FELDMAN! You make us proud.

Gee...I gotta read this again, but my first impression is that this is just an outdated elitist longing for a world that once was. (Amelie, first of all, is an overrated crock of poo. Sure..the first few scenes are dandy fine, but then it inevitably slips into Hollywood coupling and all.) And this stuff about the entertainment noise. Those who want this ambitious forms of art can get it if they want it. Those who want light should have it. Who are YOU to say that THIS is wrong and THAT is right? That's just b.s. elitism. And how many hockey games do you attend? Hockey, my friend, I could argue is a fuggin spiritual form of art whose artists rival Norman McLaren for their spontaneity, rhythm, grace and innovations. And hey..the french! Werent they the first country to let the Germans in? Arent they close to voting in a racist government? Didnt they salivate over the very overrated Jerry Lewis? Didnt they WELCOME, inevitably, all this supposed U.S. garbage you so loath? To get the codes for most of this ELEVATED STUFF ones needs an education in art history...among other things... without that it's tuff...and how do people get these educations? That requires, unlike Europe, MONEY for a post-secondary education. (along with educated teachers) So...in short...to acquire the tools to be prepped for this non-narrative stuff you so love..one needs experience and how does one get that without an education, money, class etc... (READ Bourdieu). (and of course...the other problem is distribution and exhibition---if I had the freedom to program the Cartoon Network for a year and wanted to just so sophisticated festival shorts...no one would friggin watch...they'd switch over because they are not accustomed to non-narrative or even elliptical narratives or absurd narratives (ie. Priit Parn)... And this nonsense about animation being stagnant is load of HOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY. McLaren and Bute? that's it? So..you're saying that animation ended there? Just in Canada...Richard Reeves, Stephen Arthur, Stephen Woloshen, Rick Raxlen, Jean Theberge, Pierre Hebert...in the U.S. David Ehrlich, Janie Geiser, George Griffin, Joanna Priestly, Joan Gratz,...the list goes on and on and on. And hey...yeah sure...once in a while I lose my cool with U.S. either/or 'world as merchandise' attitudes...but hey...fuggit...there's lots of damn good things out of the U.S. Find me a better writer than William Faulkner? Hubert Selby Jr? Charles Olson? William Carlos Williams? Robert Creeley, William Burroughs,... You attack the U.S. for it's either/or culture and its subsequent detonation of the past but then you apply THOSE very attitudes when you write off the U.S. as nothing but a Disnified Mcculture filled with YEEHAWS and Toothless morons...and that's b.s. Yeah...all that CRAP is there front and centre...but as a film prof reminded me once: "what's important is not what's in the frame, but what's outside of it." Ya just gotta open your eyes and ears and you'll find it. The world is as WE made it. We have the art (I refuse to differentiate between art and entertainment anymore) WE created. You are what you eat.

I made the pilgrimmage to Marceline, Mo. last August - just to see the place for myself. I took many photos - because the town does look like MAIN STREET, USA at Disneyland and at the Magic Kingdom. The soda fountain, the theater - most everything is just like Marceline...eery! It is also very quaint! Marceline also displays many off-model pictures of the characters at the Walt Disney Park and the Walt Disney public swimming - it is all - very surreal! Fun - yet surreal!

This article describes work in an atypical, niche segment of game development. I feel that the description of the nature of the of the work, the development processes and needed skill sets was skewed from the reality of 90% of the gaming industry. To qualify my conclusions, I worked briefly in traditional animation early in my career, but moved into the gaming business 11 years ago. In that time, I've seen and worked in many facets of the interactive entertainment world. Much of the work described by the article is on the periphery of the gaming industry. Interactive DVD "games" and titles such as Blade Runner (which is 3-4 years old and not typical of the current state of the industry) are not at all typical of the kind of work someone making the cross-over would find. The article's assesment of similarities between the two industries is correct in a very loose sense. "Script, dialogue recording, character and background design, animation, color, camera or composite and render, editing and post production, including the addition of music and sound effects" -these things do happen, but are not what developers spend most of their time doing.The reality of most games these days is that they are long on action and short on story. Consequently, anything requiring a script, storyboard, cinematography, rendering and post comprise a relatively small segment of the game development process. The work you focus on lies almost entirely in the realm of in-game cinematic sequences. These generally comprise less than 10% of total production effort. 80% of game development is dedicated to production of in-game assets (mostly real-time models, textures and animation these days). The remaining 10% goes to pre-production design work. Most of what is being produced these days (and most of the work available) is in PC and Console games. Most of these titles in turn are based on real-time 3D animation and most are produced with 3D StudioMAX. A typical game developer will spend their time modeling, texturing and animating real-time assets. Beyond that, there will be some interface design work and of course the aforementioned in-game cinematic sequences -which in turn are more and more being replaced with game-engine generated sequences using in-game assets. All of that said, I would love to see more people make the cross-over from animation to feed our industry with fresh creative ideas, but those people need a realistic portrayal of the nature of the work. The one thing that I love most about working in the game business (as compared to traditional animation) is that I get to wear a lot of different hats on one project. I get to do design work, color styling, 3d modeling and animation, 2D animation, graphic design and lot more than that. It never gets too dull or monotonous. I would encourage anyone from a traditional animation background to take the leap if that appeals to them, but they need to recognize that the production methodology, tools and skills as well as industry "culture" is quite different, and not as smooth a transition as this article seems to imply. Marc Hudgins

Your DragonBall Z cartoon series depicts African American in abhorent image. Mr PoPo is just one example of a character in the DragonBall cartoon.This is what people saw in 1940 to 1960 era racial segregation. The voices and speaking capabilities leaves me to beleive the people whom are directing and producing these shows, do not know how a African American male and female look or talk. These deplorable images should be remove from the series or should not be shown on your network. Your consideration in this matter will be taken kindly

The humorous point that many people have seemed to miss about the joy of things going public domain is the fact that everyone gets to use them. This may sound silly but Disney should be openly supporting this as they have profited by it. Has any one heard of “Snow White”, “Cinderella”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Little Mermaid”? These and MANY more movies are based on stories in the public domain. Imagine what it would be like if the Estate for the Brothers Grimm was still enforcing copyrights… Or maybe even the Estate of Homer…

Jhonen is deeeeeeee-leeeeezcious :)

Johnen has such a beautiful mind. I have tried to think of things for comics but all I came up with was sick comics - how does he do it!? The mixture of twisted humor, randomness, and disturbing ideas while remaining original and having 'true value' (as some of those weird TV censor people who tell you what your kids should watch say); it's amazing. And please don't call me a kiss-ass ('cuz I'm not) for saying so but, the artwork and detail (especially on facial expressions) is extraordinary - I was a little surprised when I was reading the JTHM comics with how Johnny's face matched exactly with the mood of the comic, unlike in a few cartoons when something that the charecters are supposed to think is horrible, and they'll be crying, but smiling at the same time. So really, to put it simply- wow. (So I was a little late on posting, so sue me!)

"...Those who retain their idealism hope for a victory on behalf of the people..." That's communism. "...there is still a profit to made on these films..." By people who wish to rip them off from their owners. "...it is now time for their creation to be turned over to the people..." Why don't you come up with your own cartoon? Mickey Mouse isn't valuable just because of the shape of his ears, but because of the decades of careful marketing and positioning. Take that out of the control of his owners and you destroy him. But I'm sure you'll make a fast buck while you do. How much harder it is to create something.

Mr. Ryan now does questionaires. He should stick to doing voices.

Face it, animation fans; on no other cartoon-related site can you find the masterful juxtaposition of Kant, Bourdieu, Halle Berry, and stiffies. Is this not true? Be he Mr. Pop or Mr. Pure, the Pimp has got game...and style. Read and learn something!

The biggest concern I see with corporations having more control on copyright is their strength to litigate. It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong, if a large company looks upon your work and claims infringement, you'll become bankrupt trying to defend yourself. That threat is one of the biggest obstuctions to self expression.

All intellectual and artistic work should in the end be in the public domain. Just imagine if there is some sort of instutition that hold the rights to Newton's mechanics theory or Shakespeare's work. In order to make artistic endeavour economically feasible, copy right is a measure that lets the artist profit from their work for a limited time frame. After that period has elapsed, the artist or whoever holds the right should produce new work to generate more profit. As in the case of Mickey Mouse, Disney can still use the image even if it is in the public domain. However for current shareholders of Disney to profit by exclusive rights, the company should come up with new innovations instead of relying on the works of people who has died long ago.

It was very nice to hear from some one who dare to challenge the possible barricades of language, culture and living style. I was doing animation in India and now I came to Canada where we have greatest animation collage, I saw students have big influence of Japanese animation. This was a nice inside story about animation comparison and they way people look in to art like animation. Good and all the best for you..

Black and white animation is a special effect, nowadays. It's not inferior, or superior. I guess you could use it if that was your thing, but personally, I think it can be as much of a distraction as any special effect taken seriously on it's own account. If you find yourself mostly defining an animation by the grayscale, rather than a color scheme or the measures of photorealism, then black and white is for you. if you want to pattern something after a film in the past, go for it. It's an easy reference. But is it artistic? That depends. Many filmmakers and Directors of Photography go that way because it presents a challenge. Normally, you can define contrast in color simply by using different hues. In black and white, though, things have to be separated out in the brightness of their tone. That's not easy. The results can be beautiful, granted, but it takes much training to get it right. Besides, As anybody who looks at an old WB or Disney Cartoon can tell you, there are just a greater proportion of color cartoons that the audience has been exposed to. People don't tend to think of black and white as being so artistic in animation as they think of it in film. With film, good black and white is luminous. with animation, unless you are talking a photoreal black and white CG or stop motion piece, black and white looks flatter than color I think black and white in animation is a challenge, and perhaps can be artistic, but I'm not going to put it up on a pedestal.

Of course, if copyright were actually based on authorial integrity instead of corporate hegemony, Ub Iwerks would own a nice chunk of the Mouse. Part of the history of art is a conversation between works -- sometimes involving appropriation, subversion, and recontextualization. Copyright law as it currently stands, unfortunately, restricts the conversation to the suits. So the footage of Fred Astaire dancing up the walls and ceiling of a room, instead of being spliced into some inventive collage film, ends up being digitally altered so that he's scooting a vacuum cleaner around, in a high-ticket commercial. The guardians of Astaire's estate (perhaps his relatives -- I'm not sure) showed far less concern for the artistic integrity of the work, than its cash value. Unfortunately, copyright law favors the cash-hounds over the actual creators, especially since so much work is owned outright by a corporation, and not the hands and minds who do the labor of "creation." (During the whole Napster brouhaha, I saw Ice T on a panel about "the future of music." He made the salient point that those downloading the music for free didn't think they were ripping off the artists -- they thought they were ripping off the record companies, who were *already* ripping off the artists -- so in a roundabout sort of logic, they thought they were actually doing good) A couple weeks ago I was talking to someone who had tried out ideas, at the behest of Warner Brothers, for a Marvin the Martian cartoon. The feedback was to make sure Marvin didn't use any guns, and that Marvin be "less fey." Marvin didn't exist as a character for these guys -- he was just an image to be kept in circulation, so that it could be reproduced on all manner of plastic saleable junk. Not a revolutionary insight, I know, but this copyright stuff just makes me want to mutter & fume...

You can argue up and down that the Disney corporation has made enough money off of Walt's creation, but what about when it comes to the independent trying to make it today? The copyright laws designed to protect the intelectual property of major corporations can benefit the little guy, too. Why should I, as copyright holder of cartoons which I financed and produced independently, and my heirs not be allowed to have control over distribution of my own work. If there is any desire out there to have alternatives to the product from the majors media conglomerates, the public has got to show its support financially. Profits from films in the public domain do not go back to their creators, rather to often shoddy video profiteers who don't care to invest in locating and preserving the original films. Look at the examples of the public domain Popeye cartoons on DVD, some of which have had been mangled by re-done audio tracks, or other public domain films that have fallen victim to colorization. Do we really need want to see a color version of "Steamboat Willie"?!? Cheap videos or free internet downloads are great for exposure if you're a struggling unkown, but as an Oscar nominated animator friend of mine said to an internet distributor who was trying to license his film for free, "People die from exposure." I can understand why you would want copyrighted medical patents for life-saving drugs or some kind of astronomical research to eventually come into the public domain for the betterment of mankind- but c'mon, we're talking about cartoons here!

A most informative article. As a Japanese animation enthusiast, I am green with envy at the author's fortune in working for Production IG, a groundbreaking and influential studio which also has offices in the United States. I would like to add, in regards to the comments of another poster, that the author most probably has enough command of the Japanese language to carry on his job and he is still learning. The animation industry in Japan has an inclination towards innovation. And obviously, unemployment in Japan is nowhere near disastrous.

I happen to LIKE the Butt Ugly Martians. I understand the low quality animation, it's because the creators have to use it to stay on budget. The dialouge is SIMPLE, not LAME or STUPID. It's like a show for kids under 7 who are too young for the other Y7 shows on tv. I like the idea of the good Martians, I think the names are great, the characters ROCK, and Dog's name is understandable. I mean, the Martians are from....well, Mars. How would they know about the 'traditional' doggie names like 'Fido' and 'Spot' and 'Rover' and stuff like that. Besides, it doesn't seem right to give a robotic dog a name like 'Fluffie' or whatever. It doesn't fit the character. Plus, it's not just the main characters that are good, it's the extras as well! Stoat Muldoon has the GREATEST dialouge on the whole show! Stuff like 'Semi-sweet mother of mercy!' and 'Die, Alien Scum!' are funny enough to make an adult laugh! I don't see why everyone hates the BUM's so much. It probably has it's not-so-great points, but I have yet to see ONE. So, give it a chance. Some like it right away, and some need to grow into it. Just try.

Thak you for your information on the production of "Ghost in the Shell". I find Japanese animation very inspirational, and I hope to prduce my own animated film in the future. Currently at my school, we are searching career opportunities. Even though I don't think movie production is on the list of careers to choose, I find it to be a wonderful and creative way to make my stand in the world. Thanks again for the info on everything; it really helped.