Since I'm on break from Fish Hooks, I'm using my sooper powers to find awesome things to do.
And what could be awesomer than grabbing lunch with a couple KND pals?
Going counterclockwise after the dork in the bottom left hand corner:
Ben Diskin (Numbuh One and Two) Tom Kenny (Knightbrace, The Common Cold and yeah... Spongebob), Robert "Bobby Vegas" Serda (CN's world famous recording engineer), Dee Bradley Baker (Numbuh Four, The Toiletnator) Cree Summer (Numbuh Five) holding her kawaii new baby, Brave!
Not pictured because she took the picture: Collette "Sunderwoman" Sunderman (KND voice director)
Yeah... it's not everyone. No Lauren Tom (Numbuh Three) No Jennifer Hale (Numbuh 86) Mo Maurice LaMarche (Father) No Dave Wittenberg (Numbuh 74.239) No Candi Milo (Numbuh Two's Gramma) No Grey Delisle (Gramma Stuffum)
But we'll try to get EVERYONE together some other time.
That's the sound of the first season of Disney's Fish Hooks being DONE!
Finished! Over! Finito! and Cooked to perfection! (or as perfect as we could get it in the time allowed)
Yup... 22 half hours of Bea, Milo and Oscar rockin' your TV set. And I gotta tell you, it's been a blast getting to swim in their fish tank. Know why?
Because of these guys:
No... they're not the long lost Jonas Brothers.
It's Noah Z. Jones, who created Fish Hooks and Executive Producer Maxwell Atoms, who put together an amazingly talented, hysterically funny crew with ninja-like fighting skills and sooper model good looks.
He also brought me on... but everyone makes mistakes.
Still... Congrats, Fish Hooks crew! Way to kick some fish butt and take ratings!
So what's next? Well, I get a two week break before slamming right into season two post production.
Which is weird.
I've NEVER, in my entire 20+ year career, had a real break. I've always finished one job on a Friday... and started a new one on Monday. Or the job ended and then I spent the next couple weeks (or months) scrambling to find new work. Not very relaxing.
But two weeks with the reassurance that season two is waiting for me is nice. Real nice.
I don't usually play Minecraft. But when I do... I build a KND Treehouse.
Actually, I don't play Minecraft at all. But there's a KND fan who posts on Facepunch.com that does. And I think this operative's got some pretty awesome taste in architecture.
Back before we had all these fancy Cintiqs, tablets and stylus thingies we used to draw with good old-fashioned pencils!
Yup... PENCILS. They were these longish pieces of wood with an even thinner piece of lead inside. You sharpened one end to a point and then scratched it all over a piece of paper (which is another discussion entirely) until you had yourself an honest to goodness real live drawing in your hands.
And the king of these pencil thing-ama-waffles was the Eberhardt Faber BLACKWING!
Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed, baby.
I loved these puppies.
They were like spreading black butter across the paper. So smooth. And with just enough jagged texture to make your line interesting.
Yeah, they were a bit smeary. And nigh impossible to erase. Especially with that useless eraser it came with.
But that LINE!
I used Blackwings to clean up ALL my drawings back in the day.
And then they were gone.
Just... GONE!
They disappeared from my local art store. Then they disappeared from EVERY art store. Rumors spread that Blackwing pencils had been discontinued. I figured it was just a horrible, mean-spirited lie until I actually called the company and asked if it was true.
It was.
Ugh. Over the years I found some stray Blackwings here and there. Mostly just stubs, but I did save one unsharpened Blackwing for posterity.
But recently I've heard rumblings... Faint voices in the ether whispering about a resurrection. Could it be?
I've got two boxes on the way, but to be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to DO with them. Blackwings are a bit too soft and smeary for sketchbook doodling. And most of my artwork is done on a Cintiq nowadays. And who knows... they might not even feel the same as my old friends.
Question: Did I watch the old Warner Brothers Cartoons when I was a kid?
Answer: Does Mo Willems sell children's books?!
Wait... I just answered a question with a question. So let's ask a different one:
What was I doing when I WASN'T watching the old Warner Brothers Cartoons?
Answer: I was writing MORE Warner Brothers Cartoons!
Yup. Armed with a typewriter (there weren't none of yer fancy pants computer machines back then!) I wrote up the funniest stories I could think up for my favorite TV characters! And one of my favoritest was Duck Twacy.
Never mind that I had no idea who this spoof was even based on. I just thought this cartoon was hysterical! So I typed up new, even BETTERER stories! Her's one for your reading pleasure:
Awesome, right?!
What?
Whaddaya mean "NO"?
Oh c'mon... I was ELEVEN!
How about this one:
Still no?
Really?
Well, regardless of your (lousy) taste level, here are some scholarly notes on these masterpieces:
• When my Mother read these stories she decided to give me a quick lesson regarding such youthful topics as copyright infringement and plagiarism. But I quickly remedied the situation by grabbing a pencil and hastily changing all the names to Duck Twacer instead of Duck Twacy. There. Problem solved.
• In the original short there's a sequence where Duck Twacy is surrounded by villains and he rapidly calls out their names. Pickle Puss! 88 Teeth! Eraser Head ("I'm gonna rub ya out!"), Neon Noodle! etc etc. I had fun making up stories for some of these guys. For instance:
• Using a typewriter was HARD. There was no DELETE button so you had to make sure you were pressing the right key EVERY TIME. I threw out a lot of pages after making too many typos.
• Similarly, please note the fancy way I typed Duck Twacy at the end of the first story. That was high tech stuff back then.
Unfortunately, my writing hasn't really evolved that much over the years. But thanks for saving this kinda stuff, Mom!
I've seen a ton of them over the years. And you know what? Most of them are lame.
Plain. Bland. Mediocre. Unappealing. Flat. Flavorless. And Booooooooooooring.
I mean, seriously. You're right out of school. You're an artist. You're creative. And you come in with this?
P to the U.
Although, your portfolio is a buh-million times more important than your resume. No one in animation really cares what school you went to or what kind of degree you have. Or if you worked at Kinko's for a summer. Or if you were in the debate club. They wanna see if you can really DRAW. If you have ideas. If you make cool stuff.
But still... You gotta come correct with a cool resume that stands out from all the others. You're right out of school. You're an artist. You're creative.
So show it.
There are some pretty fun examples over HERE. So what's yours gonna look like?
Me? I still keep mine relatively updated. You never know when I might get drummed out of the animation business for good. Check it.
ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY The Nightmare Before Christmas. After watching it for the first time I immediately ran to the next theater and watched it again. And then I spent the next month being bummed out that I'd never come up with something as awesome as that movie.
Yeeeeah... not all of Mr. Burton's movies are rock solid. But between Nightmare, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and many other flights of awesome... I say the man kicks pretty darn hard.
So how about that exhibit?
Mr. Burton has kept an amazing record of his artistic life, from his youngest days to his latest movies, and has kindly hand-picked a HUGE selection to share with his fans.
Sketches, paintings, comics, puppets, costumes, manuscripts, photos, sculptures... you name it. It's here.
Some highlights? Sure.
• Everything by costume designer Colleen Atwood, especially the Headless Horseman's cape from Sleepy Hollow.
• The puppets and character designs from Corpse Bride.
• The entire Nightmare Before Christmas room. The Hanging Tree puppet was one of my favorites.
• The carousel and wall paintings in the blacklight annex.
• And these guys:
It's a sooper fun and inspiring exhibit and you'd be crazy to miss it. Personally, I would have killed to go to the opening night party and maybe possibly meet Mr. Burton in person.
Although I kinda did once... When I stood in line at Barnes and Noble to get him to sign my copy of this:
And he DID! See?
But believe it or not, that's not my most prized bit of Tim Burton ephemera. This is:
Si. si, senors and senoritas.
That IS a Jack Skellington head cast from the original mold! The very first time I went to the Ottawa International Animation festival I met a stop motion animator who had worked at Skellingtom studios and he just so happened to have a couple of these in his pocket. And for reasons I don't quite remember he was kind enough to give me one! (perhaps I bought him a couple root beers?) (or threatened him with my king-fu powers?) I keep it in the pocket of a fancy schmancy going-out-on-the-town winter coat that I don't get to wear too often. (especially here in LA) But when I do wear it, and reach into the pocket, I can't help but smile when I find good ol' Jack in there.
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