Singapore, 07-28-2007
Circa 1990, in the suburbs of East Bajac Bajac, a small Baranggay in Olongapo City, lives a budding cartoonist. In exchange for a few minutes of pleasure, this young kid skips meal just to draw his favorite cartoon character. This passion to draw extends to the walls of St. Joseph’s High School. A few minutes walk from his home.
As the teacher exhorts how mathematics shape the life of successful people, this young kid sketches the yellow figure he loves to draw, the yellow figure with a hairdo the size of a giant saw. After a few minutes of meditating the concept or his favorite cartoon hero, he shows it to one of his great friends in anime land. “Sheeeeezeee”, this is how he says it but I forgot to ask him how he spells that word, so 17 years after I would assume that this is how he spells it. Christian Reyes, now a licensed Chemical Engineer working somewhere in the middle east would wave flags of complement in agreement to what I just have drawn…yes, that young artist was me. In a time where Adobe Photoshop was just a fragment of man’s imagination, I was already passionate in drawing. I don’t even have a dream of owning my own computer that time, but I was just engulfed in arts…different seasons to speak. And that time it was the rise of the 20th century’s best television series (awarded Dec 31, 1999, Time Magazine)1.
Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Sounds familiar? Matt Groening, the man behind this longest running American sitcom said in an interview that they have just passed their 400th episode and thought this was a landmark time2. 20 years after its creation, The Simpsons hit the big screen.
The people behind this series have their reasons for doing this movie just now, and one of them is that we don’t have digital animations back then. Though it took them some time to write the script it all fell in one perfect place. Director David Silverman hopes this could regenerate interest in 2D animation and that it would be a great bonus for them3. Why not? That would be a great bonus for us artists who are still alienated in 3D software programs.
Let’s travel back in time. Back in highschool.
A day after a typical Simpson episode on RPN 9 (it was aired on RPN right?) our gang would regroup in one secluded place of our classroom and cover ourselves with a great force field with The Simpson Zone written all over it. No one would dare enter our zone as we talk about how bleeding gums Murphy made the day again. Hmmm…I am having a difficult time remembering the exact episodes but 17 years later, here in Singapore, while shopping with my wife, the monument of my youth stood right before me. It was not just Bart (he was my cartoon hero), the complete family was there for photo ops. After a few minutes of convincing my wife to take a picture of me and the Homer gang, she did so, hurriedly. And here you saw it in my blogsite. A dream come true…. 17 years after my wandering mind digested this yellow humor. I finally got to have my picture taken with them.
Though I am still waiting for $7 worth of financial aid from my wife, I could only imagine how those who have watched this movie laughed their heart out and who among them where already alive when Homer’s annoyed grunt “D’oh!” first hit our existence.
Argh! I am really that old!
As the teacher exhorts how mathematics shape the life of successful people, this young kid sketches the yellow figure he loves to draw, the yellow figure with a hairdo the size of a giant saw. After a few minutes of meditating the concept or his favorite cartoon hero, he shows it to one of his great friends in anime land. “Sheeeeezeee”, this is how he says it but I forgot to ask him how he spells that word, so 17 years after I would assume that this is how he spells it. Christian Reyes, now a licensed Chemical Engineer working somewhere in the middle east would wave flags of complement in agreement to what I just have drawn…yes, that young artist was me. In a time where Adobe Photoshop was just a fragment of man’s imagination, I was already passionate in drawing. I don’t even have a dream of owning my own computer that time, but I was just engulfed in arts…different seasons to speak. And that time it was the rise of the 20th century’s best television series (awarded Dec 31, 1999, Time Magazine)1.
Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Sounds familiar? Matt Groening, the man behind this longest running American sitcom said in an interview that they have just passed their 400th episode and thought this was a landmark time2. 20 years after its creation, The Simpsons hit the big screen.
The people behind this series have their reasons for doing this movie just now, and one of them is that we don’t have digital animations back then. Though it took them some time to write the script it all fell in one perfect place. Director David Silverman hopes this could regenerate interest in 2D animation and that it would be a great bonus for them3. Why not? That would be a great bonus for us artists who are still alienated in 3D software programs.
Let’s travel back in time. Back in highschool.
A day after a typical Simpson episode on RPN 9 (it was aired on RPN right?) our gang would regroup in one secluded place of our classroom and cover ourselves with a great force field with The Simpson Zone written all over it. No one would dare enter our zone as we talk about how bleeding gums Murphy made the day again. Hmmm…I am having a difficult time remembering the exact episodes but 17 years later, here in Singapore, while shopping with my wife, the monument of my youth stood right before me. It was not just Bart (he was my cartoon hero), the complete family was there for photo ops. After a few minutes of convincing my wife to take a picture of me and the Homer gang, she did so, hurriedly. And here you saw it in my blogsite. A dream come true…. 17 years after my wandering mind digested this yellow humor. I finally got to have my picture taken with them.
Though I am still waiting for $7 worth of financial aid from my wife, I could only imagine how those who have watched this movie laughed their heart out and who among them where already alive when Homer’s annoyed grunt “D’oh!” first hit our existence.
Argh! I am really that old!
1. Wikipedia, The Simpons 2. First, Singapore, July 2007 issue 3. First, Singapore, July 2007 issue
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