I had just started a rant column called "Mouthing Off," but quickly shot it down and evaporated the first entry in the series. Maybe I'll revive it someday in the midst of blind misery. I hope not. It was gonna be about all the odds 'n' ends of art that drive me nuts in the worst way possible.
Perhaps I'm assuming too much by thinking that people, especially those that it would help me to know better, embrace that kind of edginess. But most people, whether they know it or not, tend to prefer sincerely-implemented warm fuzzies to anything else. That's why films like Up succeed at the box office, and why even crotchety creatures such as myself read blogs like Will Finn's (on yonder sidebar).
I keep forgetting that mass-media artists are a lot constantly under pressure and that they're capable of producing greater or more personal work under the proper circumstances. Even if animation, live-action movies, music, video games, and all those things that inspire me are in need of greater innovation at large, there's a way where there's a will. There are stylistic highs and budgetary lows that can be explored in all manner of formats, and retail-bound stuff comprises an increasingly piddling fragment of those formats.
I've long entertained the idea of the cineplex as the final frontier of "reaching an audience," but a theater is only as full as the number of people in it. You gather enough people in a room to watch a Droopy cartoon on DVD, and you'll get a lot of noise and merriment.
Call this post a prayer for attitude adjustment on my part. I'll get back to you soon with factory-fresh cartoons.
For now, enjoy the piece of whimsy above -- in which the drawings date back to December '08 and the gags date back to second grade. Ah, to be young and eating boogers.
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