Nerd Armada

These photos were taken by a friend of mine at a bar during the World Cup final. He spotted this Chowder fan by his awesome necklace. Way to represent! Oh and we got nominated for an Emmy. Congrats to the entire crew for all their incredible work. And congrats to the other nominees - they're all talented, good people and any one of them deserve to win.

More Batman adventures coming soon!

One afternoon I put him out on the balcony while we did some house cleaning. I figured he'd chill out in the sun for a bit...



You can see the result...



It reminded me of the Kool-Aid man. Here's a clip for those of you too young to remember:

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.youtube.com/v/nBeUGqeYsQg&hl=en_US&fs=1]

BATMAN VS THE SCREEN DOOR... BATMAN WINS!!
Damn you dog. Damn you. But I did learn how to re-screen a door. It's pretty easy.

It was a quick match, lasting barely 30 minutes.

When the dust cleared, only one stood victorious.




Batman says, "Get bit!"


BATMAN VS THE TIRE BITER... BATMAN WINS!

(He was pooping out bits of tire for the next few days.)

This is the first in a series of posts based on my dog and what nefarious home goods he's decided to attack. This particular kerfuffle occurred soon after we moved into our house.

I imagine the encounter must have started exactly like this...


BATMAN VS BED... BATMAN WINS!
(Yes, he dragged the mattress off the box springs and proceeded to shred the sheets and mattress cover. Trust me, that mattress ain't light.)

Justice has prevailed!

The final regular episode of Chowder premieres this Monday (April 5) at 9 pm Pacific. I don't know if we ever stayed in the same time slot for more than a month during premieres, so it seems fitting to change again right before the last one. It's been a good run of 49 half-hours and I hope people enjoyed it. It's been one of the best experiences I've ever had. Thanks to everyone who watched. Our finale special, Chowder Grows Up, doesn't have an air date yet, but as soon as I find out, I'll post it.

Life at Disney has been fun so far. We're working hard on FishHooks and I'm sure Disney will do everything in their power to make sure kids know about it when it launches.

As for what's next, I've been busy developing something new for Nickelodeon. It's coming along really, really well and I'm very excited. It was kind of daunting at first to start over with a whole new world, but once I left Marzipan City and embraced it, the ideas didn't stop flowing. For now, I'll give this hint:


Whether it actually becomes anything or not, it's a whole lot of fun to work on right now.

I woke up this morning with a very odd thought immediately pressing in my head: why did the Roadrunner cartoons always make me feel a little weird as a child? I lay there and thought about it for a good fifteen minutes at least. Why this random topic was my first thought of the day, I have no idea. I hadn’t been watching any of them recently. But then again cartoons are always swirling around in my head, so this shouldn’t really have been a surprise.

I was one of those kids who watched all the Looney Toons cartoons so often that even at a very young age, I could easily tell the different directors apart. Chuck Jones was one of my favorites. But something about roadrunner rubbed me differently. And I think I figured it out this morning.

Wile E. Coyote never got what he wanted. Never. And yet we as an audience were manipulated into rooting for him. If you look at any good character, he/she has a core emotional or physical need that we can relate to. And with Wile E., his was hunger. Everyone in the world can relate to being hungry, and I think there are very few people that would fault him for wanting to eat. It’s nature.

(Truthfully, though, it always annoyed me how if he had money/credit to order from ACME he could’ve just order some food. I know he explained how delicious roadrunners are in one of the cartoons, but still.)

Some characters deserve their fate. Elmer Fudd never gets the rabbit. But he’s motivated by ego; he’s a huntsman out for sport, with the unfair advantage of firearms. So of course Bugs spars with him and always comes out on top. But Wile E. isn’t motivated by any selfish flaw. He just wants something to eat. That’s the same reason I always felt bad for Pete Puma. But I was okay with Pete losing since I liked Bugs more. Later when they made Wile E. talk, gave him an overinflated ego and pitted him against Bugs, losing felt right. But I’m focusing on the pure Roadrunner cartoons.

I never rooted for the Roadrunner. He’s not a real, relatable character. He’s an unattainable goal. In the Dec/Jan ’09 issue of Written By, author Michael Tolkin said, “The tragic hero is asking for something they shouldn’t be asking for.” So Chuck Jones wrapped up a tragic hero in a cartoon world. He set him in a lonely, unpopulated desert landscape. The only other sign of life we see is the occasional truck that smashes into him. Not only is the coyote at a clear disadvantage against the incredibly fast roadrunner, but no amount of ingenuity will ever help him. And not only does he never achieve his goal, he doesn’t even get any consolation prize. Even the laws of nature are against him. All he ever receives is pain, just because he’s hungry. At the end of each cartoon all we’re left with is a long, lingering shot of Wile E. falling to his death. As a kid, I internalized this feeling, and it was different from the other Looney Tunes.

I’m not usually one to overanalyze cartoons, but I do take them seriously as an art form. And I do spend a lot of time thinking about how cartoons made me feel when I was young, and how I can recreate some of that feeling in the cartoons I make now. I don’t think a lot of artists rationalize the emotional meaning behind their art during the creative process. They just have to get it all out. It’s generally not until you later look at a body of work as a whole that you get a glimpse of the artist’s worldview. Obviously Chunk Jones’ goal was to entertain and make us laugh. But what in his life was he relating to with these stories? What was the emotional drive behind it all that led to a series of decisions that created a starving, lonely, tragic character that never gets any breaks?

So this is the weird conversation in my head I woke up to. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be lucky and just wake up with a boner like usual.

Sorry that I haven't posted anything in a while. In just two weeks I'll have delivered the very last episode of Chowder and my time at Cartoon Network will be over. It was a good 7+ years that I spent there. And Chowder is doing really well in the ratings, so thanks to all of you who watch. There are still plenty of premieres to go, so keep watching. But starting with the new year, I move on to the house of mouse. Bye bye CN! Like a phoenix, you will rise from the ashes someday!

I've been developing some new show ideas and so far the pitching process has been going very well. It looks like I'll find myself pretty busy over the next year. People have asked me about how the whole pitching process works and I've been thinking of some good pointers. I promise to sit down soon and share them. I'm such a procrastinator...

I came across a comic book called "Sunao Sunao" by an artist called 100% Orange. Printed in black and white and crude in execution, I thought it was a reprint from the 60's or 70's. But when I found a book collecting his commercial artwork, I soon realized this was an amazing contemporary artist. I love drawings like these with rough, loose line-work. It's so kinetic and alive. And his sense of design, his use color and shape, and his sense of humor and whimsy make him someone I'm extremely respectful of.

While in Japan, my favorite part (other than the food) was seeing all the books and toys. We wandered through endless bookstores filled with great comics, illustrations and animation art. The only downside to getting a lot of books is that they're heavy to lug around. I'll post some of the best ones, starting with this:

Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Tove Jansson.


If you're not familiar with her, she's a Finnish author who created the extremely popular Moomintroll series of children's books. Drawn and Quarterly recently put out a collection of her comics.

What I love most about her art is it's both sweet and melancholy. It's imaginative and charming, but not cutesy. And yet there's a feeling of that bleak, overcast, Finnish-ness to all of it.

She approaches this book with such a unique take. Look at how she draws the Mad Hatter looking nothing like the goofy, insane man we always see. He's more like a crazy hermit.












If you want to see all the art, someone has scanned it at this site.

We've been pre-empted by Clone Wars. But next week we're back with an all new episode that reveals Shnitzel's mysterious past as a... Yakuza Samurai bodyguard!



And in case anyone wanted a closer look, here's Marmalade from "A Faire to Remember."

As fires rage nearby here in LA, we're packing for tomorrow's trip to Japan. Once I'm back, perhaps I'll talk about my Tetsujin 28 obsession. Earlier today we dropped the dog off at the kennel. I miss him already. Oh god, I'm one of those people! I know he's going to have fun, but I still feel a little guilty abandoning him. I wish he could understand that we'll be back soon. He's definitely in for a different lifestyle this week.



In the meantime, here's an interview I just did. Thanks to Charles for the thoughtful questions.