After a nine month hiatus, my
Live Sketch Show will be
returning online! Whereas in the past I had themes and took suggestions from my
viewers on what to draw, this time I'll be focusing on my current workload--be
it drawing sketch cards for
Rittenhouse Archives, "Necronomicomics"
for
Rue Morgue Magazine, or my newest endeavor, "Bodie Troll", for
Red 5 Comics. You'll get to see me pencil, ink, draw thumbnails, and probably
procrastinate due to artist's block and the occasional brain fart. So on
Wednesday, October 17 at 8:00 pm, just click on the link above to catch all the
sketchy goodness!
As a long overdue
reminder, here's how to contact me during the show via Ustream's chat window.
You need to log in to Ustream to use the window, but registering is easy. It
only takes a username and an email address. Once you've entered that info, you
can chat with me while I draw. I hope to see my old viewers listed in the chat
window, and as many new viewers as possible!
Now that the good news is out of the way, please stand by
for an unrelated and considerably more cantankerous editorial...
________________________________________________________________________________
Sure, I've got my political beliefs, and I know with whom my
vote will be going this November. But everyone and their grandmother has their
panties in a bunch over this coming election, so they can survive without my
dander being raised on that particular subject. No, my furor is being rankled
over something much more personal and dear to my heart than politics. Y'see,
Hollywood is once again dicking around with my childhood. And this time, they've
crossed the line.
Blue Sky Studios, the digital animation house responsible
for the "Ice Age", "Robots" and "Horton Hears A
Who", will be releasing a full length, digitally animated feature film
based on Charles Schulz's immortal comic strip, "Peanuts" in 2015.
CG animation is, by nature, a pristine and glossy format
that removes all elements of human effort and organic craftsmanship from the
finished product. "Peanuts", in both its comic strip and TV special
forms, is the polar opposite of that definition. On the printed page, Schulz showed
every little scratchy detail, blotch of ink, and wobbly line that came out of
his pen and brush tip. Similarly, Bill Melendez, director of almost every animated
"Peanuts" special and film from 1965 to 2006, showed off his own
brilliant pen and brush work, as well as some of the most lush and lively
painted backgrounds ever filmed for a cartoon. Both creators had an organic
root to their work. And for any animation studio to attempt a cold, glassy CG
reimagining of these beloved characters is an assault to both men's artistry,
and the nature of the "Peanuts" characters and their world.
Now, the argument can be made that much of the animation
done for more recent "Peanuts" specials and TV commercials has been
done digitally. These offerings have been produced in the flash animation
format, or whatever the more high-grade equivalent is today. To that, I would
first point out that Schulz and Melendez are no longer around to dictate the
format. Secondly, at least this form of digital animation attempts, on some
level, to create a recognizable facsimile to the Schulz/Melendez style. I have
every reason to believe that Blue Sky isn't trying to achieve that style in the
slightest. Based on the work they're most known for, we can count on their
"Peanuts" movie to be a visually cold, shiny, plasticated, inorganic
attempt at the Charlie Brown gang, in their typical Pixar/Dreamworks
amalgamated style. Schulz himself could pull a Lazarus and rise from the great
beyond to write the script himself, and no amount of "good griefs",
grade school scripture or imagined WWI dogfights could save the film in my
eyes. It's the visuals that will make or break it. And putting the joyfully controlled
chaos of line that is "Peanuts" into the anal retentive hands of computer
programmers posing as cartoonists will absolutely break it in my view.
I doubt many of you stuck around to read my head of steam
put into sentences, but I thank those of you who heard me out. Be sure to watch
my show next Wednesday, where my visuals will speak for themselves, hopefully
more eloquently and more condensed than I managed here.
--Jay
"Bodie Troll" is barreling towards completion,
folks. I just finished the interior artwork for issue #1, which is a big chunk
of the work on this book. Of course, I still need to design the cover, begin
coloring the pages, and complete all the other odds and ends that putting out a
book entails. But this is my kinda busy, my kinda stressed, and it'll produce
something really special when it all comes together. Here is a brief peek at a
panel from issue #1. 
