image source: Bleeding Fool
I’ve stayed out of the whole comics commentary because as I brought up last week I don’t think all the bases are being covered with the focus on political issues in modern comics. I do look at the results of those actions but I stay out of politics because we’re tired of even hearing what our side of the debate is going on about and just want a half-hour to forget everybody hates each other for not following the correct groupthink. This site’s focus in on the end product and the decisions made in the story, not what bonehead or genius put it there or why they did so unless their reasoning is something I really need to comment on. It’s all about what they did right and wrong in my reviews and commentaries. However, I do follow people in the debate, both liberal and conservative, who want escapist entertainment to actually be what it says.
Meanwhile the ideologues continue to attack anyone who either doesn’t share their point of view or is not extreme enough that they need to focus 24/7 on their hate. And if you don’t you may become the victim of swatting, a rather sick practice even as a practical joke where they trick the police into thinking a violent crime is being committed so they’ll go in guns a blazing in the hopes you’ll be shot to death by the cops, thus turning the police into a weapon against wrong-thinkers. This has happened more than once and it’s an evil practice, especially over comic books. I don’t share the elitist thinking of jerks like Bill Maher but let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that comics are worth killing each other for, okay?
Animation Is A Medium, Not A Genre [VIDEO]
The coolest cape in comics…OR cartoons.
The following commentary video from The Mysterious Mr. Enter plays into a discussion topic later this week here at the Spotlight so I thought it would be good to break out now. The treatment of cartoons/animation (depending on how far that broomstick is up your butt) by the Hollywood film machine and the live-action status symbol they’ve help perpetuate is why animation isn’t taken seriously as a medium. Yes, medium, not genre. Puppets are not a genre any more than costumes or make-up. Live-action is not a genre. The term genre is misapplied in other ways as well. Single camera or found footage aren’t genres, they either quality as a medium or a type of artistic filming, not really any different from using black and white whether a pre-color movie or just an homage choice.
I don’t have a problem with animation given its own category personally as sometimes I want to see what animation can do. I even have an “animation spotlight” category here at BW. There is a problem though with how cartoons are treated, which is why “anime” is often treated like a genre when it’s really just cartoons from Japan. It’s just that the Japanese don’t treat animation (which anime is short for…duh) as just kids stories or something to be subversive with, and don’t restrict it to wacky hi-jinks. They take animation as seriously as they do live action, while Hollywood purposefully acts against it getting the same recognition as the “real acting” of live-action. As Enter explains, this is what’s really holding back the animated movie. This came out in December of 2018, so what was recent then isn’t recent now.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on February 27, 2019 in Animation Spotlight, Movie Spotlight and tagged animation, cartoons, commentary.
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