JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

I’m currently working on my own comics in the few weeks before Christmas. I got tired of working at home, so I’m now sharing a downtown studio space with comics artist John Heebink. It’s a nice location on busy Market street.

I have plotted out a pretty long sequence of Rocket Rabbit stories (about 152 pages), and I’m hoping to get at least a 48 page chunk done by early next year….

The first adventure is a 28 page story where Rocket and the Professor are confronted by the APES of WRATH. the second 22 page story has Rocket and the Professor playing bodyguard/babysitter to the PREZIDENT when he comes to San Fiasco. Hopefully I will have at least those two stories finished in time for Wondercon in February.

I have already arranged tables/booths at Wondercon, Ape, and Comic-con for next year, and I will be sharing with Rhode yet again.

Storyboarding at Pixar is over for now. I may be back in there early next year.

Speaking of Pixar, last night I went to see the INCREDIBLES again, (this time with an audience of people who had not worked on it) at Oakland’s beautiful Grand Lake Theatre. Of course the reaction was very positive, and the East Bay audience definately got a kick out of the East Bay references at the beginning of the film. I have to say that I enjoyed The Incredibles just as much if not more this (third) time. The group of us had to go to a diner afterwards and geek-out on all the Pixar goodness.

The trailer for POLAR EXPRESS was shown before the movie and it struck me how the more cartoony designs of the INCREDIBLES were more believable (for me) as characters.

I remember thinking a lot about this issue back when I was working on the (cancelled) FRANKENSTEIN project at ILM. A lot of times people in CG animation get hung up on the issue of “realism” when I think “believability” is what it is really all about. for example, Bugs Bunny is very believable but he isn’t at all realistic. Conversely, a lot of CG characters are realistic yet not all that believable. Anyway I am looking forward to seeing more CG films with unashamedly stylized human characters.