Year End Reflection?
This time of year always has me looking closer. I don’t know why. This morning at breakfast, my daughter Casey told me she thought it was cool that I’ve made a career out of being ” weird”. Yes, I thought,,, that’s pretty true.
Yes, I had a TV fall on my head when I was young. And I suppose it made me see the world in a skewed way. Truths became satire. People turned into characters. Animals talked.
I published my own newspaper when I was 12. Who was going to listen to this weirdness in my head? . Yes I tried drugs and drinking, but nothing did it for me except making cartoons, characters and telling stories.
My weirdness at times crossed over into commerce. In my teens and 20′s, I worked in advertising, editorial, books. I even won some awards. I helped others communicate ideas and got paid for it.
But the work. I loved the work. I started animating my characters and stories, and suddenly these characters who have always been alive in my head, starting talking on the screen. My films got watched and also won awards. Got into some cool festivals.
A new cable channel called Nickelodeon asked if I thought my weirdness could translate to an animated series for TV. I first said no, but then thought it was a challenge I would like to try. Luckily the people in charge at the time were as weird as I was and Rocko’s Modern Life debuted in 1993. At the network, some mainstream people replaced the weird people and tried to get me to be not so weird. So we stopped making Rocko’s.
I launched another weird animated show on Cartoon Network called Camp Lazlo in 2004. We even won some prime time Emmy’s, which made me worry that I was becoming mainstream. That what I did in television was not cutting any new ground. Lazlo ended.
I’ve been trying out new weird ideas on the web and in other media. New film projects which may find an audience, or may not.I mentor and teach others to cut through the mainstream and get to “new and exciting.” If I’m not finding the sweet spot, I love to watch others do it.
I continue to make characters and stories. Sometimes they find relevance in commerce. Sometimes they don’t. Even after some of the “successes” I’ve had in mass media, I still have entertainment “people” tell me ” I don’t get it.” My stuff isn’t fitting in to what is selling out there.
Well, I’m kinda proud of that. It tells me I’m on the right track. I’ll find others who connect with my work. I’ve heard “no” a million times. If you don’t get buried by them and instead build stairs out of them, the “no’s” will get you where you need to be.
But it still comes down to the empty page and the pencil. That’s where life is. That’s where my life has always been.
That was a wonderful read, Joe! I know my own artistic needs are hardly being met by watching TV or movies. I haven’t even watched TV probably in three years now because there is just not much left to watch. I watch these programs and see the same formulas over and over. I get too much deja vu from seeing these shows one show goes on to be popular and is the same thing as the last. It’s so rare for me to really find joy in today’s world. Every Monday is always a very happy thing for me because I can get updated on those people who pushed the mainstream away to let in new and strange ideas to flower and bloom. It’s such a shame it has become so much about money today, even more than before. It’s not about ratings, it is just about fitting in to what is popular to cling to pocket change from the other guy. I feel art die more and more everyday from the news and cities spending more on sports teams, school cuts and over spending on poor ideas in the first place.
Thankfully every Monday there is a slight part in the clouds with gleams of warm creativity and a push to feed myself with creativity and continuing to push myself away from being everyone else. Every Monday I get to take my artisitic needs off of life support and breath freely again.
Thanks, Joe! It’s great that you not only give advice and wonderful quotes but you also help lead by example which I feel so few real teachers even do anymore. It’s more about pointless advice without substance. So it’s great to see you leading the charge yourself with your own ways to challenge yourself against the masses of same in, same out.
Wow, thanks for that wake up call, Joe! I was just thinking; “Why doesn’t anyone get what I’m doing with my comic series other than friends, family and a handful of other artists?” and then I read this and it occurred to me that it’s because it’s my artistic vision and even if it doesn’t fit into what is selling, at least it’s mine and all mine, not some mainstream selling point that panders to the corporate sense of what is and isn’t entertaining. This post of yours made me feel so much better than I was already feeling about my work and much more proud to call it mine! Thank you Joe, I really needed that little shove and it helped inspire me tremendously! If you ever have the time, I’d like to get your thoughts on the idea for the comic and what you think of the art direction it’s taking. Here’s a little sample of what I expect it to be. http://th04.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2012/343/1/c/mininova_dotg_mock_up_2_by_spidey8790-d5nhhgq.png
Such a good post!
I’m at work and would love to write more, but at the moment I’ll simply post a huge, heartfelt “thank you” for sticking it out and doing weird. A lot of people say they’re weird and want to be weird, but what matters is the action. Thank you for taking action in an authentic way: it is being read and heard by other artists and not going unheard!
thank you to be ‘weird’ and expand your ‘weirdness’ to others.
I always feel that weirdness is never the main intent in your work and it’s really other people who pin it as “weird.” (I may be wrong about that but that’s what happens with my stuff.) It’s not really the weirdness of your work that impresses me, it’s the things you say with the weirdness. When an artist has the balls to make work that has stuff going on below the surface, I am amazingly inspired.
Good art has blood, sweat, and tears put into it so why would an artist not want to make people think? A show like Rocko is hilarious but it also has you walk away thinking; especially if you are currently entering adulthood and are now experiencing “the modern life.”
The reason you remain one of my favorite artists and a hero of mine is because of your passion. I will never forget your final words at the RISD lecture, “People are gonna say, ‘this is a piece of shit man’…but that’s OK…it’s my piece of shit.”