The Angry Birds Teach you French

What is the Secret to Success?

Excellence? Okay, then what is the path to excellence? Most might answer Hard Work. And many stop there.

What's the fuel for hard work? Motivation! Okay, so where can I get some?

How about a mentor? Or a rival? Or even divine conviction?

Actually, I think a readily available source of inspiration, can be found in "Angry Birds".

 Or more precisely, a focus on increasing intrinsic motivation for a task, rather than the task itself or the goal to be achieved.

In his book (and thinly veiled tract for self-determination theory)"Drive", Daniel Pink postulates that the keys to increasing motivation in self and employees is to set up environmental factors that encourage Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose, like some kind of triforce of business-self-help book formulae.

What intrigues me here is "Mastery".

How much money do people get paid for playing "Angry Birds"?  Does your iPhone just spit out redeemable prize tickets once the last big green piggiy is blown up? 
 One of life's lessons learned from "The Mighty Ducks", Is that peak performance comes from enjoying the game instead of  not pursuit of the prize, and some economic theories put forth a big paycheck or trophy doesn't vitiate subjects, and can in fact, discourage.

The raising level of difficulty is such an essential part of gamer culture, it's part of what defines the difference between a lowercase "game" like MS solitaire, and waiting in line for "blown weekend: the expansion pack".Games like these are a mess of increasing speeds, "leveling up", and  increasingly tough "Boss Battles". In short, Angry Birds, like many popular video games, get harder the longer you play it.

By comparison, what's the first level of your favorite video game like?

 

example only, Super Mario Bros 2 is NOBODY'S favorite video game

Damned Easy!

 As the maxim goes, "The Journey of 10,000 miles begins with the first step", so goes the crack dealer's corollary "The first one's free."


So here's the example. Let's say you're going to Quebec and  want to learn to speak French, but you don't like learning languages. You figure you could do it, if you had the Rocky Balboa-esque drive to get up at 5am, eat raw eggs and train hard at work memorizing grammar, syntax and vocabulary, but you just don't. Not to worry, the principles of Angry Birds can help you out!

1. Get rid of the prizes.

and ignore the external factors that might act as prizes. Remember, nobody gives you prizes for playing Angry birds. So fight the urge to give yourself congratulatory Oreos every half hour of study.

Besides, if you eat that many Oreos, you'll turn into Jabba the Hut and the Quebecois will just laugh at you.

2. Plot your plans on a curve. AND  Make the first one easy.

This is the source of positive addiction to  task mastery (and Angry Birds). For instance, in your quest to learn french, you might have a weekly quota of 42 vocabulary words per week to memorize. Which is six per day. Sure, that's not hard (or maybe it is to retain that information). But that will get boring.

 I know it sounds contrary to the ways of Hard Work, but why not just start with one vocabulary word on the first day, then two on the next, and so forth. There is an endorphin buzz that comes with meeting goals, and the more hits you have early will drive you for the bigger targets that you set for yourself later.

3. The little question.

"Did I do it better than yesterday? Did I do this better than last time? "

 Because, failures along the road are inevitable. It's possible that you might not master speaking French by the time you go to Canada. Sooner or later your own goals from tip #2 will escalate too high to meet when you're attempting to memorize 56 irregular verbs in one day.

So yeah, shit gets tough, and every so often you've gotta step back and remind yourself that the name of the game is to always be  improving at what you do, and to make that your target, is what it means to work hard.

Craft and Draughtmanship in Mickey Mouse

 the  Fantagraphics' reprints of the "Mickey Mouse" comic strips by Floyd Gottfredson,  are beautifully drawn: wonderfully constructed pieces of innocent whimsy that...

 

...  Okay, so it's Post-Depression audiences that we're talking about:  rough. After all, these strips were of the same generation of Dick Tracy. But unlike Chester Gould's violent cop, you'd never Mickey Mouse firing a gu--

 

 Um, never mind. Maybe I'm just picking out an isolated occurrence of

  

And here Clarabel Cow's gonna bust some ass. But hey, she has a rolling pin, so Comedy, Right?

 

And Goofy empties about two boxes of ammo in a blind killing rage. This is pretty sobering when I think that these are the comic strips my Grandmother grew up reading.

  

Dear God! Walt Disney's signature is even on this one! These are the comic strips my Grandmother grew up reading? 

Out of context, this panel makes it seem like Mickey's ultimate triumph is through a combination of arms escalation and damnright sadism...well that's exactly what it is.

Sketch'n away

Just completed another 8.5X11 Sketchbook. This one was started last October, Honestly, I don't think I'm going through these fast enough.

Sketch on site at a local beach. You can see some of my insane ramblings scribbled in the margins. This regards my experimentation with "Picture Box" composition.

A roughly 5"x7" Daily Composition memory drawing, circa December. I remember this scene had a lot of appeal.

Some on-site impressions with a slightly cleaner line, with continued insane ramblings. Special Guest Appearance by Batman.

If I had my druthers, I'd be tearing through these things about one a month. Oh well, we'll see.

Happy Halloween Everyone.

And I hope that next year is even more spooktacular than the last.

Hip new subculture: Klaxophiles!

Observation: those who complain about the rudeness of others are, quite often, rude themselves.

So to avoid the barbed net of hypocrisy. I will address the following phenomenon...

...which I will term, "Klaxophilia", as a widespread lifestyle choice I've yet to understand. In fact, this post is addressed to Klaxophiles. So as a fellow driver, I have a few questions about your exciting subculture.


1. Are you genuinely more important than everybody else?

Before the industrial revolution, it was a fact of life that some people were just born better than others. Since it seems the primary purpose of a car horn is to put your interest above everybody else's, other drivers, pedestrians or people who happen live on a street, I guess it's because you're nobility.

Naturally, the gentry has places to go and the ugly unwashed peasantry known as everybody else are standing in the way of their betters!

But I'm still unclear as to the specifics, I mean, I have a car horn too. If I sound that, does that ennoble me, or is there a formal ceremony involving the giving of title first that I have to undergo? What the rate of conversion for nobility these days? If I scream in someone's face, does that at least make me a baron?



2. What is the secret horn-code?

There's all sorts of legitimate reasons to sound a horn, to alert other drivers they're driving poorly, chastise drivers for driving too slow, tell pedestrians they're walking too slow, to alert passengers to come out of the house, just to say hi, and on rare occasion, to prevent an auto accident.

I suffer from crippling car-racism. You see, all car horns sound alike to me, kinda like a loud pitch in F sharp . So , could one of you kindly Klaxophiles can direct me to a chart to distinguish between the F-sharp pitch that means " you probably should turn on your headlights" and the F-sharp pitch that means "I'm sorry to alert everybody in the vicinity, but this bicyclist is pedaling too slow"?

Actually, the one part of code I'm really interested in is the F-sharp pitches concerned with avoiding auto collisions, but there's just so many horn sounds nowadays, I hope you can understand how a poor unenlightened car-racist like my self can get confused.



3. Is high-volume communication really the wave of the future?

Yeah, I grew up in a backwards household. I really don't get texting, I'm still not on the bandwagon with skype or video conferencing , either, so it could be that loud noises are the next wave of communication.

Once again, I'm perplexed. Is it still okay to ring somebody's doorbell, or is it more modern to break into their home and pull the fire alarm? Is a handshake still in vouge as a way to greet somebody, or do I have to upgrade to an airhorn? If I get the latest airhorn for greetings, how do I know if it's compatible with the steam whistle I use to reserve tables at restaurants? Do the latest air raid sirens have an app for Angry birds? Cause, honestly, that'd be pretty cool.



Some who aren't familiar with my grave manner and reputation for sincerity might I'm being sarcastic. Which would bring me dangerously close to that hypocrisy net , implying that Klaxophiles aren't a post-modern royal subculture on the cutting edge of communications technology, but really a mob of inconsiderate jerks who put their petty impatiences above the concerns of everybody present. And maybe I'm doing the same thing here by saying "fuck you" to everybody who sounds a vehicle horn, but at least I'm not saying it at 109 decibels.

So comic con San Diego came and went with thunderous noise and many blistered feet. But like always, It was a blast. A mighty blast, complete with....

COSPLAY

MOVIE PEOPLE IN GREAT BIG HALLS!

Rick Baker


Kevin Altieri, staring into your very soul.

AND COMICS PEOPLE IN VERY SMALL HALLS

The Hernandez Brothers, creators of Love and Rockets.

The Nicole Brothers, Ethan (art) and Malachai (story), creators of Axe Cop.

Extra Bonus: the panel was moderated by Kevin Murphy.

Extra-Extra Bonus: Malachai Nicole showed Baby Man how to do the Baby Man Dance!

Extra-Extra- Extra Bonus: somebody asked to take my picture, complimenting me on my "Hunter S. Thomson" Costume.

... The Hell?

Blah Blah Blah Mars and Moms

Apparantley the "buzz" which hip persons love to follow and respond to is that Disney's mo-cap picture "Mars Needs Moms" is something of a flop.

Big whoop! Return to Oz is one of my favorite films, and that pretty much bled money at the Box Office, too.

To be fair, I haven't seen "Mars Needs Moms". But some people really seem to love to hate it.

like Brandon Gray
"Mars was severely limited by its premise, which was better suited to a television cartoon, and its execution looked awkward, incoherent and creepy in the marketing."

Dave White

Though not directed by Robert Zemeckis (the evil performance-capture devotee who inflicted The Polar Express and the Jim Carrey version of A Christmas Carol on the world) he did produce it, and on top of its main crime of being unimaginative and cobbled together from chunks of other movies, it ices its fallen failure cake with that same creeped-out, dead-soul facsimile human being quality of those earlier endeavors.

And Select posters at Cartoon Brew

...didnt like it at all. the designs are ugly and unappealing, the story is cliched , the ‘animation’ soulless...

...It is the single closest thing to the literal equivalent of pure bile that a movie could aspire to be. Sour, burning, painful, and acidic in the way that it thrives on disintegrating the very notion of integrity into absolute nothingness...

Okay, so here's my question: What's the big deal?
So you have a movie that's in the red at the Box Office, and expensive to boot.

And it's stars are creepy puppet people.

Or maybe critics dislike it since the emphasis is more on spectacle than story.

Or maybe it is just a generally horrible, inept movie.

Seems to me, "Mars Needs Moms" has been outdone in all those respects. Also, Box Office Returns are no indication of quality, since beloved movies from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" to Disney's "Pinocchio" lost money in their initial theatrical runs.

I dunno. Maybe all this critical/internet backlash for "Moms" stems from a resentment toward Motion Capture features in the first place. But my question is, if "Mars Needs Moms" is really such a thoroughly awful whatever, why is it such a point of fascination? Cuz nowadays, who gives a damn about Howard the Duck, either way?

CCI bound!

Just got my 4 day pass for Comic Con International in San Diego, held the same week as my birthday.

Whooo!

Also, I saw this cool thing just now.



And I recently saw this less cool thing almost just now.




And I have absolutely no explanation for this

A Lovely Little Christmas Story About a Bear

This winter, I put together a 9 page mini comic with the motive in mind to distribute a charming and idyllic Christmas story in lieu of a card. I conceived, wrote, drew and lettered the whole thing (am I an auteur, then?) Here is the result. (click on the Thumbnails for yuletime fun)

Improv

Improvisation, at least in a theatrical sense refers to a collaborative form of on stage play that others somehow find amusing. Like you suppose, I't kind of hard and involves making stuff up as you go along. Also, it's totally a learnable skill, and requires a large amount of discipline and structure to create "off the cuff".

Obligatory "Whose Line is it Anyway?" Photo

I'm an avid Improv hobbyist. Once a week, I go make an ass of myself with a bunch of folks at a local community center, playing theater games. There I develop my skills of reincorporation, acceptance, scene building and playing nice with others.

There's awesome books about it, like "Truth in Comedy" by Charna Halper, "Impro"by Keith Johnstone and Viola Spolin's "Improvisation for the Theater" or you can learn for free.

Granted, Improv may not look like it has a lot to do with cartooning but it so totally does.

Did you know Frank Thomas played the Piano? If you know who Frank Thomas is, you probably know that he played the piano, but the late Mr. Thomas, as well as most of Disney's classic animators, played a musical instrument, and even insisted that it was beneficial to their craft.

One of these men is not Frank Thomas.

Jeez, that's like, the zillionth Disney reference I've made! Maybe I'm dangerously obsessed or something. Ollie Johnston looks scary there, doesn't he?

Where was I? Oh, Improv and cartooning, which is sort of like pianos, except they aren't.

So take for example Jean "Moebius" Giraud

Moebius has very little to do with Disney, I think.

Basically one of the most influential Sci-Fi artist/writers in the freaking world. When he started his Sci-Fi themed work which included "The Airtight Garage" and "Arzak", he did the whole damn thing one panel at a time. Seriously. Moebius was all about exploring the unconscious, and as most Sci-Fi is an allegory for stuff, Moebius' realms were an allegory for modes of perception (or so he claims, I dunno, he's French).

Here's another one of my favorite cartoonists, Jill Thompson.

She kinda looks like this. She also drew Sandman
which means Goths everywhere should start doing Improv.

At a comics forum in 2008. Ms. Thompson spoke of the value of Improv training as a writing aid, particularly in developing scenarios and concepts for stories, like for her creations "Scary Godmother" and "Magic Trixie".

Oh yeah, and there's also Scott McCloud.

He actually looks like this: he has no eyes, and it's scary.

Among other things, McCloud's a big proponent of improvised comics. He also has invented the 24 hour comic, which is an excersise that it a lot of fun, whether or not you finish it.

The value of improvisation is that even the creator/performer doesn't know where it's gonna go or how it's gonna end. As a form unto itself or as a tool in early drafts or rehearsal, improvisation provides an invaluable resource to the cartoonist/performer. It's also fun.

Imaginary Stuff

So where do you get your ideas?

In interviews various famous and financially successful people from Alan Moore to Frank Zappa have replied "How the hell should I know?" Usually with the gist that their focus is on technique, rather than inspiration.

For instance, in "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", Betty Edwards insists that the right side, the non-linguistic section of the brain, is the source for human creativity, and being non-verbal, the process implicitly defies explanation.

Then there's the notion that ideas come from someplace else entirely.

Stephen King in his book "Stephen King on Writing" makes mention of a muse ( perhaps tongue in cheek) as a cigar chomping man who lives in a basement with a bag of magic which he shares only if he feels like it.

This is what the book looks like, since nobody wants a picture of the Mucinex Man.

Keith Johnstone, the Improvisational Theater scholar suggests, in his book, "Impro". that ideas come from "someplace else" (or at the very least, not the ego), and later in his book "Impro for Storytellers" mentions "the Great Moose" as the source-god of Improv.

In her book "What it is" Lynda Barry mentions and frequently draws "the Magic Cephalopod", which guides hands in writing and drawing in her rendition of "true creativity".

It could be that Moose, Muses and Magical Sea Beasts are merely metaphors for parts of the human mind that defy verbalization, or even that my examples are just bugfaced crazy.

However, the human body is a conductor for transformational energy (ethereal as that sounds): much like our gastrointestinal systems turn Captain Crunch into excrement, our minds might digest raw material( sensory input, other concepts and influences) into a pile of steamy, warm, new ideas.

(image not available)

But between theories of Moose Gods and Brain Poop I'll have to go with the former, jus' cause it's less gross.