John K on contemporary animated features

:^:Good points, Mickialla. That's definitely some food for thought. A lot of the current animated films do seem to be more company driven than creatively driven. Just because CGI works and is a viable art form, that doesn't mean that every USAnimated feature film has to be made in CG and a have tons of celebrities proving the characters' voices. None of this is law.

About John K., I agree with Shawn on this one. John K. needs to be working on something, anything, before I'm going to value any opinion he has on any of today's cartoons. Since the man doesn't hasn't produced anything in the past few years, he just comes off sounding like a grumpy, bitter old man who's stuck in 1 particular era and who resents all of today's cartoons (as well as the people who work on them) for being more successful than he is.
 
So this thread devolved from a discussion of the actual quote into a mess of John K.-bashing pretty quickly.

Seriously, this guy could say the sky was blue and some people would find reason to use that as an excuse to rant about how he hasn't made a good cartoon in years.
 
Probably because it robs your arguments of any power when you yourself haven't proved yourself capable of surpassing those you criticize.

I'm not saying that you have to create to criticize, but if what you create is worse than what you criticize, then I find it hard to take you seriously.
 
I actually respected him a lot more after I started following his blog. The funny thing is I have never liked John K's cartoons, ANY of them. Yeah, his opinions have a "take it or leave it" quality, but his knowledge of U.S. animation history is pretty unsurpassed online, with maybe Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi being his equals in that department.

So I actually prefer to put up with his occasional old man rants and learn something new about animation design or history rather than see another cartoon from him. I may be in the minority with this opinion, but he actually works better for me as a blogger than an animator.
 
Which is silly, seeing as how most of his claims for cartoons are about pleasant visuals, then he tears the movie up for being terribly written or a predictable NERD GETS THE GIRL movie.

Hundreds of classics have predictable plots or characters like that (Back to the Future's characters, for example), but I guess only if it's done today is it wrong and because of lack of creativity in today's world or something.

He does comment on likable characters, but then he tries to convince his readers that characters like Yogi Bear and Fred Flintstone (Heavily inspired by Honeymooners, surprised he didn't take away points from that show for that) as being deep and complex characters.
 
I agree entirely.

I also think he is a wonderful artist and character designer when working for other people, but in my opinion I don't rate him at all as an originator or storyteller. I find Ren and Stimpy repulsive and completely without wit. I also think that his own cartoons feel like such a kitsch, retro throwback to the 40s/50s nuclear family values (complete with the tracked in period lounge music), but satirised via witless and infantile toilet humour that I just cannot relate to. In my opinion, I think in that sense he is a kind of downmarket Tarantino of animation.

I think John K still has loads to give the world of animation, and I think his blog alone has been an immense contribution to modern animation. It's a library of information. Even though I don't agree with John K's tastes regarding storytelling, I totally respect his technical craftsmanship and knowledge of artistry on animation and drawing. I have also learned so much from reading it all this time.
 
Frankly, I've never cared what John K has to say about any modern animated show or film. I do think R&S is one of the better toons of the 20-25 years, but still. We can like whatever we want, just him be king of Kricfalusi Land and go on and on about how Bob Clampett is the best thing to happen to animation and while he does know quite a thing or two, just because he says something doesn't make it so. Move on. Seriously.
 
John K knows his stuff, but there's no need to tear down anything that's not Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera, or Jay Ward (though I heard he liked the color schemes used in anime). I thought the original Ren & Stimpy was very hit and miss, and the APC cartoon was downright atrocious.
 
Ren and Stimpy was clever in that Tex Avery/Looney Tunes fashion in its first couple of seasons, but that was honestly like his high point. I did like Ripping Friends.
 
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