Orignality and the superabundance of content.

This week I wrote a new Captain Capitalism script about shaving. I was shaving in the shower, and had the idea. My goal this year is to make 4 internet cartoons, and this idea is only about a page, written out, and only about 10 layouts. It should be pretty quick to make and I think it is kind of funny.

When I was telling my focus group, (the four fine folks who work in the same room at Powerhouse), one of them said that though my take was different that it reminded her of an SNL skit.

I am not one of those people who think that everything under the sun has been done. But the superabundance of media and the saturation of quickly passing, quickly produced, pieces has made a bit harder to come up with something completely new. Don't get me wrong, I believe there are wonderful unique and innovative ideas out there to be found. I don't always have them.

For example, a while back I wrote a script about a kid who could see dead people for a cartoon. Not terribly original I know. But unlike in "Sixth Sense" the kid who could see dead people, used his abilities to solve mysteries and help ghosts that haunted places move into the light. Futhermore, in this cartoon the two ghosts who were in every episode helping the kid were Martin Van Buren and Freddie Mercury.

When I was telling one of the guys at work about the cartoon, I was trying to the gags with the ghost of Freddie Mercury. And he was laughing and said, "Oh like Cromartie High School."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeOm-YvU9iM

I couldn't believe it. There was another cartoon that had been produced, with an irreverant take on Freddie Mercury.

What really was strange is that I had written the piece because I was frustrated, because I had just abandoned a Captain Capitalism cartoon. One night I was working on the CC cartoon and watching South Park. My cartoon was kind of a response to the Danish editorial cartoons fiasco. They used a punch line similar to the one that ended my piece. And that was that.

Now I know Captain Capitalism himself, is not necessarily unique. There are over-the-top over musculized characters in many places. From Mad Magazine's Super-Duperman, The Tick, Megaton Man, etc etc. And there are also several tongue-in-cheek uber-right wing characters.

But I stopped doing more current topic cartoons with the character because shows like South Park, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report will almost always beat you to a topic with their teams of writers, daily productions, and needs to fill shows. Come to think of it, I should have plowed out several cartoons during the writer's strike.

Out of the 30 or so Captain Capitalism scripts I have probably started working on 5 of the those cartoons, then stopped working on because of similar situations. Working in my spare time, it is difficult to get the ideas out in time to either beat someone to the punch or keep it truly topical.

In fact, the "To bleep or not to bleep cartoon" was done when Dick Cheney cussed on the Senate Floor. He had told Patrick Leahey to do something that is not anatomically possible. By the time I finished the cartoon, that story was long gone from the media cycle...luckily for me, Cheney was still very much a part of the news. But I think most people never realized that that cartoon was directly referencing that incident.

But even with that cartoon, I caught some slack from people who post critiques on sites like Atomfilms, Newgrounds, and Youtube about that cartoon being a rip of a George Carlin routine. I didn't hear the routine, until after the cartoon was out. To be honest, other than them both listing cuss words, I don't see it.

Anyway, I guess the point to this rambling overly-defensive post is I am going to do the shaving cartoon anyway. I have not seen the skit. I am not ripping it off. I am not going to look it up to see the similarities. I am just going to do it, and see what happens.

Here are some images from what I have been doing lately. Here is a kayout sketch from the shaving cartoon. The fella is kind of based on my brother-in-law, Sean, who is currently staying with us for a few weeks:

and another sketch of the smirky shaving models in your standard shaving commercials:

I also went to a figure drawing class for the first time in a couple years. Man am I rusty as hell. Here are a couple gesture sketches:

The wife and I took a break from working to go kayaking on Ladybird Lake. The wife snapped these shots. The turtle was huge, though you can't tell by the lack of context clues. The water was very choppy and cold, but it was nice to be outside.