John Kricfalusi of Ren & Stimpy saying..u can't draw...interview.

[NoSeRider]

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/archives/2004_08.html#000426

You meet young artists now and try to teach them something and they say, "I could do it that way if I wanted to, but this is my style. I draw club feet because it's my style." Unfortunately, schools are really bad now. Schools are not only bad in reading, writing and arithmetic, they're worse in cultural aspects, like in music and art. They don't teach you anything anymore. I know this from twenty years of experience hiring artists out of the schools. They get worse every year. They're absolutely ridiculously retarded now. They don't teach you anything and the few things that they try to teach you are completely wrong. They don't teach you construction, line of action, nothing.

I like this quote.....plus I like making trolling threads.

[figure2]

John Kricfalusi sounds like the classic boss-from-Hell. Generally when I hear a statement like this, I assume that the boss was unwilling or unable to hire the best artists for the work and instead hired mediocre artists who were willing to work for crappy pay. When the artists don't produce the quality that better artists might be capable of, the boss, rather than accepting responsibility for their hiring decisions, will blame the artists, schools and everyone else but themselves.

[HugeHarHar]

I'm sorry but I really hated that show, and now I know I hate that guy. It comes down to one thing, he has a superiority complex, or well, he's just a jack ass. Which I think is more likely.




Or, maybe the "schools" he is referring to is elementary schools? That would explain why they can't draw! Because I personally know at least twenty kids from my high school art classes who could draw anything on that dumb ass show, and draw anything else the man wanted, then add how many CA'ers can draw "not retarded", this guy just sucks.

[John]

Didn't read the interview, but i like the attitude. Can't say much about the new R&S episodes unless i download them ... hm ... i got an idea now. Nah, can't do it it's illegal. Well maybe. Um. I'll just post this now. Right.

[PHL]

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/archives/2004_08.html#000426
Quote:
You meet young artists now and try to teach them something and they say, "I could do it that way if I wanted to, but this is my style. I draw club feet because it's my style." Unfortunately, schools are really bad now. Schools are not only bad in reading, writing and arithmetic, they're worse in cultural aspects, like in music and art. They don't teach you anything anymore. I know this from twenty years of experience hiring artists out of the schools. They get worse every year. They're absolutely ridiculously retarded now. They don't teach you anything and the few things that they try to teach you are completely wrong. They don't teach you construction, line of action, nothing.



I like this quote.....plus I like making trolling threads.


You should post this in the Educator's Forum at awn.com. See what their opinion on this matter is.

[SJ Bennighof]

I love that quote. And I think that if there are any young artists who do have there game down (and there are a fair amount) Kricfalusi would of course clarify that he's not talking about those kids, just the vast vast vast majority of kids. It's not a superiority complex, it's realistic thinking.

[CaptainInsano]

Saw that guy give a speach at an animation festival. He was a jerk who just berated everyone. A black kid in the audience disagreed with his opinion, and John K. said he should be "lynched." It was very shocking he got away with that.

I do like R&S, though.

[JARhead]

I cant really draw, but damn, I want to smack that man. :er:

[Denart]

I heard that the show ended because the animators were late on a deadline and got fired. Something along that line

True?

[figure2]

I heard that the show ended because the animators were late on a deadline and got fired.I believe the real reason the show ended was that Mr. Kricfalusi made a bad deal with Nicelodeon that allowed them to own the concept & characters. At some point Nicelodeon got the idea that they could save $$$ by cutting John Kricfalusi & Spumco out of the deal and hired their own writers & animators to produce the show. The resulting post-Spumco episodes lacked any of the edge or cleverness of its original creators. Whatever you may think of Mr. Kricfalusi, it is still a cautionary tale abot maintaining control of your intellectual property.

[PHL]

In an awn.com interview which can be found here awn.com (http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=all&sort=date&article_no=1600%20&page=3), he says :

"I don’t care which school you’re talking about — they do not teach art in art schools anymore, and it drives me insane. I cannot believe the portfolios that come out of the art schools. I tell them all, just get your money back because they didn’t teach you to draw! Even if they’re talented. Talented people can teach themselves, but there’s only so much you can teach yourself because every single person has weak points, things that they don’t see. If you don’t have somebody to point them out to you, they’re going to stay weak. The whole point of paying $30,000 a year is to get somebody to tell you that you’re wrong, not that everything you do is wonderful and creative. The animation schools don’t teach even the fundamental, basic concepts of animation; they don’t teach you how do construction. They say the words “construction.” They don’t teach you how to do line of action. They say “line of action.” Everyone’s familiar with the terms, but nobody does them. "

He's right to some extent. It all depends on what kind of teachers you have.

[Denart]

At some point Nicelodeon got the idea that they could save $$$ by cutting John Kricfalusi & Spumco out of the deal and hired their own writers & animators to produce the show. The resulting post-Spumco episodes lacked any of the edge or cleverness of its original creators.
oooh, a hint of conspiracy. heheh

thanks for the clear up Figure2

[|NTeRN]

well hes not half wrong. thro the animation department at CSF was a good one it was full of ass patting where it wasnt deserved. i left the animation show early because i couldnt stand to watch animations that were barely visable pencils, bad sounds, and more often then not an arm or leg that was in motion would suddenly turn into pure construction (cylinders and balls not a forearm and hand) and that stuff gets raved about by the peers and teachers.

and in typical art schoolsthe foundation classes (the ones you need the most of cause you cant learn a whole lot in a 10 week class) are 1 maybe 2 class deal and you move on to advanced stuff. ALOT! of the graduating seniors had very poor drawing skills. true some may be more focused on 3d or something but if even you 3hr life drawings look like a bad cartoon will you not get a job no matter the reputation of the school


true the guy sounds like an ass but hes not wrong in saying schools are getting bad. not all but a lot.

[aesir]

I dont see how you guys all think hes coming off as a jackass just from those interviews. Sure, hes a hardass, but the guy has a point, ESPECIALLY about the level of many art school grads.

Just watching all the senior thesis' (wtf is the plural of thesis) made me ill. There were about 3 or 4 students that I thought might be able to get a job in the near future, the rest were atroscious (sp? Im really off on spelling today). 10 year olds coulda done better with less time. But then, maybe my school just sucks (likely).

[jfwalls]

Did anybody ever see the Ren and Stimpy that John K. did for Spike TV. Those were twisted man! I only managed to see a couple, but the first episode clearly showed that Ren and Stimpy were gay, and Stimpy was the catcher. They were pretty damn funny. He also did a show for Adult Swim that was pretty funny. I forget the name of it, but it was about this super-hero family/group. Not nearly as good as the Venture Bros.

[talbot]

He also did a show for Adult Swim that was pretty funny. I forget the name of it, but it was about this super-hero family/group. Not nearly as good as the Venture Bros.

I think you are referring to "The Ripping Friends." It was truly a twisted show. Kind of like Ren & Stimpy meets The Justice League. I think it started off in Canada and later on Adult Swim.

http://epguides.com/RippingFriends/cast.jpg

[otis]

I have to agree with him. Speaking of CSF, not only was the undergrad program weak, the masters were very lax and pathetic as well. When I heard MASTER grads were just throwing themselves a solo art show, or basicaly building a body of work I almost laughed.

Senior / master thesis' should revolve more around making you successfull or started in the REAL WORLD. Not just an excuse to get a degree.

A great example of what a senior project should be:Two guys from Cal Poly SLO, business dept. devloped a business plan for a hypothetical juice company for their senior project. They got permission to use the recipies from an exhisting local juice bar for their project. Later this Senior Project turned into their own company after graduation...... now known as Jamba Juice.

Oh and btw, the local juice bar tried to sue them and lost becuase they willingly gave the two seniors their ingredients! LOL!!

[MoP]

Senior / master thesis' should revolve more around making you successfull or started in the REAL WORLD. Not just an excuse to get a degree.

Damn right. Applies to undergraduate courses too. I'm on an arts degree course, and the only stuff I've learned that will be of use to me in the real world is the stuff I've taught myself.

I reckon 90% of my classmates will graduate thinking they're all set for a job doing what they want to do... then quickly realise that anything they may have been taught barely applies in the real world, and they're gonna end up flipping burgers or working retail.

Sad but true.

[darth massacre]

Never watched R&S so won't comment on that.

Kricfalusi seems like an arse to work with but he's really right. A lot of schools these days get into the 3D animation/games design/multimedia programs to earn money out of willing victims. Its not just happening in North America. I can tell you the exact same thing is happening in Singapore and I've heard similar things in China where animation schools spring up by the hundreds and they have no teachers with actual experience to teach animation!


Add: I wouldn't say they'd all end up in retail or flipping burgers....just that once they run out of steam to play in the industry...whether its because they're not good enough or you've become bored...then they'll find other things to get into.

[stoph]

man ripping friends was something i would actually get up on a saturday morning for. anyone from australia ever see fly tv? that had some mad artwork and animations coming from it :D

[SJ Bennighof]

He was a jerk who just berated everyone.

Honest and harsh critique is often misinterpreted that way. Sounds to me like John K. was being the Art Nazis on GaiaOnline who try like hell to raise the level of quality of art on that site by getting everyone's ass to do anatomy studies. Only with him everyone in the picture is worlds above all of that. It's still a case of someone who is very right trying to get people to listen to him in the form of a "Come-To-Jesus" talk. And they don't want to hear true statements about their level of skill and knowledge, so they convince themselves that he's being a jerk. At least, that's what it sounds like to me.

[John]

As for me, i love animation, and a lot of what is produced in germany at the moment is just terrible. I looked at some studios here and most of their stuff is direct to video shorts. The feature film animation that is produced here is aimed at 3-6 year olds or based on bad licenses from the comic market. (For the other germans, don't you hate the Werner movies?)
I saw a private school website a while ago that claimed to be the one place in germany where they teach solid animation, that their students would all get a job when they got out of school. When i looked at their animation i couldn't believe how sloppy it was! Terrible. Jerky movements, bad drawings, abysmal character designs.
The sad part is that those kids pay them a lot of money and think they get a solid foundation to build a career on. So as long as there is no school to teach people how to do good animation, nothing is going to change.

[CaptainInsano]

Honest and harsh critique is often misinterpreted that way. Sounds to me like John K. was being the Art Nazis on GaiaOnline who try like hell to raise the level of quality of art on that site by getting everyone's ass to do anatomy studies. Only with him everyone in the picture is worlds above all of that. It's still a case of someone who is very right trying to get people to listen to him in the form of a "Come-To-Jesus" talk. And they don't want to hear true statements about their level of skill and knowledge, so they convince themselves that he's being a jerk. At least, that's what it sounds like to me.

He was beratting other cartoons that weren't as funny as Ren & Stimpy, not particularly art students. A black guy disagreed and said there was this cartoon and that cartoon was good, and John told him he should be "lynched." There was nothing "honest and harsh" about THAT, it was just ignorant and disprectful. Everyone in the crowd was shocked.

BTW, I didn't go to the festival to see John "talk to me." Don Hertzfeld was there, and I just wanted to see some animation. I also don't take his views on the lack of skill among art students personally, and if I felt it pertained to me, I wouldn't have been upset. He was just bieng a jerk, plain and simple.

[NoSeRider]

I'm just getting off on reading John Kricfalusism's

Well, let's not call it "nice." I have nothing against being nice. Political correctness didn't invent nice. Political correctness is a mean-spirited Commie plot, if you ask me. But just one symptom of political correctness is men hugging men, and that's just a ploy anyway, like I said, to get laid, to convince girls that you're sensitive. No guy is really into that, unless he's gay. Which I'm not saying anything against; I'm just saying that naturally, guys don't like to touch each other, except two ways. And one is really hard, with a clenched fist. My dad gave me this theory just last year. He was railing on and on. [Adopts gruff, hoarse voice.] "I go down to the mall, and I see these young guys, you know the kind, they got the earrings and the long hair and those giant pants, looks like they're wearing a tent? They're down there hugging each other. They're disgusting." He was telling me about this guy on his dart team, one of these touchy-feely guys. [Gruff voice.] "Got his hand on your shoulder, he's slapping your butt. One time I turn around and he slaps me on the butt, and I put both my fists in his face, and I said, 'You try that again, I'm gonna black both your eyes.' And this guy was, like, 30 years younger than me, and you know what he did? You'd think he would take a swing at me, right? No, he sat down and he started to cry! What kinda men are they makin' these days?" "You got me, Dad. I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to make a cartoon that cures kids."
http://www.theonionavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=3712&f=1

I so relate to his philosophy on men. I grew up with jocks and peckerheads.....y'know egotistical superstars that won't let you be a star once in awhile. I'm warped for a reason, damn it!

Just a good read. I'm sure there's other facets to John K besides being an arse.....because I think society made him that way.

They're kind of the opposite of what men are brainwashed into being these days. They're like old-fashioned men, before political correctness. You ever see young guys now, where they're all hugging each other and shit like that? Trying to convince the girls that they're sensitive so they can get laid? Pile of crap.

[NoSeRider]

Education would be nice if it were real education, but that's gone out of fashion. Now it's hippie education, the everybody-is-creative theory. You just summon your creative soul out of the dust or something, instead of them sitting you down and teaching you, "Okay, here's how composition works. Here's how anatomy works. Here's how you incorporate your knowledge of composition and anatomy into the work you're doing professionally." There's no school like that today. There are no standards anymore. All you have to do is open up a magazine from the 1930s or '40s and just look at the illustrations, and your jaw will hang limp. Every illustration—even the cheesiest ones, like the underwear ads—is drawn a thousand times better than the best fine art is today. It was a time of greatness. Everyone was really good at what they did in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. Now, you have the Age Of Amateurism. It's not to say that there aren't people with talent, but it's very hard to develop your talent, or you have a very one-sided talent, because there's nobody to tell you what your weaknesses are, so you only develop your strengths. And that's including me. We just don't have the same situation people did 60 years ago.

http://www.theonionavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=3712&f=1

Hate'm or Love'm, he's an interesting read.

You can't get away with Bugs Bunny today. They cut the hell out of Bugs Bunny. You can't see Bugs Bunny cartoons intact on TV. We're way more restrictive today than they were then. A lot of the stuff that was allowed then isn't allowed today. You can't have slapstick anymore. They call it violence now. I had a meeting a while ago where I had someone hitting someone on the butt with a frying pan. We couldn't do it, because it was "domestic violence," so kids having an abused childhood would cry because they saw a cartoon character hit another cartoon character. That's how insane we are. We're not any more liberal than we were 60 years ago. Just certain things are not taboo now that were taboo then. But most things that weren't taboo then are taboo now.

[John]

Haha he sounds like a raving madman. Actually he sounds like what R&S looks like. What a character.
At first i was wondering about him bashing "nice" guys. Then i had a vision of some kind. It wasn't really a vision, it was more like an audio hallucination. I think i heard a fusion of every damn whiney 80's song there is. The cheap, terribly pathetic kind.
He just says it like it is, but he is using a distorted amplifier. I think he'd get along well with General Mike Patton.

[NoSeRider]

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/russell/105/bigdork1.jpg

John K. was soon interrupted by a broken man. Tears streamed from Bob's eyes. White sticky foam churned at the edges of his quivering lips. Camp, between sobbing gasps, begged Kricfalusi to talk to the rest of the crew and explain why Bob was doing what he was doing. Unfortunatly, while Kricfalusi forgave Camp, he couldn't explain what Bob was doing because he didn't understand it himself. Bob was particulary upset by the fact that his old pal, Eddie, who once took Bob under his wing, wouldn't shake his hand. He blubbered, "Eddie and Mike hate me, John. You've got to talk to them. Don't you understand? I'm doing this for you!" Kricfalusi patiently suggested that maybe Bob should not come to Spümcø for the remaining few days, while the rest of the crew was in such a state of mind. Bob obeyed this last command from his superior officer. He left Spümcø and never came back as his Captian and crew went down with the ship.

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/russell/105/parttwo.htm

Oh man...I can't stop reading this crap.

Do you think artists are drama queens in general?

[egerie]

Most artists are twisted and emotionaly unstable because of deep hidden secrets ;)

Seriously, if you want to get a complete education in a year or two (3?), students should be CLOSELY followed. School is meant to make your life miserable. Teachers should kick the shit out of their students and push them beyond their limits. When the students come trough, everything else seem so easy and they KNOW ; They have skills, method and tools to succeed. It used to be pretty much easy as pie to get a quick formation and hit the market with a very good chance to get a job at the end. Times are going to change and it's only with seriously trained students that people are going to get hired. Another thing is to "produce" well rounded students, some schools jump readyly into details. I'm a firm beleiver that strong basics in art are paramount before even thinking of putting someone in front of a computer. But that's just purist old me...

I can speak from experience whether it's in college or in a working environment(sp?). I've never been drawing better than when I had a hard-ass teacher / director. Yes it's hard, but you get to grow.

*gets off soap box before venting and get lynched in-place and lieu of John K. ;) *