The Race to Animate
In the streaming era, animation is big business.
Vulture takes a look at where we are, and how we got here.
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(One pages drawing is captioned: Thank god they only eat children.
Another: With a dying breath, he posts some bad poetry.)
(The 2017 follow-up,World of Tomorrow Episode Two, was equally crushing and sublime.)
and then they will read this and they will think, ha.
Its just a few pages longer.
A lot of stuff got cut from the first edition.
The book is despairing at times, sometimes hilariously so, if despair can ever be hilarious.
But it comes from such a dark place.
Was this a particularly difficult period in your life when you made it?No, probably the opposite.
If Im feeling depressed the last thing Im ever going to want to do is get any work done.
I think in general, it usually takes a lot of optimism for me to do anything creative.
An iconic strip like Peanuts, at its peak, was just perfectly composed.
There was never a wasted pen stroke, never any fat.
Everything in the frame had a place and purpose.
Why isnt this shot working like it should?
One of my favorite words isclarity.
And thats what a cartoonist does naturally.
You strip everything down to only show what it’s crucial that you show.
Often, film journalists and reviewers refer to animation as a genre.
How do you feel about that?I guess Im not really surprised.
I just dont know what you would call it.
To make a movie here, youre either going to pay for it or find work with a studio.
So everyone was pretty weirded out by every idea I pitched and nothing ever went anywhere.
So I dont think Im as allergic to the major-label deal as much as theyve seemed allergic to me.
I made four 16-mm.
cartoons while in film school and they all found nationwide distribution, which is super strange.
That frees you up to make the next cartoon, and the next.
I kept thinking, how long can I get away with this?
How easy was it to learn the business/financial side of your job?
Some artists just dont have the skill set to deal with budgeting, making a living, etc.
But I also had little choice but to learn.
I probably wouldnt be talking to you today if I hadnt been able to figure out the money stuff.
I think one of the most valuable things I learned very early on was simply how to say no.
When youre young, you feel grateful and lucky that anyone is even paying attention to you at all.
But what a powerful thing to beableto say no.
Its one of the first steps toward realizing your worth.
What all that did was make me learn how to be a producer.
I had to become extremely protective of the work and adamant about actually making money.
Most young filmmakers today arent being put through that anymore because the short-film model has totally flipped.
Getting your work seen now is, weirdly, the easiest part.
So if I were starting out now, Id probably be very confused.
Why are artists and musicians the only people treated this way?
And there is still no individual path to follow, or especially specific advice that I could give.
Everyone is constantly still trying to figure all this out with each new release and new platform.
That has been a seismic shift.
Thats what I feel on social media.
You mentioned in a recent Facebook Q&A that you work really slowly.
Has that always been a challenge for you?
Have you tried to find ways to work faster?
And if youre animating it all by yourself, forget about it.
Its like those Tibetan monks creating beautiful sand art with their little tools.
There are just no easy shortcuts.
Wooo, were really flying now!
Its just what we do.
When youre a snail, you cant really express surprise at how long things are going to take.
The real game-changer would be having the budget and support in place for a larger crew.
That would help me release things dramatically faster, possibly even at a speed some might consider professional.
I dont know how to make that metaphor work anymore.
Where does your sense of humor come from?
But I dont think of anyone in my family as being especially comedic.
Not so sure about our kids.
