Animator. Director. Artist. Scapegoat.
On a lighter note, enjoy this online toy coded by my friend Margo Burns. It is based on “Face-O-Matic” cards I originally designed to teach very inhibited grad students to draw cartoon facial expressions for a visual storytelling class at Parsons. Turns out all ages enjoy it. The drawings are extremely simple, so even people who claim they have no drawing skills can copy them without fear.
Our first Minute Meme, Copying Is Not Theft, continues its steady spread online. The two versions currently most shared are QuestionCopyright.org’s “official” version, which we unfortunately named “best” instead of “official” (“best” implying a value judgement) and the arrangement by Willbe which uses my original wavery vocals (hence my unfortunate value judgement – the official/”best” version has vocals by professional Connie Champagne, which save me the embarrassment of hearing my own voice).
On the Willbe version youtube page, I found a pretty good suggestion in the comments: a Copy Bunny Progress bar. That was easy enough to make; here’s a truncated version in GIF format:
I also uploaded all the original .fla files to archive.org, so you can remix and modify to your heart’s content.
Also, did you know there’s a Copying Is Not Theft cloisonne pin? Well there is! And you can buy it.
Order it by clicking the new “Store” tab at mimiandeunice.com.
“I laughed out loud!…[The Intellectual Pooperty cartoons] are very very funny….however, if you could inform readers that this naive concept doesn’t correspond to the laws that actually exist, it would avoid encouraging them to believe that it does.”
—Richard Stallman
Here’s a photo of the book surrounded by more copies of the book with pages open in seductive poses:
Boy have I been remiss in posting news. First item: I spent last weekend in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, attending the Betty Boop Festival.
There I learned about the fascinating subculture of Betty Boop collectors. Betty was big in Japan in the 1930’s – I had no idea. I wish there were pictures of Japanese Betty collectibles online I could share with you, but there aren’t; maybe Betty collectors are all cagey due to the intense licensing restrictions that surround the character.
I also learned more about animation legend Grim Natwick, who grew up in Wisconsin Rapids before moving to LA and changing cultural history.
I met a lot of people including Madison filmmaker Robert Lughai, who blogged this Boop Festival report with photos. I also met the venerable Maggie Thompson of the venerable Comic Buyer’s Guide, who shares her Boop Festival report.
Animated, directed, written, produced, etc. by Nina Paley
Starring Mimi (of Mimi & Eunice)
Sound Design by Greg Sextro
Produced with assistance from QuestionCopyright.org
My friend Ken Levis named this beautiful, shy, wild yet affectionate creature “Peanut,” which may explain why she hides most of the time. I’m the only human other than Ken she will leave her hiding place in the closet for, and I’m cat-sitting this weekend. Peanut trusts me, but she doesn’t trust cameras, so I had to take these pictures from a distance with maximum zoom. If she finds out I turned her into this silly animated gif, she may never let me rub her belly again.