THE FOUNTAIN FILTER

Well... there it is... my animation career in one drawing.
I just thought it would be fun to do a 'group shot' of all the major cartoon characters I've worked on in my career and squeeze them through the filter of my own drawing style.
Featured are (from left to right) 'The Tantrum' - floating in the top left... he was the first character of my own creation to star in his own short on 'Oh Yeah! Cartoons!', below him is Yang from 'Yin Yang Yo!', standing taller than any of them is Jenny from 'My Life as a Teenage Robot, scowling hatefully is - of course - Zim from 'Invader Zim' and hovering above him is his robot servant Gir, holding the map is Eliza from 'The Wild Thornberrys' - my first real job in the industry was as a storyboard artist for that show, above her is Cosmo from 'The Fairly Oddparents' and, finally, in the lower right is Cartman from 'South Park' - I worked on the movie 'Bigger, Longer and Uncut'.
Anyway... I have nothing profound to say... I just jammed this out for fun - and it was.

WOMEN: DON'T SLEEP WITH KEVIN FEDERLINE!

Look, I promise I'm not going to make a habit of commenting on celebrity gossip nonsense here... and believe me, I have struggled with whether or not I should post this for over a week... but the fact is, it's IN me and I simply HAVE to say something about it.
Kevin Federline (or "K-Fed" or "Fed-Ex" or "The-Most-Disgraceful-Person-In-America") got dumped recently by his airheaded yet slightly less evil wife Britney Spears... since then, he's been proclaiming (via graffitti on his dressing-room doors) that the ladies of the world should "look out" because he's single again and, apparently, plans to have a lot of sex with a lot of different women (this, of course, implies that he hadn't been doing that throughout his entire fourteen-minute marriage to Spears... but we shant speculate on that).
Thus, I am compelled to make a plea to all women out there: Don't give him the satisfaction.
If EVERYONE agrees to this, it will be the worst possible of punishments to someone who is in DIRE need of a metaphorical kick to the balls.
Now, I know that you're going to be tempted... you'll do it as a lark... something you can brag to your friends about and then have a hearty laugh... goodness knows I can't imagine there is any other reason anyone would sleep with him. But this is one of those times where you simply MUST consider the greater good.
If a man approaches you and he LOOKS like Federline but you're not sure, stick to side of caution and just run away. It's best to avoid relationships with guys who walk around in 'wife-beater' shirts anyway (I'd be willing to bet that if those shirts had somehow been nicknamed 'saggy-testicle-lickers' that Federline wouldn't be caught dead in one... kinda gives you an indication of what sort of fellah we're dealing with here, doesn't it? Perhaps we should go back to calling them 'undershirts' hm? But I digress).
Prostitutes: DO NOT TAKE HIS MONEY! I know it will be rough, but everyone needs to stick together on this.
If Kevin Federline ever gets laid again - EVER... for ANY reason - it will mean that we, as a society, are completely without hope.
Similarly, GUYS: DON'T SLEEP WITH PARIS HILTON for, essentially, all the same reasons.
The only thing that gives Federline the edge in the 'evil' race among their ilk is that Hilton - though certainly the embodiment of feminine evil - has not reproduced (yet!) whereas there will soon be four extremely unfortunate kids in this world who must choke back the bile and call K-Fed 'dad'.
The disgrace must end NOW.

MY MEMORIES OF A TEENAGE ROBOT

I haven't had time to do any new doodles or paintings lately, so I'm just going to wax nostalgiac.
Unfortunately, tragically and disappointingly, not all that many people are familair with the show 'My Life as a Teenage Robot'.
It was created by Rob Renzetti who, apart from just being an overall good guy, has been instrumental in shaping some of the better cartoons from the last decade or more.
'Robot' was, originally, part of the 'Oh Yeah! Cartoons!' anthology series on Nickelodeon.
Anyway, it became a series and I had the honor of working on it in a number of capacities.
Rob let me write, direct, storyboard and - oftentimes - design entire characters. Rob was one of those rare directors who was able to step back, hire folks he trusted and just let them run.
This is not to say, of course, that Rob wasn't always at the helm... but he recognized that animation is, by nature, a collaborative medium and - as such - he valued the contributions of all who worked with him.
As a result, I did some of my best work and had some of the most fun of my career on 'Robot'.
Unlike many cartoon productions wherein you are given a script, we were given rough outlines that just gave us - the board artists - a general idea as to where the story should go.
Consequently, being the renegade that I am, I would oftentimes BLATANTLY ignore the outlines and go in my own direction... but much to my absolute shock, Rob not only didn't MIND this, he actually ENCOURAGED it.
This is not to say we didn't occasionally have our disagreements... but they were always in the spirit of making the cartoon as great as possible.
One of the major challanges was the fact that the main character's head was - for all intents and purposes - perfectly round. And this show wasn't done in FLASH, so we couldn't just rely on computer software to make it easier... and I just hate stencils for some reason, so most of the time I drew it freehand which - to this day - has taught me to draw virtually perfect circles freehand.
But I had fun, and I think it shows in the episodes.
To see what I'm talking about, go to:
http://teenagerobot.tk
The episodes I worked on include:
Season 1
Shell Game (featuring my personal favorite character - Sheldon)
Daydream Believer (please note the semi-truck that almost hits Jenny says 'O-Prime' on the side... that's an homage to Optimus Prime of the Transformers)
Season 2
Last Action Zero (one of my all-time favorites for a whole variety of reasons)
Dancing with my Shell (I love it when Jenny loses her temper)
Robot Riot (one some of the best robot-fighting I've ever gotten to dray - and, hey, I'M THE VOICE OF LIL' DIPPER!)
Bradventure (this has one of my favorite lines of any cartoon EVER in it... can you guess what it is? And, no, I didn't write it)
Season 3
No Harmony with Melody (c'mon - two girl-robots in a midair dogfight... what's not to love?)
Legion of Evil (the 'head cozies' that the bad-guys wear are based on actual garments)

I also got to do the first half of 'Robot For All Seasons' - the Christmas episode - in which Jenny takes the most savage beating of any teenage robot cartoon I've ever seen. It was way fun. I can't find it anywhere on YOUTUBE or anything, so you'll just have to buy the DVD or something.

Anyway, despite the fact that it got 'good' ratings, the fact of the matter is, television is a competitive arena and networks don't want 'good' ratings - they want 'blockbuster' ratings.
The good news is, Rob is doing great things now as is everyone else from the show... but that's another blog.
Speaking of which, the MLAATR blog's address is:
http://teenageroblog.blogspot.com

Thank you for allowing me to indulge my online flashback...

"...THE BEST RANTS EVER..."

I was moderating my blog comments recently (which - for the record - I do very begrudgingly... I only resorted to moderating when the 'YOU SUCK!' comments got crashingly dull... I will generally post anything, no matter how critical, as long as it's ENTERTAINING... but I digress...) when I - to my surprise - recieved an e-mail from Jamie Oliff and Angie Jones (authors of "Thinking Animation: Bridging the Gap between 2-D and CG") informing me that I'm featured on their site:
http://thinkinganimationbook.blogspot.com
Their site has a lot of interesting info and discussion that you won't see on a lot of the usual animation-related web-sites.
How can a fella NOT be flattered?
It almost makes me wish I actually contributed to the discussion of animation with this blog... but, the fact is, Jamie and Angie are clearly better at it than I would be... on top of that, we have Eddie Kline (http://klineburgers.blogspot.com) - so between those two sites, I think that angle is covered nicely.
Thus, this blog shall continue its commitment to being completely unprofessional and sloppy.
If anyone REALLY wants to hear my thoughts and opinions on animation, they can attend the KALAMAZOO ANIMATION FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL (http://kafi.kvcc.edu) from May 17th - 20th 2007 where I will be doing at least two lectures and probably a bunch of other workshops and stuff. Or you could just give me a job... then you'd hear my nonstop rants all day every day.
Anyway, massive thanks to Jamie and Angie for the humungous plug on their site which is now in my regular rotation.