I've been intending to reply to this thread since it was launched, hopefully this post will be so TL;DR it justifies continued procrastination again for a similar length of time.
(01-28-2023, 03:45 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]And leave off with some Ed, Edd, and Eddie. One of the few western cartoons I really liked as a kid.
Ed, Edd n Eddy was one of my favorite cartoons from that era— I always preferred Cartoon Network to Nickelodeon, because Cartoon Network is rockabilly (and Nickelodeon is horrible ZOG shit, which is why there is such awful nostalgia for it):
Even as a child I appreciated what I would later learn is "mid-century modern" though it didn't take me very long, since I grew up in Burbank.
Plank also remains one of the funniest cartoon characters:
Johnny is an unbelievably accurate depiction of an autistic black child.
(01-28-2023, 01:16 PM)Recent Friend Wrote: [ -> ]The need for certain action oriented western cartoons to ape anime gave me an impression of sadness, even if they were well made. I saw it like a father trying to adopt to his distant son's interests.
Excellent point, and something I would've brought up myself had you not already. Western animation never had a serious interest in "action" because the competition against Hollywood was inescapable and impossible to touch. This isn't to say western animation cannot have action— many good efforts have been made, HBO's Spawn and MTV's Liquid Television come to mind..
..but even those were still more in the vein of general surrealism (or atmospheric noir, Gargoyles was also like this) than distinct "action" (though I prefer this, it's worth noting).
I also have to enter the '90s for examples and the reason for this is because this is when anime entered everyone's minds— McFarlane who was particularly impressed by Akira, Liquid Television's Aeon Flux by Peter Chung (one of Korea's best), as such I cannot bring up The Animatrix because obviously it is both literally anime and westerners imitating it..
Beloved Millennial show Samurai Jack was (the first of, Sym-Bionic Titan was quite nice before it was cancelled) Genndy Tartakovsky's attempt to create something like the action anime that had so recently captured Gen X (especially the Gen X in Burbank, Adult Swim becomes extremely relevant)— to the point of designing the entire show around "robots" because this was the only way Cartoon Network would let them display blood, if it was "not blood" because they were "not human". (The Powerpuff Girls (highly rockabilly) was also McCracken's attempt at creating a "cute action" show like anime, this is why they have such big eyes— it's meant to be somewhere between homage and parody. Strangely, they were able to get away with a surprising amount of blood and gore. Maybe the "feminism" bought them extra leeway)
These types of television constraints are also what limited the ability (and desire to make) any sort of "action" cartoons.
Because things like HBO's Spawn were exceedingly rare and was only considered because Spawn was the #1 selling comic in America at the time. McFarlane had even commented in an interview that he had been approached many times for a Spawn "cartoon" and each time he would ask them "Have you read the comic?" because they were intending to make a "Saturday Morning" Spawn, each time they would never call back. It wasn't until HBO called and told him they did in fact understand what Spawn was, and wanted to do an animation that was accurate, that a Spawn "cartoon" was able to be made.
Before Spawn, the closest would be Bruce Timm's Batman the Animated Series:
Which again, like Spawn, was not pure action, but like Spawn was somewhat of an anomaly— only allowed, again due to popularity, because Batman is a cultural icon which functionally cannot fail.
Back to the main subject— I consider the '00s era of faux-anime "action" cartoons to be the Mexican era and Mexification of American animation, because the only children I knew who were particularly impressed by these things were the poor kids (all of which are Mexican in my mind, regardless of race).
It isn't even to say these things were all uniformly terrible (I watched Avatar when it was originally airing, because it was more genuinely orientalist— as a history tidbit the first time I ever heard the term "shipping" was IIRC one of the showrunners at a con in the '00s addressing some fujoshi's question about character relationships, let's keep this in mind that this did not come out of anime but faux-anime, unless anyone knows an earlier origin point), but that they had no reason to exist. I could watch high octane sex and violence from anime, the value I got out of western animation was primarily humor (discounting some of my examples, all of which are abnormal in the field) and
surrealism...
(01-28-2023, 02:24 PM)Guest Wrote: [ -> ]The earliest of Walt Disney films are some of the most fantastical stories ever put into production. I don't believe that animated films have to have "lessons", or some overarching narrative or theme in order for them to hold merit: I think that being able to encapsulate so effectively the imagination of a child - or, rather, to effectively convey that which is enticing to the imagination of a child - is an exceptional quality, and what a movie like, for example, Alice in Wonderland excels at doing. It's a mystical, dream-like film - weird, uncomfortable-feeling, but vibrationally low in tone; the cartoons of the 90's, on the other hand, were disturbing perversions of this sort of quality, and ultimately failed at maintaining subtlety, and toeing the line. Something like Ren & Stimpy or Courage the Cowardly Dog were a little too on the nose.
Another excellent point. Yes, the American desire to render surrealism is exactly the OTHER thing I did take from American and western animation. One of my favorites:
"An angel..."
The American (primarily) difficulty in creating "kawaii" (something which can come as easily to many Europeans as it does to the Japanese) can be "backwards engineered" in a way to create nightmares, Americans excelled at claymation because it acts as an outlet for much of their disgusting impulses but allowing them a medium where it can be something other than just "ugly". It's certainly not the "people" in this video that I like, but the depiction of Satan in a way which makes extreme use of claymation.
This same point I'm making I would leverage as a defense of Courage, which I liked because of how many different animation techniques it utilized simeltanously:
Though I'll make no argument for a lack of subtlety or general degradation in American animation standards leading up to the '90s. I find it bizarre it's heralded as the "golden age" when that couldn't be further from the truth. The only thing about '90s American cartoons I would hold in high regard is how weird they were allowed to be, but generally this was only used for entirely kikish means (body humor, shitting, cum, slime, etc.)— Courage has this issue as well, but I consider it to be the most arthouse use of that freedom (within the constraints of being "comedic" i.e., having tons of Jewish shitting in it) as it was able to be "the scary show" on Cartoon Network at the time. The notion that cartoons by standard must be immature is completely Jewish, as you mentioned this was not an issue in Disney under Walt.
On this subject I will say that I hated Ren & Stimpy even as a child, because of it's grotesque sexual energy, however I love John K. and his blog (which is his crowning achievement, no I don't mean this as an insult).
(01-28-2023, 08:36 PM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]These shows were made by weird uprooted and imported continental-whites who grew up in a mangled post-cultural America. I don't fault them for not drawing princesses and unicorns. On one hand they were reacting to boring sterility, and on the other their vitality had no substantial cultural forms to flow into, so the results are naturally a bit chaotic and disturbed. This is still far healthier than a completely depersonalised media. That of the 80s saturday morning cartoon. If it weren't for these guys I believe cartoon animation would have just quietly died. Imagine the industry without them. You just get Canadian cartoons forever.
Well put.
(01-30-2023, 11:46 PM)a system is failing Wrote: [ -> ]On a closing note I'll leave with a Fleischer Superman cartoon "The Arctic Giant" which I watched recently. The Fleischer style looks slightly less appealing when doing more realistic figures, but it's quite enioyable nonetheless, and very oddly remniscent of Godzilla, over a decade before it came out. Fleischer proving to be innovative as always.
...
Yet another excellent contribution, I remember seeing some of these rerun on Toonami as a child and I was particularly captivated by the animation and rendering of the machines— big machines doing things, America. I enjoyed seeing this style "come back" in BTAS, though I saw it for the first time in that.
(02-04-2023, 02:18 AM)a system is failing Wrote: [ -> ]Incidentally, I have a lot of posts I want to make in here about this particular early period internet animation (mostly focused on the programs pivot, flash and occasionally eztoon). There is a lot of interesting content there and a lot to discuss about it, and I consider it an important part of animation history, but without laying any of the groundwork for that or going into too much detail I wanted to make a short post about one of the biggest milestones in that era, a series called "Brackenwood".
(02-04-2023, 02:18 AM)a system is failing Wrote: [ -> ]Most notable about this at the time was the mind-blowing animation quality. Flash animators don't mess around, this is all stuff he did by himself using his own skills and although he did have former professional work under his belt, Brackenwood was just a personal project of his. Many people like me, kids and teenagers getting into internet animation saw this guy as a demigod of sorts.
(02-04-2023, 02:18 AM)a system is failing Wrote: [ -> ]There is something about the direct nature of this era in animation that is very special. No pretense or funding or ulterior motives, just people making stuff to sort of one up each other and themselves in a non-egotistical manner, the only goal in mind being entertaining people by flexing their skills to their fullest extent. And the results speak for themselves. Without resources the process may be prohibitive but these are much better stories and toons than you could actually get in animated TV of that time, let alone now.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Let's make something clear,
MACROMEDIA Flash Player was bought, cannibalized, and slaughtered by Adobe, Microsoft, and Google (who might as well be one company) deliberately to erase the recent-past and lock down the internet. Let no one speak lies about "security" as the reason they took out Flash, they did it because it was the most integral tool of the internet as the new medium of technology— the internet and games are one medium, Flash was as well. Killing Flash, "GamerGate"... it's all the same shit, it's abduction and dissolution of anything new by the gerontocracy to destroy the youth. They know what they're doing.
Back on topic, to echo everyone else— Brackenwood is indeed beautiful, a wonderful relic of an era of extreme effort. I will post my favorite Flash, from my favorite Flash animator, who unfortunately took his own life:
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/313223
EDIT: I am very annoyed that it seems like the sound on this doesn't always work, which is a huge issue because the use of Frou Frou's Must Be Dreaming is extremely important. So, I have to link to two different things which both have issues:
https://dagobah.net/flash/penndragon.swf
This where the frame is too wide, and this:
OG YouTube upload which I was deliberately trying to avoid posting, because the interactive start and replay menus are part of the aesthetic and Flash experience, and because of how compressed it is— something which made Flash feel so new at the time was because nothing else was lossless, any video you'd be watching was at least this compressed if not dramatically moreso. Being able to see new animations, in clarity not available in any other medium was astounding.
Joshua's death is the direct result of something which Anthony has brought up in this thread and many others:
(02-07-2023, 09:18 PM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]John K's problems are the problems of every excellent person. He's one of the best around, and he's not working. There is still an industry. An industry that holds a lot of attention, and fueled by a lot of money. And it's complete garbage. John K is there. He would work. He would love to. But he's not. Because the space is owned and monopolised by garbage people who would sooner have the thing than have someone else put it to good use.
Even times as confused as ours can't help but gravitate towards and correct into what's good, so western animation got eaten alive by anime. And do you care? Or are you just happy that your team has the ball?
"What happens to high value people with nowhere to go?" In his case, he simply chose to opt-out. I know this because I knew him, but how many more have suffered this fate? How many people of immense talent have chosen to die when put against a wall? Most likely far more than any of us could imagine. Of course choosing your own fate is far from the worst thing someone like this could suffer, but I consider any loss such as this to be the direct result of the system working as intended. The weak occupiers are cowards, so you will hear about attempts but not successes. They do not want to leave, because they have a place. It is exclusively the most valuable among us who are the most punished. Something they of course torment anyone for believing.
(02-08-2023, 12:28 AM)a system is failing Wrote: [ -> ]Still, I don't want this normgroid rhetoric of failure to prevail. These people stood in John's way during his prime moments and screwed things up abd now they want us to focus on all that obstructing they did (his failed endeavors, getting fired etc). As an artist, John changed the face of his field of work forever. There is no greater achievement possible for an artist. The guest post is less thought provoking than provocative, motivated by the resentment of great people and their tendency go their own way, much to the offense of the prudes and squares and faggots of the world.
Well, on the subject of revenge:
I remember vividly watching this either the day it came out or soon after on an iMac G5 at school (it was a kind of private school, obviously). As much as I still love Krinkels (and I recommend Project Nexus 2) I must say he is nowhere near as dark now (he is ardently pro-vax.. and he ceased his alcoholism). As crude and simplistic as Madness' animation style is, Depredation is savage.
I would say, of everything from the '00s, this is what I want back the most. The ability to be "slow and fast" simultaneously, Madness draws its aesthetic strength from noir, horror, brooding creeping filth.. characters that have died dozens of times, built out of stitches and bandaging, but it takes it and runs away screaming, completely hyperactive— corpses and shell casings piling up in mounds as fast as they enter the frame.
Yes, it is this kind of unrelentance that must come back— and it will.
The world made grey again.
(02-08-2023, 07:59 AM)Guest Wrote: [ -> ]Much of this audience is also involved in training for the next generation. They sincerely believe that the 2000's style is an aesthetic triumph. On the animation side, many have odd judgements based on technical "goods". So they will say "The animation is good, even if the designs are bad." And so on. You will see the same type praising some ugly thing for some technical reason. Is it willful? I doubt it. They simply can't tell the difference between good art and bad art, beautiful and ugly. Such is an unfortunate consequence of Art schools accepting and credentialing non-artistic people. The most dangerous credential being the delusion given to the graduate or student.
Rigor in all artistic fields is also drained away by "For fun". It's a fun song, a fun movie, a fun cartoon, a fun game. Etc. Even if there is something to a piece of work which leads to someone using this term...That something is quickly confused as other like creations are made. The judging apparatus fails, as it compares like to like, and one was good and so the other must be good too.
It would not be a problem if this was contained only in the passive audience. But it is entrenched in the critical audience, as well as the productive audience.
Another excellent post. This is an overarching issue in all art and entertainment fields (though the fact it is conflated this way is largely the issue, "entertainment" is the problem)— rogue craftsmen talking down to their betters. Animators by and large are just another form of illustrator, that is, an artistic laborer— not an artist. This is a completely illegal opinion, but luckily because of advancements in AI technology these people now live in hell— even if they are not yet homeless and destitute as most of them should be.
(02-08-2023, 05:39 PM)a system is failing Wrote: [ -> ]As long as great things are preserved and made apprehendable by those that enjoy them, revival and regeneration is possible. That said, everything in your post is definitely completely true: the way I would describe cartoons after the 90s-2000s era is they have cut themselves off from the tradition of cartooning. Stuff like Adventure Time and SU defines cartooning now and it is missing almost all of the classical elements of animation. I not sure what exactpy it draws influence from, stuff like Doraemon and whatever type of 'anime' thwt is are at least part of it for SU but its only a very minor component. I think a lot of this style is determined by changes in animayion technology, generally not for the better. Adevnture Time and SU look like commercials. We're kind of in a dark age similar to the 80s.
To answer this question, Adventure Time's style (which I would say is actually very if not entirely disconnected from Steven Universe, though I will get to this) comes from a combination of things. It's a kind of "shorthand" drawing method for those who cannot draw (webcomics) mixed with specific styles of animation from music videos, as an example:
I blame France and California for this, although I like this video and consider this to be the truer form of what Adventure Time was trying to accomplish.
If we look at the pilot for Adventure Time, compared to the show (which changed it's style fairly dramatically, and moreso over time) I would compare it to Paper Rad:
Comparatively it's much more gentrified as Paper Rad is pure '00s hipster— whereas Adventure Time is somewhat of an effort to make this highly abrasive style more palatable to someone who, basically wouldn't like it in the first place (this made extremely evident by the fact that Problem Solvers was a total failure on air, because it was made only marginally less abrasive than their original '00s work). It was a success, which is bad.
If we look at the pilot for Steven Universe, firstly we can see that it's drawn and animated far better, and in a fairly different style (Rebecca Sugar's real style, which comes from '00s webcomics and yaoi— for anyone who is not aware, Ms. Sugar made Ed Edd n' Eddy yaoi, for her
LiveJournal a place where women like this used to share things like this pre-Tumblr, before being hired at Cartoon Network) but also that
this is much more like Adventure Time— built out of Gen X/Xennial nostalgia for the '80s, tempered into this pastel "hopepunk".. it's not actually faux anime, it's something else that I could best describe as "fanart" but not of anything in particular (which is and always was the intention of "fanart", it became the defacto drawing style of the '10s as a kind of "post-manga" from the '00s as women wormed their way into control, fanart is inherently women's art because they are secondary characters in life). Still, I find this much more attractive than what they ended up going with.
Sugar's old animations are even better:
I think Singles might've been her graduate thesis for animation at SVA (I'm going off of vague memories) and in this we see the highest concentration of SpumCo influence, this is animation trained moreso by John K's blog as that and the orbiters of it were part of the older animation clique.
These are almost as '00s hipster as Paper Rad, but nowhere near as disagreeable (as it wasn't made by a man, though she probably claims to be one now), Johnny Noodleneck looks like it came from Seattle (more similar to Flapjack than Adventure Time). We also see again the John K. blog influence, while those lines may look like Dr. Seuss (and interest in him from that time is relevant too), she adopted this trend as a reader of his blog. Though this specific style (again, like Flapjack) came from a few places, and can be seen in a couple different forms:
Illustrators who orbited Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose were fond of this style, I'm not sure who "invented" it or if it was just part of the zeitgeist at the time— not an animator, but Al Columbia comes to mind as what I think was the best use of this style: