My friends Dave Kellett and Fred Schroeder have an event today (no foolin’), and I want you to participate. Go to http://www.strippedfilm.com/ for details, but here are the highlights:
We’re going to do a big push to tell people to make their purchase today. We want to give this movie a big push to get it wide recognition. We’re going to try to get as much notoriety for the movie as possible by making it #1 on iTunes. And we can do it if we act together. Here’s the link to get it from iTunes.
Here’s the first five minutes of the film.
Folks, Kellett and Schroeder have made what will undoubtedly become the finest documentary on the art of cartooning ever. This goes waaaaaaay beyond “Print vs. Web.” This is a sensitive, moving, endearing, warm all-encompassing look at cartooning from several different perspectives. Heck, I’m even in it! It shows people who couldn’t possibly have anything at all in common all telling remarkably similar stories about their passion for the craft. It talks about the very nature of creativity. It talks about thunderous successes and heartbreaking failures.
But mostly, it talks about cartoonists and their burning need to make comics.
But, listen… don’t take my word for it. All you need to know is this: Bill Watterson drew his first public cartoon since the last Calvin and Hobbes to promote this movie. Can you imagine how many offers he’s had in all those (almost 20) years?! — how many good causes… fun projects… deserving people? He quietly said no to them.
And he said Yes to “Stripped.”
If that doesn’t make you ache to own this film, then I got nothing.
You’re going to watch this movie once and then sit there in quiet awe as the credits roll.
And then you’re going to listen to it over and over and over in the background as you pencil or ink or sketch or wash dishes or… well, you get the point.
This movie goes beyond good… it’s important.
You’ll never look at your drawing board / Cintiq / sketchbook the same again. There are some Bigfoot problems that hit harder than others — and for certain legendary figures, male pattern baldness anxiety isn’t just about looks… it’s about legacy. Today’s comic imagines what happens when one very famous cryptid starts wondering if his myth might not survive a receding hairline.
What I’m Watching: Invincible, JJK, and the Great Animation Trade-Off
I’ve been watching Invincible with my sons, and I’ve got… thoughts.
First off: the story? Very, very good. Genuinely compelling stuff — even though the violence and gore is way past my personal comfort range. I'm not super comfortable with one character shooting another. The stuff that happens on a median-level episode of Invincible is a real challenge for me.
As someone who does NSFW comics, I'm constantly amazed at how perfectly acceptable Invincible is... yet an animated series based on Phil Foglio's XXXenophile would have people losing their ever-loving minds.
Further, it's a little disappointing to go from watching Jujutsu Kaisen (which we're also following at the moment) to watching Invincible.
JJK features jaw-dropping visuals and animation that constantly raises the bar episode after episode. It's phenomenal.
On the other side of the spectrum, Invincible clearly put all of its budget into getting celebrity voice talent. Some of them are very good.
I just wish a few of those Amazon dollars had been spent on the animation. Some of the scenes are pretty clearly PNGs that get enlarged to show an object moving through space, and it's a goddamned embarrassment.
But the story itself is very, very good.
