Chowderhead Bazoo

How to Write a Cartoon Script

Don't even get me started. This isn't specifically about TV, where budgets are much, much lower, but my favourite part:

"If you're making a cartoon, you can have free range to put your story in where ever you want, because you don't actually have to make the place, rather than, you know, of course you have to draw it. You don't have to make it."

Free range? And - you don't have to make it?

John Kricfalusi summed it up nicely: "She means she doesn't have to make it. The cartoonist slaves do."

And what about, uh, funny?

Great Moments in Advertising: the Angry Whopper

This is just what we need.

It is weird enough that Burger King would go all out with a campaign based on a negative emotion, but with this online "Angry-Gram," they're also making it easier to reach out and hate someone. It's encouraged. Spread the rage around. With a side of fries and a giant barrel of diet cola. Come on - nothing goes together better than anger and food. And payback.

It's an untapped market, really. Just think of all of the negative emotions ripe for the picking; fear, prejudice, apathy, severe depression - you name it. Slap it on a pizza. Melt it on a frankfurter. Breed it and feed it and make it tantalizing. The future looks juicy.

The Cutting Edge of Communication

Should we get more bread?

Oh, just having some lunch.

What?

What? Ha-ha. No, lunch.

Are you talking to me? Who are you talking to?

What? Oh, okay. Sounds good.

You know what? Fuck you.

Okay, yeah, let's do that.

Intolerable Inferno

Dear 24 Hours,

Today it was a sizzling 18 degrees and thankfully your paper has provided some tips on coping with this insane heatwave, a.k.a. "intolerable inferno," but I was hoping to clarify some of the points in your survival guide.

- when you say to drink lots of water, how much is "lots?" One glass? Five glasses? Fifty gallons? I don't want to trust my natural instincts if in fact I am flirting with death here.

- when you recommend wearing loose-fitting clothing, you didn't specify whether long or short sleeves would be preferable. Also, I have a baggy wool sweater, but when I put it on I found myself warmer than ever! If you could get more specific here that would be super.

- as per your suggestion, I opened the windows at night to let in a breeze, but unfortunately, this being Vancouver, it also let in a couple of thieving junkies who stole a roll of masking tape and some coasters and also defecated on my end table. I'm just wondering if an electric fan might be an option here. If so, are they available in stores?

- finally, your suggestions included "trying minty products to cool the skin" - would smearing myself in toothpaste be minty enough?

Thank you for your time,
A Concerned Reader

Sigh

From Vancouver's free McNews pamphlet, 24 Hours - obviously busting their brain cells with this catchy slogan for Canada Day.

Google to Pay Artists with Sweet, Sweet Exposure

In a time when many artists and illustrators are struggling to find work in a shrinking job market, the news that an insanely profitable media monster like Google can't seem to find their chequebook is distressing, to say the least.

After the news got some exposure through artists' blogs and hubs like Drawger, the New York Times picked up the story today (June 15).

Google put out a call to dozens of prominent artists to contribute designs for its new browser search engine, trumpeting it as "an opportunity for artists to display their work in front of millions of people”. In other words, for free—the old "exposure" dodge.

Try paying your rent with exposure some time; I can personally vouch for the fact that it doesn't work. Likewise trying to buy a chunk of cheddar cheese with, "hopefully this will lead to paying work in the future". Yes, maybe in the future I can eat. I mean, we all have to have goals.

Noted Toronto illustrator Gary Taxali has been particularly vocal about the offer, turning Google down flat, adding, “So for you, I give you a special salute that I hope will keep you away because I don’t need your work,” accompanied by a drawing of a sour-faced cartoon hand protruding its middle finger. Hey—they got some free artwork after all!

Most of these artists get plenty of exposure, whether it's through TV animation work, greeting cards, CD covers, or editorial work—and they get paid for it. It's called a "professional career".

Google's defensive response on the matter shows an alarming inability to even grasp what the artists are carping about. “While we don’t typically offer monetary compensation for these projects,” their statement reads, “through the positive feedback that we have heard thus far we believe these projects provide a unique and exciting opportunity for artists to display their work in front of millions of people.”

Uh-huh. That still doesn't explain why you can't skim a few measly shekels off your mountainous pile to pay for a product in the time-tested tradition of commerce and capitalism. Maybe their company HQ toilets are also unique and exciting and plumbers are lining up to work on them for free.

I've grappled with this issue for years. It just never goes away. I was never quite able to understand why this spec work/exposure crap seemed so prevalent until one particularly clueless and cheap "client" summed it up for me by positing, "But don't you draw pictures all day anyway?"

Although I knock on wood daily that I have been fortunate enough to make a living as an artist, this is just one more big stinky example of how artists seem to be born with a "shaft me" sign on their backs.

_________________________

Straight Blog.

Kick 'em While They're Down - Cartoon Wars

This has been kicking around for a bit now, but some scribe by the name of Edwin Decker, pictured here with manly cigar, rough n' ready beardlet, and regular Joe plaid shirt, took it upon himself to write this column as - I guess - some sort of ode to the American ditch-digger. Because apparently, if a cartoonist bemoans the state of the print biz, said cartoonist is a goddamn whining softie who should try digging ditches for a goddamn living. Or picking cotton. What, no blacksmithing? Never mind that, never mind the article's many misperceptions and lazy conclusions - I say, you tell 'em, Eddy baby.

I had no idea my options were so limited and so extreme - cartooning or back-breaking manual labour, but Decker's settin' me straight.

Be sure to check out the comments section as the two-fisted blue collar typing guy shows everyone who's beardlet is boss.

Fuckin' cartoonists.

Copville

Via Robert Rini, poster by Obey artist Shepard Fairey.

I'm sick to fucking death of cops. Every day: cops, cops, cops. Yeah - "everybody hates a cop until they need one - these guys put their life on the line, etc., etc." I'm tired of hearing that too. It's the job. You signed up for it. You chose it. I don't congratulate my mailman every day for getting my mail to me, because I figure that's what he's there to do.

That said, I wish, for starters, someone would start paying these guys some decent money. I've never understood under-paying cops and teachers. And while they're at it maybe sink some extra dough into some extra training and an independent investigating body or two. Right. Won't happen. Instead my mailman will one day taser me.

Vanmag: Trumped Up

In these troubled times, who dares to follow Donald Trump on his Way to Wealth (TM)?

Spraying bromide after bromide, the speaker continues his rapid-fire barrage. He’s like a displeased coach, a pump-it-up high-blood pressure case browbeating the chumps. He’s Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross and there’s no coffee because coffee is for closers.

“Fake it ‘til you make it,” the guy’s bellowing. He repeats it, this time with a coda of cackling. “It’s a game. Write this down. Money is a game. Who wants to make money right now, today? Right now. Today. Right. Now. Today.” Suddenly he’s a malfunctioning Stepford wife. He just keeps saying it. “Right now. Today.”

Right now, today, I’m at a Donald Trump Way to Wealth seminar at the Marriott Pinnacle hotel on Hastings downtown. The bellower is Rick Brown. There’s a fairly small crowd on hand, maybe 150 strong, comprised largely of varying minorities, all here presumably to learn the “secret recipe for success” vaunted on the Trump website. Nobody looks that eager. With the economy melting down like a Mexican facelift and the local real estate market crawling deeper into a pine coffin, I can’t blame them.

One of eight such seminars hitting the Lower Mainland this weekend, the set-up looks pretty low-overhead: screen, podium, clip-on mic, uncomfortable chairs. Only the Pinnacle Ballroom’s brocade wallpaper and sleek light fixtures hint at the world of twinkling riches we’re supposed to be aspiring to.

A recorded video from the founder of the Donald Trump University, a certain Donald Trump, perks the crowd up marginally. Needless to say, he too is bellowing, but I’ve lost the drift of his spiel—something about money. Money and, of course, Donald Trump.

The old, overly winter-bundled Kenyan guy next to me sits with arms folded. “You want money?” he asks me. Realizing he’s not offering a friendly handout, I feign team-player enthusiasm with a quasi-spunky “Yes!”

“Who doesn’t?”

Not everyone is so forthcoming. It’s either the economy or that special Vancouver brand of warmth keeping things chilly, the audience church-quiet save for coughing and the rustle of Gore-tex. A few queries to taciturn attendees as to what they make of current conditions and what they hope to learn here yield pretty much the same response: “To make money.” Gee, thanks. Can I quote you on that?

As a clueless thousandaire with little interest in the intricacies of finance and real estate, I realize I’m out of my depth. Listening to Brown, I’m hopelessly lost in a jungle of acronyms, a swamp of business-speak. I remind myself that I’m just here for the show, and although the show’s free I keep my guard up. The first toke is always free. But the optimism is getting to me. The current housing nightmare is now a “buyer’s market,” Brown exhorts. The eradication of the middle class is simply a great opportunity to pick your favourite side in the wonderful aftermath. What’s it going to be, rich or poor? (Where’s the third option: barbaric warlord of an apocalyptic wasteland?)

“The Industrial Age is over,” Brown shouts. “We are now in the Global Financial Age.” Ignoring the fact that so far this age kind of sucks, he neatly illustrates the school of thought that got us into this mess to begin with: purchase a house, slap up some marble and mirrors, and spray-paint the faucets gold. Dazzled dupes buy the illusion and you’re gone long before the paint starts flaking. The ol’ fakin’ and makin’—and flakin’. More cackling.

“Is he going to talk about Surrey?” a man in front of me asks his friend. What does he think this is, some kind of seminar? Sorry, buddy - it’s a sales pitch and here comes the hard sell. Brown goes into overdrive, demanding that people who are truly, truly serious about wanting to make money stand up and direct themselves promptly to the sign-up table in back. Despite the fact that he was only minutes earlier preaching deception, about a dozen people take the walk, most conspicuously a beaming Gordie McHockey kind of guy who seems to think he’s won a t-bone at a meat draw.

Are there no casinos? Are there no lottery kiosks? Perhaps it’s simply some persisting notion of the North American dream at work here—bigger, faster, louder, more—where platitude-spouting cartoon characters like Dr. Phil and Donald Trump are your teachers, where wealth plus media visibility equals wisdom.

A Trump University “enrollment” sets you back $2,195 for a weekend “wealth-building” seminar where, according to former and would-be Trump U. scholars on Epinions.com, you get another pitch for the software and the mentor program upgrade. I may not know my asset from a hole in the ground, but I can certainly spot the real wealth-building going on here, the real secret recipe, and it’s not even costing them any gold paint.
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Vancouver Magazine

Bring On the Dancing Millionaires

Now that we're all in the bail-out business, can't we at least get a little more bang for our buck in the entertainment department? Today’s big corporation suits and sundry CEO's are proving to be a solid letdown. As far as fat-cat millionaires go, they're about as exciting, eccentric, and colourful as robot accountants, so bland and pasty that they can't even work up a decent projection of evil.

If I'm going to be forcibly scooped up by the ankles and shaken down for my tax-payer loot, I demand that these stiffs spice up the act. Would it kill them to live up to our expectations a little bit and start acting like walking cliches? North Americans like their millionaires crazy and larger than life, plain and simple. So where are the lovably bumbling Dudley Moore Arthur-style drunks, the Thurston Howells, and the yee-hawing Texas millionaires from the "Flintstones" and the "Simpsons?" Howard Hughes, William Randolph Hearst - where'd you go? I say the recent parade of yawn-bait in front of the U.S. senate has been a disgrace to the archetype, unless by some stretch of the imagination they're all hiding Kleenex box shoes under the panel tables. If only.

Locally, we fare no better; it’s one mono-toned, starchy, white guy after another, droning on about real estate, the market, the Olympics – whatever – and constantly being wrong about everything they’re supposed to be experts on.

Rampant greed, incompetence, and thievery - all of the turd that helped clog the collective North American toilet - is much easier to accept when the log-layers are a load of laughs. Sucked into their vortex of doom, we don't even get a standard-issue top hat and monocle-sporting Monopoly guy to cheer us up. How can you stay mad at the Monopoly guy? Seriously, at this point I'd even take a roguish Richard Branson or loud-mouthed Ted Turner. Donald Trump they can keep. But I want them to dance.
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Straight Blog