loft with cookies and eggnog and put the Charlie Brown and Grinch DVDs on.

And Maggie will laugh at my sniffles as the Grinch gains the strength of ten Grinches (plus two!). You can’t beat tradition.

24 Hour Comics Day was a blast. There were 26 of us gathered around a large table with different setups. Some computers with tablets, some easels, some copier paper and pens, and me with my drawing/lightboard and pencils. Good humor abounded: the room filled with jokes and pop culture references.

My idea was a story called Coyote Dances, a tale that combines the different Coyote myths of pre-Columbian America and a modern, human-shaped Coyote trickster attempting to pick up a girl in a bar.

In retrospect, my first mistake may have been a decision to do it all in pencil and shade using a paper stump (it’s shaped like a pencil, and pointy tipped, but made entirely of paper so that you can smear your pencil into shadows and such). I thought I’d save time over inking. For the record, this isn’t really an accurate assessment of artistic tools. Especially when you don’t bring the really soft-leaded pencils that are better for the technique.

My second mistake, then, was the choice of art style. I should have gone much more cartoony, a style that flows faster for me (not a lot faster, I’m a slow worker). But I felt it didn’t work with the story, and went for a something that, while cartoony, had more realistic elements.

Austin Books was a great host. They fed us, they gave us space, they gave us a 24% discount on graphic novels between Midnight and 7 a.m. Get it, 24 percent, 24 hours…? People came in, looked over our shoulders, asked questions, wondered whether we were in some sort of contest and visited with friends taking the challenge. Maggie dropped by in the early evening to give me an excuse to walk about a bit and bask in her love and support.

The first drop out came about 7 hours in, the victim of a stomach ache. About 12 hours in, a guy finished his 24 pages and packed up. I hated him briefly, but it didn’t stick. Others packed up around 4 a.m., some of them finished and some of them not. About 4 a.m. the “up all night” silliness hit me and I had a laughing fit over a guy’s comment about making his left hand do some work for a change. It sounded kind of dirty. I was bent over and shaking, but fighting not to make noise. That set others off.

But the time was going by much more quickly than I had expected. Things didn’t slow until sunrise, when the dawn light came in and reminded me that I’d been up all night and had four hours to go. I raced to the finish line, pencilling, rubbing hard with my paper stump, and inking panel borders. And trying to work out some poses, see my above note and “should have gone more cartoony.”

In the end, I finished 10 pages. But I also did the 24 hours. A success by one variation of the rules. I have a story I like and will redo properly soon (at my much slower pace). I finished 10 pages in 24 hours. That’s 9 pages more than I’ve ever finished in a single day. Usually, a page takes me two days, so that’s even better. I’m definitely doing this again next year. I’ll complete more pages next year. And I’ll probably get goofy again next year.

Here are three pages from the comic, to give a taste. I warn in advance that Page 3 has some mild, non-sexual nudity. And there is terrible hand-lettering throughout. This is why God created TrueType fonts.

Coyote Dances: Page 1
Coyote Dances: Page 3
Coyote Dances: Page 4

I won’t be getting much sleep this weekend.

Since leaving AOL (with few regrets) and London (with a fair few of them) in 1999, I’ve spent a good deal of time pursuing comics and animation. In that time, I’ve taken the occasional class, worked from how-to books, doodled, scribbled, and created some illustrations of which I’m proud. But somehow, I’ve failed to create many comics or animations.

The past year has been different. While my output level still has me frustrated, I actually have created a dozen or so pages of comics and some animation tests for a larger project. Small steps. I work relatively slowly, both because I’m not one of those people who can whip out a good drawing in a minute. My drawing process is scribbling to find the right line, correcting, cleaning up, retrieving the pencil I’ve thrown across the room, going to do something else, come back and maybe finish something I’m okay with. As you might guess, this doesn’t lead to towering stacks of output.

Osamu Tezuka is one of my heroes: he created Astro Boy, Kimba and lots more. In fact, he completed 150,000 pages of manga, just short of 500 24-minute anime episodes, and 200,000 pages of animation scripts. If he hadn’t died at a relatively young 60, I’m sure those numbers would be much larger. If I give up sleeping and social contact, I might produce a workload that doesn’t put a dent in that.

Last summer, though, I took a course entitled Comics Storytelling at the University of California Fresno. Fresno might not sound impressive, but the faculty included Scott McCloud and Jessica Abel. Check out their work, if you don’t recognize the names. Being in a room full of very talented students, I went from the guy who cringed at showing his work to the guy who had created four finished pages of comics in two weeks. Things had changed. And something stuck, since I’m continuing to create new pages.

But I’m still slow. Working hard, I can do a page in a few days. And I don’t do two pages a week. Things pull me away and I finish maybe four pages a month.

So, finally, back to not sleeping this weekend. Tomorrow is the official 24 Hour Comics Day. It originated with a challenge by the aforementioned Scott McCloud. Participants create 24 pages of comics (plus a cover) in 24 hours. Twenty-four consecutive hours. And yours truly is taking part. Those of you with more advanced math degrees may have already compared my average page creation time to an hour a page (plus cover, and incidentally, plus scripting since you’re supposed to come in without a firm story in mind). So this will be interesting.

I’ll either have a breakthrough or a breakdown. Perhaps the 24 Hour Comics Day people are hushing up the names and locations of the heavily medicated people who are now only allowed to draw with crayons.

As Austin is wont to do, our fair city hosted the world’s largest gathering of artists in 2005’s event: around 70 people. We won’t set the record this year. Austin Books, the sponsor, remodeled and can only support 26 people. But I made the list. I’m committed. Or about to be committed, we’ll know by Sunday.

Fortunately, 24 pages is a goal. Just finishing as much as you can in 24 hours is also a noble goal. And a difficult one. According to the Austin Books site, only 30% of last year’s participants finished 24 pages or lasted 24 hours.

And oh, I’m going to make it. My competitive streak is kicking in. You can check out my In Your Face posting for more about my ability to destroy myself in achieving a goal.

So look for my inevitable Aftermath posting next week. Once I’ve woken up. And I hope you’ll forgive me if it’s written in crayon. If it is, I’ll let you know where to send the get-well-soon cards.

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By the way, Austin Books will be open the entire length of the contest. Drop by to see the monkeys drawing. They’re at 5002 North Lamar Boulevard here in Austin.And for those of you new to comics, may I recommend that you pick up some of the following? I’ve avoided the obvious Superman/Spider-Man/X-Men stuff, you know whether or not that stuff is for you.

• For the humor fan: Kyle Baker’s Plastic Man.
• For fans of fantasy with believably real characters on no Tolkien rip-offs: Jeff Smith’s Bone.
• For funny, realistic, heartbreaking and unforgettable characters living in the (mostly) real world: Jaime Hernandez’s Locas.
• For fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magical realism: Gilbert Hernandez’s Palomar.
• For fans of literate horror/fantasy: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.
• For the “I just don’t get Manga” crowd: Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha and Phoenix series.

I’ll add any recommendations you might have. Like I said, skip the mainstream superhero stories unless there’s something compellingly different about them. Give me a title and who you recommend it to.