HarveyRothman
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foxglove and the parander
🕑 Added 2022-04-25 08:33:53 +0000 UTCBeen reading my grandmother's bestiary book lately, and it drives me nuts how much more imaginative medieval fact was than modern day fantasy writing. Anyway as soon as I read about the deer-like creature from Ethiopia that, when frightened, can turn into a nearby plant or object to hide itself, that's a cartoon right there! Also there's some more related doodles.
It got me thinking about how we will reject something novel, if it doesn't fit modern logic and reason (or zeitgeist generally), yet will accept bizarre concepts of yesteryear as quaint, appropriable concepts. I wouldn't have accepted the idea of the parander any other way, even if I had thought of it myself, because then I'd think it was nonsense demanding explanation. But here it is in an ancient text, providing no explanation, leaving us to just assume it is in the nature of this beast to perform acts of transmutation. The only way to sell the sceptical on silly flights of fancy is to either have a backlog of "references" to say your nonsense is "legitimised" by cultures past, or to present the nonsense in a style associated with that nonsense (e.g. Cuphead). Even Foxglove is set in chivalric times, which legitimises this nonsense as a reflection of how people's views shift, rather than simply "being".
That really says a lot about the art and culture of today. We're in a hauntological time loop, and it's boring. It leaves me feeling cold, like the artists are being disingenuous. Maybe they are genuine about their fondness for times gone past; but it doesn't even really feel like that because it usually feels pastiched to the point of parody. This is a projection of my own insecurities about what ideas I haven't borrowed, or exactly why I lean so hard into 70's style. Surely the same vitality can be achieved with means other than strictly emulating film stock, aberrations, Godfrey wobbling, and Gilliam cut-outs, none of which exist in any modern day workflow. Some of this stuff, it's like we're husks filled momentarily only by faux-nostalgia. Anything to get us out of this reality, unless it contradicts our present reason (which is always in a state of disquieting flux), so we look to the acceptably ignorant past, where all the fun ideas were, before we got cynical and "done everything".
Oliver Postgate's cartoons establish nonsense principles, and stays consistent with that invented logic throughout. I think that "sci-fi" approach should be more widely adopted; it stands on its own reason for as long as it is treated as true and isn't self-contradictory, and it's constructive of our nostalgia rather than regurgitating. Sadly, none of this will stand to the rapid-fire, dramatised, ADD media especially children are susceptible to, but I trust most children turn out alright. I frequented Newgrounds at age 8, for goodness sake (but that taught patience for loading times). I still watch 2008 YTP though, so what does that say?
People say "oh I love your 50's style", which is nice 'cause it means I'm doing something right (yet were Modernists ever questioning if they were doing Modernism right?), but then what a sacrifice it is to be authentic to an era, and not to the discovery of one's self. There's also just some real cognitive dissonance with 'boring yet secure welfare state' 70's style music, with lyrics about modern day inequalities and capitalism, yet these artists never seem aware of that. Youtube Recommendations: The Genre.
Ah, enough rambling. I should be more like my friends who are actually finishing cartoons. Then make something really vile just to set up the goalposts for what range of unacceptable thought I'm capable of. That way I won't be paralytically embarrassed by what I might regret making in future, and I can accept my own inconsistencies as a human.
Actually related to the drawings, I think the thumbnail technique of looking at the colouring really small is better than the desaturate everything trick. Desaturating everything looks at colour in only one dimension, the value, when there are 3 dimensions to creating contrast which are all important and produce different emotional responses. Also we don't "see" black and white the same way computers do. Bright red is darker than bright yellow, yet the computer will turn them both the exact same shade of grey, so sod that method. Making everything small guarantees the bits that matter contrast, whether in hue, saturation or value. Still not sure about Foxglove's colours though.
26th: Rereading this, I can be more concise and provide more context, but I'll save that for a public version of this if I can be bothered.
