Itza Hallee Ween Pun'kin

Sadly for me, my current full time job gives me very little time to do much drawing and/or creating.  I should try harder to find the time to do more drawing of stuff I guess, even though most days I'm just exhausted from my job.
But, hey, I did manage to find some time for creativity since this is now the Halloween season.  SO, I had a bit of fun carving a nice little jack o lantern.  It's nothing fancy. It's something I whipped up in a few minutes.  But nonetheless it's done and I think it works well.

I did some quick thumbnail type sketches to get a feel for what the face could look like.

Here's the basic finished product all carved out.  It looks alright just sitting there.  However, like most jack o lanterns, its full effect is felt with the lights off.

SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKY!!!

So anyway, that's the most recent art related thing I've been able to get done.  I'd love to do more though.  I have a third Censor Monkeys comic book all planned out that I'd like to get going on.  I just have to remember to kick my own butt and get down to getting started.

Since this is a Halloween post, I'd like to end it with an old cartoon with a Halloween feel to it.  In my humble-ish opinion, you can't go wrong with Betty Boop.  Enjoy!

I did some Looney Tunes commentary

I was on the Ferris Wheelhouse channel doing some commentary today.  Here it is embedded just below.



That's me talking with the man who runs that channel, one Trevor Thompson.

He calls himself a "Looney Tunes Critic".

"CRITIC!!! Why I'll mobilize dat doity guy! Who does dat maroon think  he is anyway??!!"

Whoa whoa! Calm down, Bugs. I'm sure he's not going to be hugely critical of you.

"Critic, eh?! I'll phone my lawyer and thhhhhlap this dethhhhpicable interloper with a habius corpuscle !"

I don't think that's a thing, Daffy.

"W-w-w-why that d-d-d-dogone no good son of a b-b-b-b... uh son of a b-b-b-b... s-s-s-son of a b-b-b-b......"

Slow down, Porky. This is no Christmas party video. Don't say something in anger that you'll soon regret.

"So! You 'ave given me zee critique. Monsieur, I demand le satisfaction!"

Hey, Pepe. Don't you have some #MeToo allegations to address and possibly pay off - er - I mean settle?

"Oooooh! Dat cwitic is a bad old hipotwit!"

Um........... ok. Do you even know what words mean? Well you're pretty much a baby anyway.

"Now thi-ah say-this critic boy is about to get a plank of wood where the feathers are thinest! His vertical smile that is!"

HA! Foggy's got a fetish.

"Man! That critic cat is one square peg. Like real dreadsville."

Nobody knows who you are, Cool Cat.

"Oh that critical earthling makes me very angry. I may have to disintegrate his entire puny planet."

Is that why you and Russia rigged the US election to put Trump in office, Marvin?

"Holy frijoles! I hope señor critic weell not be too harshamente on me!"

Dude, you can have 'relations' with everybody's sister at any time you like. What do you care what he says?

"Suffering succotash! If you criticize any of my pictures, I'll........ uh.......... I'll do something to you!"

Sylvester, you're outsmarted by rodents and various other small animals on an hourly basis. You're in no position to make threats.

"Oh no! My own father verbally wrecked by an online critic. I'm ashamed to show my face in public."

You are a whiny little twat, do you know that?

"Taz no like critic. Me take Ferris Wheelhouse page and eat it! MPHFFFLAPABLAMPHHHHGUGILAAAATMPHH!!!"

I've got something you can eat right here.

"Are you going to let that critic talk about me like that, Bosko?"

Calm yourself, Honey. What resources does Bosko have against an online critic exactly?

"Hey, ya know something? I don't think that critic will be that nice to me."

Go snag a baby bumblebee, you infinitesimal piece of shhhhhhhhhhhhoe leather.

"WHY THAT BUSH WHACKING, SIDE WIDING, PERKASHARKEN, NASSITRAPPING, TADPOLING...." 

Don't hold back, Sam. Tell us how you really feel.

"Well well well. Look who's been criticized by a critic."
"Yes I have. It's because I've been an awful cad."
"You certainly have."
Thank you very much for pointing that out."
"You're very welcome."

You guys are pleasant but sick.

"Aw gee whiz! That big palooka of a critic can't do this to me. I'll give him the big raspberry and see how he likes them apples."

Literally nobody cares if your feelings are hurt, Beans. Back into obscurity you go.

*twitches nose ever so slightly*

Uh oh. Trevor got the Sheepdog mad. He's in for it now.

"Tung tung tung! Meep Meep!"

You should've been killed and eaten a long time ago.

My oh my. What fragile egos these Looney Tunes characters have.  Anyway, this video with me on it isn't the only "attraction" for the Ferris Wheelhouse channel.  He has lots of other cartoon commentaries and other video blogs to see.  I urge you to give this channel traffic and check them out at this link here.  We did 4 commentaries in total.  He will post them on the first Saturday of the coming months.  So watch his channel on October 6, November 3, and December 1.

Have fun everybody!

Jordan Peterson Revisited

Some time ago on this very blog, I made a post about Jordan Peterson.  It got a certain smattering of attention and it may have cost me a few Facebook friends.  All in all, that was a fun post to make.  I'm making another post about Dr. Peterson now because he is currently touring North America and Europe promoting his bestselling book 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos.  He's certainly had capacity crowds full of enthusiastic fans at many of his appearances.  Also, like before and as it is  with anyone who has amassed a certain amount of popularity, there are many who protest his appearances too. I know a venue in Calgary almost cancelled his appearance there because of protests.  I will be talking about one such protest along his tour.  Just like last time, this protest is in the form of a poster.  It reads as follows:

HA HA HA! Hilarious!

I'll bet this poster was made by the same "cerebral giant" who made that other one I had in my previous post.  It's got that same ball of emotion thinking it's 'grown up logic' kind of style.  So, once again, I will gleefully pick it apart bit by bit to have fun pointing out the rampant absurdities.  This will be fun.

No Misogyny - No Transphobia - Men Who Think They’re Lobsters Can Fuck Right Off

Every argument based on pure emotion always starts with an aggressive straw man.  Dr. Peterson has yet to display any indication of misogyny, transphobia, or............. him identifying as a lobster (Wow! What a stretch that is).   The "misogyny" this poster may be referring to could be from that Vice interview where his comments were blatantly taken out of context in order to create a cheap 'hit job'. He was merely pointing out the differences between men and women and how that affects various workplaces.  He wasn't putting down the very idea of women in the workplace at all. Of course, the "transphobia" refers to his objection to Canada's bill C-16 which would make all the new gender pronouns mandatory to say.  It is of course the MANDATORY part that raised his ire because that qualifies as compelled speech which violates )or at least steps on the toes) of free speech, something both he and I cannot abide.  That "men who think they're lobsters" comment is just too kookoo bananas to deal with so I'll just hold that up for ridicule on it own.

It seems that Jordan “Shitstain” Peterson is back in town spewing his pseudo-academic nonsense for any sorry sack of man with $50 in his pocket.

There are actually more than a few women attending Peterson's venues and they all genuinely agree with him and want to hear what he has to say.  Like it or not, Peterson is not some old Spike TV product that "BY MEN FOR MENNNNNNN!!!" but rather he is just espousing his wisdom to whomever will listen.  He targets no demographic, he just talks and people of all types come from all over.  This wide net that he's managed to cast upon the culture is one of the many reasons for his success.

It’s not a surprise.  This waste of skin has made his living preying on insecure men, trying to convince them their problems are caused by feminism instead of patriarchy.

I already explained in the previous paragraph how Peterson is not at all

"preying on insecure men". I think the person who put that on the poster is doing some insecure projection of their own.
The more egregious part I'd like to address is at the very end, where this poster claims Peterson says 'problems are caused by feminism instead of patriarchy'.  No, sorry. You cannot dismiss someone's words as "pseudo-academia" using an ideological boogeyman, that being the highly abstract concept of 'patriarchy'.  For the sake of argument, assuming Peterson's words are pseudo-academia, this statement would be like if Charles Manson poked his head into the compound in Waco, Texas where  David Koresh and his cult family lived and said, "Hey, everyone, come live at my ranch instead."  Trying to convince others to abandon their ideology and then submit to your ideology is............. well................. the dictionary definition of crazy, really.  (Before anyone tries to 'catch me in some hypocrisy here, no this blog post is NOT in any way me trying to convince anyone to follow Peterson. It's not my business what anyone does after they finish looking at any of my blog posts. I'm just giving my response to some misinformation is all).

“Stand up straight” “Emulate the lobster” What utter nonsense.

Um............. standing up straight is always good sound advice. Slouching helps nobody.  Also, 'take a lesson from' is not nearly the same as 'emulate'.  For example, the lesson in the Grasshopper and the Ant story is that we should be more like the ant and not like the grasshopper. By being like the ant, the story's author doesn't mean that we should did many intricate tunnels underground and carry foodstuff 50 times our own weight to our queen.  He meant that we should prepare ourselves for life and not frivolously waste our days like the grasshopper did.  All Jordan Peterson wants us to do is take a lesson from how lobsters behave.  If you consider common sense life lessons to be 'utter nonsense', well then............ you must have been born with your brain in backwards or something. I'm not sure how to account for that level of ignorance.

Men who are worth the air they breathe know that women and trans folk deserve respect.

Okay, once again, Jordan Peterson has never once argued against this.  It looks lime there's some more paranoid projection going on resulting in another 'man of straw' materializing.

People who are struggling to get by know that it’s bosses, landlords and cops screwing us over.

Um....................... what? How does this have anything to do with Dr. Peterson's lectures?  If the person who made this poster has a problem with any employer, building superintendent or police officer in the neighbourhood, then those are the people that the poster's author should be approaching with a list of grievances. Leave Peterson out of that, it's way out of his jurisdiction and none of his business.

Survival of the fittest is what got us into this mess.

So.......... you'd rather the gold medal go to the athlete that finished in 12th place or the Oscar be awarded to the actor or actress who gave a bland and forgettable performance that year?  Meritocracy is what makes the world go round. It always works best when the best people for the job get chosen to do that job.  As Lorne Michaels once pointed out when discussing how he hires cast members for Saturday Night Live, "talent is unfair". We can't choose who will be the best person for the job.  It's up to each individual in this world to find their talents and develop them to the best of their abilities so that they can get the jobs they want.  Or, if they sadly fall short of being the best, find a place where their talents can still be of some use whatever level they are at.  That 'survival of the fittest' system is not going away any time soon.

Having each other’s backs is gonna get us out.  Support your neighbours and fight for a feminist future.

A feminist future eh? You really thunk that's going to be some "grand

paradise'?  You'd really want to implement Anita Sarkeesian's "Listen and Believe" philosophy, where any time a woman accuses a man of rape we must 100% agree with the woman before any evidence is presented (if ever)?  Do you want to just do away with the rule of law and due process altogether?  Will abandoning justice make for a more just society somehow? How does that work?
Or maybe you'd want to implement the philosophy of another feminist (fucked if I can remember her name) who's bright idea is to round up every man on Earth and put them into "camps" of sorts.  So many people condemning Richard Spencer for his desire to create an 'ethno-state' yet nobody has even batted an eyelash for her proposal for an 'estro-state'.  So a bright future for you is orwellian tyranny, eh? Yeah, I'm going to stick to Jordan Peterson's common sense 12 rules thank you very much, even if it means over-analysing lobsters more than I care to.

Alright, no that bit of fun at an idiot's expense is behind us.  I'll just reiterate that Jordan Peterson is on a tour promoting his new book, a book of which I happily bought.

Also, as luck would have it, Dr. Peterson made a stop and gave a lecture in my sleepy little town and I got to go see him.

Exhibit A

Before this picture was taken, I handed Dr, Peterson one of the cards I was handing out at the Fan Expo back in May (that got me in just a tiny bit of trouble).  I showed him the side of the card with his image on it first.

I thought he'd find this at least mildly amusing.  But somehow I don't think he did.  Maybe the Nazi Monkey attacking him with the garrotte was too much for him.  It was indeed a direct reference to that incident in Ottawa where a crazed woman almost did that very thing.  My card was definitely a satirical swipe at his critics, not at him.  I was hoping he'd read the other side of the card and see what he thought of that.

Ah well.  Making this card the way I did was my presentation choice so I must take full responsibility for how Dr. Peterson received it.  It was not my intention to rattle or irk the man, but what's done is done.  I'd like to take this opportunity to make it up to him.  If he even finds this blog post at any time while surfing the net in his downtime, I'd like him to see the more pleasant image below.

It's a drawing I just did of Dr. Jordan Peterson hanging out with Lobster Jesus.  I hope he finds this a more pleasing image to look at.

Okay, that's the end of this blog post.  You can all go back to your Netflix and chilling or whatever it was you were doing.  And go clean your rooms, buckos!

Roger Rabbit Doesn't Have To Be "Funny"

It's my birthday again. So, like I've done many times on this blog of mine over the years, I will use this time to talk about one subject or another that has somewhat been nibbling at my craw for an amount of time.  Here are links to other posts I've made in the past:

Daffy Duck

Pepe Le Pew

Tweety

Jimi Hendrix

Barbra Streisand

You can read (or re-read) those posts at your leisure.  Whether you do that or not, I will still continue to elaborate on what I mean by this blog's title.  Since it's the 30th anniversary of the release of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, why not take this opportunity to do so?
In order to even start to explain what I mean by Roger not needing to be funny, I first have to give a bit of background information. First off, the animation for this movie was under the guidance of a man named Richard Williams.  He got his start in the animation industry working at the Disney studio mentoring under many of the highly skilled veteran animators, 9 of which came to be known as Disney's 9 Old Men.  Flash forward to the late 80's when the Roger Rabbit film is completed and ready for screening.  After the first test screening, Mr. Williams enthusiastically got on the phone and called one of those 9 Old Men, Frank Thomas.  The phone call went something like this:

Richard Williams: Hey, Frank, have you seen footage of Who Framed Roger Rabbit yet?

Frank Thomas: Yes I have.

RW: Well the first screening went over great. People loved it.

FT: OK

RW: You should've seen the kids when Judge Doom was about to shove Roger into the dip and kill him. They all kept shouting, "NO! NO! DON'T KILL HIM!!"

FT: .......He should have.

Ouch! That's some cold-blooded shade being thrown by Frank Thomas.  Although it's not just Mr. Thomas who felt that way. I've heard consensus that the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit is terrible simply because Roger Rabbit himself is a highly unlikeable character.  This right here is the sentiment that I have some contention with.   I do not think the movie was ruined at all by Roger and I'll explain my position with two main points.

1. Roger Rabbit merely represents the golden age of animation.  We're being asked to believe that Roger had a nice huge following with his own cartoon series that was popular around the year 1947 when this movie takes place.  That's how it's set up.  Just look at the short Roger cartoon, Something's Cookin', that begins the movie and how he is presented:

His 'severed' yet smiling head appears with a glowing halo behind it just like the Disney characters. 

This is followed by concentric circles just like the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

We then see a character card that other golden age studios, such as Walter Lantz or Terrytoons, would use especially when trying to promote new characters either being first introduced or are just starting to develop a heavy following.

And finally, the title card looks like the same design that MGM used at the start of their cartoons, especially any one of the Tom 'n' Jerry cartoons.

Then you see the basic situation in the cartoon itself.  The premise is that Roger is given the task of babysitting Baby Herman and making sure nothing happens to him..................... or else.

The mayhem ensues when Baby Herman's penchant for innocent mischief is a much bigger load to handle that Roger anticipated.  While watching him trying to accomplish his goal in any way he can, you can see the personality traits and basic schtick that Roger employs.

He has an altruistic nature similar to Mickey Mouse, Porky Pig or Andy Panda. 

He has the manic energy of Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker, and pretty much most characters from any of Tex Avery's filmography.

He even possesses that whole persona of a 'nice guy who's not too smart but will do what he can to solve any problem or injure himself trying' that makes Goofy so fun to watch.

You see, Roger Rabbit seems to have been carefully crafted to embody every single golden age cartoon character ever made.  That's pretty much the type of character creation process the Simpsons spoofed in the Poochie episode.  So it's somewhat understandable that people would find him unlikable.  Heck, that's kind of how the main characters Eddie Valiant and his girlfriend Dolores feel about Roger as they hang out with him too.
However, I feel people are putting some rather unrealistic expectations on ol' Roger. Because he's in the same realm of golden age cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Droopy, Woody Woodpecker, etc. that too many people expect Roger to instantly be at the same level of likability as those characters.  But, as anyone who's every created anything can tell you, that doesn't happen with just one cartoon.  Sure, for example, Bugs Bunny's first cartoon was a hit with audiences, but it was the many many cartoons afterwards that more often than not also did well with audiences are what established Bugs as a bonifide superstar character and no mere flash-in-the-pan that got lucky.
I think the movie's creators knew the uphill battle for the Roger character to win over audiences was because of this, which unfortunately gave the Rabbit that 'trying-too-hard-to-please' vibe around him which most undoubtedly contributed most to his lack of appeal.  However, I consider this to be a rather moot point because of the next point I want to make.

2. The movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit has a well crafted story.  It's plays like an homage to the great film noir detective movies that were prevalent in that same time period.  It contains a who-done-it murder mystery with many twists and turns that in my opinion all wraps up quite well.  Roger is simply a catalyst that helps this plot of intrigue move forward.  For this movie's story to work, Roger doesn't have to be a 'likeable' character per say.  It just has to be believable that Roger could have been a cartoon character in 1947 big enough that a major cartoon studio would be willing to give him work.  As long as his character can conceivably exist within that universe, I think the story still works. Whether Roger Rabbit himself could sustain any kind of following and be an appealing character for anyone in the real world is up to us as individuals. For some the answer is yes, for others it's no, and still others would have no opinion either way.

Although, Disney did take a gamble on Roger developing his own following as they released three other cartoons sometime after Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  The cartoons in question are Tummy Trouble, Roller Coaster Rabbit, and Trail Mix Up.

I'm embedding one of these cartoons below to end this blog post.  Feel free to judge for yourself if Roger is appealing enough or not to sustain any kind of a following.



Anyway, that's my birthday present to myself this year. I hope you had as much fun reading this post as I had writing it.