How It Started…
JIM! just earned its third starred review (to be shared publicly on May 1st) and it has me feeling like things are quickly going to start going very quickly. It also has me thinking about how far the project has come. How far, you ask? Well…
Four years and three months later (a mere thirty-nine days from today) I will finally be able to share the book! Looking forward to it.
RIP Paul Fierlinger, Animator/Director
Found out today that Paul Fierlinger passed away. Though you may not recognize the name, if you’re a TV baby of a certain age, you will for sure know one of his most famous creations. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Teeny Little Super Guy…”
As part of my research for JIM!, I conducted a very short email interview with Paul Fierlinger who directed the animated cartoon adaptation of Marshall’s IT’S SO NICE TO HAVE A WOLF AROUND THE HOUSE. Fierlinger didn’t have any contact with Jim and, in fact, when he wanted to talk to Jim about the ending of the story (of which he didn’t approve), was told by the series producer “don’t worry about it”.
Though the interview didn’t come to much for the biography, Paul was generous with his time and even shared a (at the time) work in progress, KING OF THE REST. I’m grateful for that.
A thorough retrospective of Paul Fierlinger’s career and works can be found at the Cartoon Brew blog.
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Appreciation: A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Saw A MINECRAFT MOVIE at a late show over the weekend (when the Chicken Jockey reaction was still in its joyously raucous stage) and really enjoyed it. Bizarre and surreal and weirdly endearing. I read a great review that looked at the phenomena of modern movie going and how kids absorb media (spoiler: sometimes through a second-hand experience, where you perceive your own viewing not as its own thing, but as part of a shared meme). It made me realize that as much as I enjoyed the movie as a whole and the ridiculously over-the-top elytra flight scene in particular, I wasn’t so present that I didn’t pull out my phone to take a picture of said scene.
Anyway, that picture gives me a good background for this quote from the ending of the movie, which I found relevant in these artist versus AI days.
“It’s harder to create than to destroy, that’s why cowards usually pick the deuce.” Jack Black, A MINECRAFT MOVIE
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Doggone Internet Gone to the Dogs
Over on Looking at Picture Books Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen do a deep dive into P. D. Eastman’s GO, DOG. GO!
It’s a joyous and erudite discussion that makes for a fun read in and of itself (even if I’m more of a Roy McKie TEN APPLES UP ON TOP man), but it also brought to mind a blog post I read years ago that I remembered as being a tongue in cheek appreciation of the same book. An Open Letter to the Female Hat-Wearing Dog from “Go Dog, Go” is exactly that, but it also touches on the issue of chauvinism (the book was published in 1961) by noting that most of the dogs in the book are male. It, too, is a fun read:
Visiting that site made me think of some of those blog posts that, for some reason or other, have just stuck around the corners of my mind. Another dog related post that I often think of is this one by Mattias Adolfsson.
I’ve bought two of Mattias’ sketchbooks and I love flipping through them but I find myself returning to his old blog just to enjoy his illustrations. I’ve been glad, though, to have the physical sketchbooks because lately I’ve been wondering how long blogs and all that are going to be around. The internet has been slowly dying for years and a few old favorite blogs (including some that I used for research on my James Marshall biography) are already lost to time. But now we’re seeing a type of digital book burning as content from federal websites are being scrubbed.
That’s a bit of a tangent, but a good reflection of where my mind spins to these days. Anyway, all I really wanted to say was I’m going to enjoy as much of the old, weird internet as I can while I can. Starting with this appreciation of the new Heathcliff comics.
I mean, honestly, where else except the internet are you going to get Dadaist deconstructions of Heathcliff? Except here. And here too.
I really do love the old internet.
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