I came across an article on John K's blog where he talks about executive's beliefs in the animation biz. One comment hit home...
"Execs think that characters by themselves have inherent value. "This character is worth millions". They never get that the artist who is able to create great characters is the thing of value.
Bugs is a great character, right? Then why hasn't anyone been able to do a good cartoon with him in 50 years?
Because they don't have Clampett, Avery or Jones to direct him. These guys created scores of great characters.
This obvious fact of history that repeats itself over and over again is completely over the heads of executives."
-John K
4 comments:
Soo true man. I think any artist would agree.
John K is either hit or miss with me. He sounds like a complete bitter inSANE sociopath. OR... a complete brilliant genious who should be incharge of all tv animation.
Regardless of how I feel at any given moment he's a TRUE fan of animation/cartoons.
Since I am mostly a fan of animation and not an animator by trade, John K. does make valid points about the people who know the characters the best are the ones who created, drew, and scripted the characters originally. They know the nuances and the behavior on how the characters will react and what dialogue they will say in a situation.
Suppose if the creator of a very popular character is no longer able to continue working or dies unexpectedly...should that character be dead and buried along with its original creator?
Should those characters be allowed to survive in new stories done by other hands supposedly knowledgable enough to be chosen to continue the legacy and maintain the brand recognition and accompanying profits from the characters' licensing agreements for the studio owners to capitalize on?
John K speaks well from a creative standpoint...although I wonder about his knowledge about promotional and business sense standpoint when it comes to marketing the characters and abiding by contracts for television programming to make his work known.
I loved "Ren and Stimpy" at the beginning until Nickelodeon started showing the same 6 half hour episodes over and over and over again because John K was a little late in making the rest of the episodes in his Nick contract. Hanna-Barbera and Filmation might be visually lacking in animation and story techniques (done with stiff network/educational watchdog censor guidelines) but they delivered their complete quota of programs within budget and on time and had the business negotiation skills to make the network suits happy enough to become return customers of their products.
bullee dat!!!
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