It really is slim pickings as far as what I can drag out of my hard drive like a false confession out of a black kid arrested on suspicion of wearing a hoodie. When the Internet goes down and all that’s left is me and my computer staring at each other wondering how long it’s going to take until I admit my feelings to old Nano Shinonome here (Nano Shinonome the Second, of course), all I got with me is the shirt off my back, my army of whores, and nothing but bread to eat and water to drink.
Forgive me if I have to fall back on another self–explanatory comic, as when I don’t have the Internet, I don’t have access to my furry porn to justify spending time on my pregnancy fetish as a way to find new and exciting artworks. The only problem with that is that most of the good stuff comes from overseas, and my policy of never making fun of somebody who doesn’t know I’m making fun of them is a necessary inconvenience. There’s honour in art, you see, which my parents don’t understand because they can’t get past the Splatoon oviposition.
Now before I get put on a government watchlist for taking the exact amount of piss needed to flood Parliament Hill, I will state that even what I would consider a “quick post” is by no means easy. Certainly there are processes which don’t take as much mental strain because of my having done them before, but to have an eye for an image that allows it to look good while maintaining an appropriately novel filesize is always an exercise in patience and judgement. Every post takes a minimum of one hour’s work, which is the same amount of time the RCMP takes to check in on their officers, so it’s best to knock them out immediately after they get the call.
If you don’t know who Nina Paley is, just click on that there link to get her profile, just like the profiles for every damn artist on here. I’m look at each and every one of you who don’t clicc that mfing lincc. I worked hard on those profiles — 10,000 hours in Xed for each one.
“What the fuck is Xed?” You see? You see the type of shit I get on a daily basis? smh the disrespecc…
Alright, enough nonsense. I’ve already told this story before, as fans of Froghand will know, even though it’s buried somewhere deep within those 500,000 words I wrote down and may not actually exist at all. But it represents the same deal that Nina brings up with this webcomic.
I was browsing on Tumblr in my life’s Section 2, and I came across this work from a young girl about a horse comic with Fuffershy getting pissed off about gelatin or something or another I don’t know anymore I’m an old man by George. Or was it Titty Sprinkle? All I know is that The Gang was fucking pissed that there was gelatin on the table. The colours were sooooo nice!
What struck me most about the comic is the gelatin. I bet it would taste like shit in meatspace (which is what cool kids call the “IRL”), but that’s not the point, so as to why I brought it up I’ll leave to your imagination. The gelatin wasn’t drawn perfectly; it was all misshapen and with a circle as its base which was far from symmetrical. Much like the seven–year–old who learned the Heimlich from a one–second shot of a poster in The Simpsons, I learned the beauty of imperfection from a pile of off–green gelatin.
Before this moment, I had considered the role of an artist to be as perfect as possible, to stamp out imperfections to cover up the amateur hand that makes the art. Whatever minimum amount of art I did make, whether it be writing or pixels, I always approached with the mentality of making each and everything as perfect as can be. It is very hard to describe the exhaustion of this mindset, and the processes that come from it, unless you were also a perfectionist. It is a paralysing thing to not understand when something good is good enough, and to understand when to use your “mistakes” as a means to make your style your own.
I consider this the cartoonist’s fork, which is a term I just made up and will never be used again because nobody reads my shit. A cartoonist can either be as on–model as they possibly can be, creating work like every frame had to be as perfect as the last, and where every character must be Renaissance–era pinnacles of beauty. This is what I call the “Cowboy Bebop” philosophy. Or, a cartoonist can create work that isn’t perfect, and yet uses animation to make their ugly, ugly work look so damn beautiful. I call this the “Nichijou” philosophy, for while Nichijou was beautiful, it did not place aesthetics before its expression.
“Why does Froge bring up shitty anime?” you ask like der baka vous as. For those of you ignorant of the superior medium of Japanese Animacons, or “Anime” for you simple minded folk, I will make a parable for the lesser, Western–minded rats in the audience, with their inferior Comic Cons, or “Cartoons”. The difference between perfection and imperfection is the difference between The Simpsons and Ren and Stimpy. One shed off its sketch art style early one, and the other ran with it until the very end. None of these are bad shows (at least not until the eleven billionth season). But their art philosophies are different, and so must learn to run with them.
Nina Paley has illustrated this succinctly, where artists so often desire to be perfect and on–model instead of being sincere, because they believe that their work will be loved. And once this perfection is made, it ends up alienating the audience. There is no joy, no emotion, in making perfectly symmetrical work. Perfection is for robots. Perfection is the absence of soul.
So remember, kids. If you see me make a typo, or format my work badly, just remember the story of Titty Sprinkle, Fuffershy, and Jojo’s Bizarre Gelatin. And while you’re doing that, please remember 9/11. There’s next to no reason why you should, but a bunch of white guys in suits told you to, so it must be important.
Date: 2017–03–02. Size: 6,373 bytes. Colours: 2.
Upscaled Dimensions: 778×338. Original Dimensions: 778×338.