Comments For Page 219

Sorry this post is late. Busy as usual. It's been a long day.

I wanted to create a real sense of danger in the first couple of panels. The second one especially. Time is running out for both Bunny and Toi.

Our new animation instructor from Collideascope gave a long (4 hour) talk about the state of the animation industry today. Money drives everything no one with money knows anything about animation. They just want to make more money and they will do anything they can to screw you to get it. Not the most inspirational of talks, but I hear John Kricfalusi saying some of the same things. There is lots of money around to create great animation for TV, but the wrong people control the purse strings and the money never reaches the people who do all the work.

Speaking of John Kricfalusi, make sure you check out the latest posts about inspiration and style in animation (http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/). Excellent stuff. Back in the 30s and 40s animations were able to get inspiration from many sources, each animator having their own likes and influences. Today people just copy the greats without really understanding the ideas behind the style. People really need to break free of the narrow focus that is on TV today and really explore animation as an art form.

I think I'm a lot like John, always looking for ways to improve and annoyed when I see the same look over and over again. Unlike him, I enjoy many of the animated shows today. Not for the animation so much as for how weird they are compared to my own life. It's interesting to see what people like and don't like. There is some pretty strange stuff out there.

Go back 60 or 70 years, and you can find some equally weird stuff, but it's a lot better animated. You can see the art work that went into every scene. It wasn't always good art, but the animators really had fun with in. Animation today can easily become just another job you have to do. A lot of the soul has been lost. I really want to do what I can to bring that soul back to animation. That's why I constantly work on improving my art work. I hope everyone reading this will try to do the same, whatever field you choose to work in.

Sorry this post is a little long but these are important things to think about.