If you know anything about animation then you know about John Kricfalusi
, a man regarded as an animation guru whose most famous creation is the Ren & Stimpy show. If you know more than an average amount about animation, you know that he is a highly opinionated guy who likes to talk about what's wrong with cartoons today. I don't see anything wrong with that; I'm highly opinionated myself and I agree with him that in general popular cartoons have been seeing a steady decline in quality. Not to say I think every new cartoon is bad, but the standard just seems to be lower.
I follow John's blog which you can find
here. I've read on reputable animation sites like Cartoon Brew that anyone who cares about animation even a little bit reads John's blog, which I guess I would have to agree with since
I read it. His posts basically alternate between drawing/animation lessons and rants about how every last thing about cartoons today is wrong. You get the impression that he thinks a truly decent cartoon hasn't been made since about the 60s or so (except for his own, of course.)
My initial problem with his rants is how much he exaggerates and acts like he is the only person on the planet who can make good cartoons or even knows what a good cartoon is. He almost always has good points, but because of how he presents them I find myself just getting fed up with what he's saying rather than agreeing with him. His examples are full of passive aggressive statements that are totally unnecessary and make it seem like he is very actively trying to put himself up on a pedestal rather than make a valid argument or observation.
He goes so far as to contradict himself quite a bit in his arguments. For example, in one post he went on about how he doesn't understand why TV executives want stories to have a beginning, middle, and end and how unimportant a coherent plot is to a cartoon. His argument was that the cartoonists should be in complete control and just feel their way through the story. Yet when he actually critiques a newer cartoon he always complains about how there was no plot and he couldn't follow what was happening.
So lets say he did a post about how important storyboards are, then a few days later some executive he pitched to didn't like the storyboards he showed them. He would then rant about how unimportant storyboards are and how they mean virtually nothing, just to go as far as he possibly could in badmouthing executives and showing that he knows better than them when it comes to cartoons. And I would agree with that entirely; a cartoonist does know more than an executive about making cartoons, so why not just say that in a normal way? I also agree that executive interference in cartoons is a bad thing because they aren't creative people so they shouldn't be able to tell creative people what to do, but the argument just doesn't have as much clout when the person making it exaggerates to the point of losing credibility.
I mean I guess you could argue that being extra mean will get people to pay attention, but it's not like the people he's complaining about are going to read his blog and say "Oh my god, he's right!" and change everything about their entire business. But then again he is a really influential guy, so maybe they would if he could express himself without being such a jerk.
So why does this bother me? He's just voicing his opinion and it's not like I have to read it, right?
It's because, well, he IS a great cartoonist. I've always looked up to him and he is right about pretty much every point he brings up. I love his work and feel like he has been a great influence on me and my art, but I'm sure if he heard me say that and then looked at my work he'd just talk about how much it makes him want to rip his own eyes out, etc. And that's the point...he goes too far. He's taken it to the point where, to me, at least, his advice and inspiration have actually become discouraging.
So it's very conflicting to me. I still consider him one of my greatest inspirations and I still love his work, but after reading his blog for so long now I just have a bad taste in my mouth. I think he sabotages his own points left and right which is really a shame because he's right about so much stuff. The people who comment on his blog swoon over his every word, but then again they aren't people who are capable of giving him a network show or enough money to make his own cartoons. (Though they are donating to him, which kind of boggles my mind. "All you aspiring artists are dumb and horrible, oh but while you're praising me why not send some money?") I feel like a lot of the people who could potentially hire him feel the same way I do; they probably love and respect his work and opinions, but realize just how unnecessarily hard to work with he'd be.
I need to point out that I've never had any actual interaction with him, and he has never done anything specifically to me to make me want to write this; it's just been floating around my head lately. Writing a complaint like this in comment form on his blog just seems like a bad idea as lots of people do that already, and as I've stated he is very willing to contradict himself to make it seem like he is right no matter what, so there's really not much point. In fact not too long ago his blog went private for a short time and the rumor was that at least part of the reason was so he could get help figuring out how to block the comments of people who regularly point out holes in his arguments. I have no idea if that's true, but it's believable.
His latest post as of this writing is about how cartoons should only be funny and nothing else. He thinks they shouldn't be sad, educational, etc. I actually disagree with that quite a bit, but I think his real point is that he doesn't get why people are trying so hard to make cartoons less funny. I agree that we need more funny cartoons, especially ones like his, but why make that argument so broad as to say that cartoons should do funny and nothing else? What's wrong with having cartoons that are educational and then having other ones that are funny? This is what I mean about how he has good points but goes too far with them and ruins his argument.
And the ultimate question that I ask myself every time I read his blog: just who exactly does he want to make these great cartoons for if we're all too stupid to know what good cartoons are? How can we ever fully appreciate their greatness? We're idiots if we like any cartoons other than the ones he likes, so then why would we ever deserve to see the ones he makes if they're so perfect? Does he just want to make them for himself?
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