Category — Animation

The time is finally upon us!!  Don’t miss the start of the awesome Random! Cartoons!  They are set to air tomorrow, December 6th, 2008 at varying times on Nicktoons Network.

Flavio with his voice, Emmy Award winning actor Rob Paulsen. Rob is, without a doubt, one of the best voice actors of our time.

My brother Mike made an AWESOME Random! Cartoon called Flavio, but still no info on when that one will air.

Flavio is an Italian goat who works as a dishwasher in a Pizzaria but aspires to be much more than that. Someday he hopes to be a great inventor like his hero Leonardo DaVinci. No one says it better than Flavio himself, “One-a day, straight to th’ top!”

Anyway, rush over to see the listings and be sure to change the location for your TV provider so you get the right time and channel.  Its set for 1:30 Eastern, 10:30 Pacific according to what I can tell.

First up on Saturday are Solomon FIX; MooBeard the Cow Pirate; Two Witch Sisters followed by Sunday’s airing of The Finster Finster Show; Adventure Time; Mind the Kitty.

Its going to be an awesome show!

I’ll of course annouce it as soon as Flavio is going to air as well!

Flavio, Mike Milo, Random! Cartoons, Frederator

Well, color me surprised.  I never though my blog would last longer than a Virgin Comic.

Back in 2006, I reported that Virgin had opened a joint venture with Gotham Entertainment to take advantage of a growing comic book and graphic novel market.

According to AWN, Virgin Comics produced 17 comic series in two years, as well as 18 trade paperback collections and three hardcover titles. The owner to the rights to these properties is unclear.

Started by Richard Branson, Deepak Chopra and his son Gotham Chopra, the company’s original goal was to create comics inspired by Indian and Hindu mythology for license out to film and merchandise companies to build global franchises.  Great idea!

As part of their work, Deepak Chopra wrote a biography of Buddha in comic form.  Bad idea!

AWN also reports:

Virgin also created a Director’s Cut line, featuring comics from Hollywood players like actor Edward Norton (DOCK WALLOPER), director Guy Ritchie (GAMEKEEPER) and director John Woo (SEVEN BROTHERS). Virgin hoped to turn these projects into major films.

Virgin’s Voices comic line featured works from actor Nicolas Cage (VOODOO CHILD), adult film star Jenna Jameson (SHADOW HUNTER) and musician Dave Stewart (ZOMBIE BROADWAY).

Ed Norton!??  Deepak Chopra??  Jenna Jameson??   Hmm..  I think they should have looked for more folks like John Woo and Guy Ritchie - at least they make a bit of sense.

Just because a person has had every major orafice of their body violated on camera does not mean that they will make a good comic book.  Maybe it was just the irony of Jenna Jameson making Virgin Comics?

Do other industries do stupid sh*t like this?  Never mind.  Don’t answer that.  I don’t think I could stomach the truth.

Virgin Comics, Comic Books

My brother was philosophizing about cheap clients on his blog.  He is spot on with his commentary.  I’m writing this as unfortunate proof that the sickness in not unique to the animation industry.

How is it that people can be this stupid?

Check out this advertisement for a web design job.

What the heck is his person thinking?  Hmm.  Let’s see.  I have to come to their office, train their sorry butt (because that’s really what they mean by “work with me on this”), and then I have to make 500 pages for their website.

OK.  Project understood.  Now, how much do they want to pay me for this?  UNDER $100!!!!!!!

UNDER $100.  Not even a hundred.  Under that.  Because, at $100, we’d be talking $0.20 a page, which is clearly too much to pay for my services.

Wow.

For anyone wondering, a half way decent website is going to cost you several thousand dollars.  Throw in e-commerce, and it is going to be more.  If you are flexible and willing to use open source stuff and are not a crazy design Nazi, you might be able to get it done for $5-7K.  If you want something that looks unique and professional, it will cost more.

If you want it based on a Content Management System so that you can update it yourself, it will cost even more.

If your site is worth having (financially), then its worth spending money on.  You don’t open a store and expect to do it with $500.  Why would anyone think that they can do it on the web?  ESPECIALLY if you are selling something!  At least with a store, people can come in and look at what you have, see who you are and make a decision to buy from you or not.  On the web, all they have to go by is your site.

Which site would you trust with your personal information? This one:

or this one:

Design matters.  Professionalism matters.  A look of legitimacy matters.  And, all of these are going to cost money.

Oh, and please don’t take this rant as evidence that I think I’m the best web specialist in the world.  Clearly I’m not.  I can’t design worth crap.  Yet, even I’m $250 an hour at my rack rate.  Do I do a lot of web work?  Yup, going on 15 years now.  Why would anyone expect to spend less on their online “entity” than they did on legally setting up their business?  Many lawyers are way more expensive than $250 an hour.  Find a web specialist than can command the same rate, and you won’t be sorry.  If you don’t, your site may look like this:

Anyway, I’m off my soapbox.  Sorry for all the suds.

Web Design, Web Site Costs, Cheap Clients

Do you remember this movie!?  It scared the crap out of me as a kid.  I was searching for something scary to post, and I ran across this pic that I shot last year at Comic-Con. 

Funny, ’cause I actually own Clash of the Titans on DVD now.

Anyway, some people find it odd that I would even mention Halloween, given that I am a Christian.  They see Halloween as a Satanic holiday, and something that all believers should eschew as a natural extension of their faith.

I hear that argument, I do.  I just don’t buy it.

First off, I really could care less about Halloween - to be honest, so I’m not “celebrating” anything.  If nothing else, its an opportunity for my kid to dress up in costume and bum candy from people. Whatever.  The focus that we have is not satanic, its fun and candy, nothing more.

Many people who frown on a Christian letting their kid dress up as Strawberry Shortcake have no problem with something like Christmas - simply because that holiday is supposed to be about Christ.  Well, it started out as a pagan ritual just as Halloween did, yet we’ve made it something different.  Of course, there are also some Christians out there that don’t want to celebrate Christmas either, for the aforementioned reason.  And, that’s fine with me.  But, for those that are frowning, let me remind you of Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37.

I’ll bet they never saw this coming during the initial marketing meeting…

Jim Samples resigns as head of Cartoon Network.

While many of you know this, I thought I would write a note to officially ”announce” that I’ve started a new job as a Solutions Architect for Artesia, the Digital Media Group of Open Text, Inc.

This change concludes a total of almost 8 years at Mainsoft, my previous employer.  Leaving Mainsoft was a tough decision, as the people there are some of the brightest and hardest working folks I’ve ever known.  Their products are rock solid and fit a real need in the market.  I’m truly thankful for my time there.  Eight years is a long time though.  I was looking for something with less cross country travel and something that was more indigenous to my home city of Los Angeles.  Enter Artesia!

Artesia focuses on solutions for the digital media ecosystem, meaning primarily providing Digital Asset Management software for companies who work with digital files.  A mouth full, I know…  In a nutshell, Artesia helps companies with huge amounts of digital content (images, video, Photoshop files, InDesign files, etc…) store, index and categorize that content and then provide for easy searching and distribution of it throughout the enterprise and to their partners.

The usage spans across most industries and verticals.  Companies like Major League Baseball use Artesia as the repository and workflow manager for creating their “Condensed Games” on MLB.TV.  A company like Molson Coors uses Artesia to help them manage brand consistency.  Getty Images uses Artesia to underpin their entire editorial division.  Many uses, but a single architecture.  Very flexible, and very neat!

Headquartered out of Rockville, MD (just outside of D.C.), Artesia is the leading company in the Digital Asset Management space.  Their customer list is hugely impressive, and the people have a lot of vision.  Its exciting to move to a new space and start fresh.  Mainsoft will be a tough act to follow, but Artesia seems to be up to the task.

Artesia, Digital Asset Management, DAM

Hey ya’ll, surf on over to the production blog for my brother’s new show Flavio! The pilot is being done at Frederator Studios and will air on Nickelodean as part of the Random Cartoons project. Very cool!

I’ve seen a zillion of my brother’s ideas over the years and a lot of them are very good, but this is by far the best of them! So, surf on by and drop a comment to show my bro some love! If you do, I’ma gonna put you ona da good guy list!

Flavio, Frederator Studios, What A Cartoon