Cel Wall Art (as in animation cel, not prison cell)

After hanging a few framed pieces of poster art in my apartment last year, I stood back and realized that I still had a really bare patch of wall space in a corner. I started to think about ideas to fill this space which at floor level is occupied by a set of three nesting end tables. Since space is limited and I like to plant my tree in that corner annually in December, I decided against a tall floor lamp. Yet at the same time, I didn't want more posters.

I'm of the mind-set that the right idea/solution to something will come along eventually if you just kind of marinate on it. In this case, inspiration arrived months later in the form of a visit to IKEA. I came across a huge pallet of two-pack, 8 1/2" x 6 1/2" frames and thought I can do something with these. I also thought about something a friend of mine once suggested: he said, 'you have so much of everyone else's work, why not display something of your own?'

Taking what was already in place as a basis for my decor - namely a reflection of my love of early-American animation and film as well as the contemporary stuff - I decided to create an homage to all of that using characters from my comic strip, Five & Tension. I would use a personal favorite from my existing strips as the subject, remove the dialogue from the panels to create the cel compositions and re-purpose the dialogue as silent film title cards.

What follows is the process:

I hand-inked the characters onto acetate sheets using a Rapidograph.

I next flipped the inked acetate sheets over and began to paint the cels using a black and white/greyscale acrylic paint palette.

Then I created the title cards in Photoshop using the font Hypatia Sans Pro and printed them on inkjet transparency sheets. I debated going truly period-authentic by adding the ornate curlicue frames around the text. I ultimately decided against it feeling that the 3" x 5" working space [after the addition of the mat] would feel cramped and busy or render the font too small.

Moving very carefully and deliberately, I hand-cut my own mats using a mat-cutting tool.

The cels were then attached to the mats using drafting dots. Canvas paper would act as a simple, yet textured background.

Finally, the completed cels and mats were framed.

The entire composition in close-up looks like this:

The featured gag is anachronistic to the period it's paying tribute to, which I guess also makes it a little tongue-in-cheek, too.

And this is how it looks mounted:

Now I just need to come up with an idea for the space to the left of it.

Emo Spider-Man

It is time to put the Spider-Man film franchise to sleep. Sure, Spider-Man 3 will set records in terms of ticket sales and potentially even DVD sales, but the film suffers from an ill-conceived story, excessive length and digital effects that often don’t blend well with the live-action shots.

Spider-man 3’s plot can be explained in a single sentence: Peter Parker, over-taken by a hostile space substance suddenly becomes emo Spider-Man. Given the amount of crying that Toby Maguire has done in these three films it’s only logical that he would take the next step and start wearing solid black tights and eyeliner (between this film and the Pirates of the Caribbean series, I don’t think there’s been this much eye make-up on male actors since the days of silent films). All he’s missing is a marble composition notebook filled with poetry and whiny musings.

Spider-Man 3 is saturated with examples of how CG animation and effects have made suspension of disbelief increasingly impossible these days at the movies. Granted it has allowed for some interesting camera work and subtle special effects, however it often fails in the realm of believable human and anthropomorphic characters.

Case in point: Flint Marko’s (Thomas Haden Church) transformation into Sandman in a radioactive sand silo begins with a shot of his cellular structure undergoing drastic changes. Reminiscent of Epcot’s Body Wars, the scene is effective because it’s not bound by the average audience’s intuitive notion of how an event like this should unfold. The opposite is true when Sandman’s full humanoid form is revealed. As anatomically correct as the filmmakers tried to render him, Sandman’s performance possesses crude movements similar to those of early 2-D (‘rubber hose’) and stop-motion (jerky-movement) animated characters. His initial reaction to his new form is expressed through a lot of pantomimed, ‘eye-less’ disbelief (kind of like slow-motion ‘jazz hands’ and what appears to be an attempt to express his frustration through tears that wouldn’t come – either that, or he was having a Visine moment on par with Ben Stein pouring a bucket of sand over an iris-emblazoned beach ball in their commercials).

Spider-Man 3’s faults rest not entirely with CG excess – if anything poor storytelling has made it all the more glaring. What is most-baffling is the previously and thoroughly explored event that steeled Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s resolve is shown in flashback (now with never before seen ‘missing’ footage!) at least three times while the substance that creates the truly under-developed Venom (Topher Grace) is never given such consideration. Avoiding any unnecessary exposition, a simple resolution may have been a Daily Bugle cover featuring a concise explanation (complete with a fill-in-the-blank government agency ‘sez’ tagline). Previously, whenever something has fallen from the sky in the New York tri-state area, it usually lands on someone’s car or house and makes the cover of a tabloid newspaper.

Oh, wait...I almost forgot. There's a third villain, New Goblin (James Franco). I don't know which villain was more 'throw-away': New Goblin or Venom. Although, Emo Spider-Man does deride New Goblin as "Goblin Junior."

Playing Cat and Mouse with the Continuity

In the screen shot below from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) has entered the office of R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern). After being dismissively gestured at to 'wait' by Maroon, Valiant scans the room and its memorabilia. He stops in front of an end table on which sits a framed photo of what appears to be a younger Maroon posed with Felix the Cat. To the right of the photo is a small figure of Mickey Mouse:


Later on in the film, Valiant returns to the office to confront Maroon in an effort to clear his name. A dispute involving fists, a gun and a seltzer bottle ensues. Valiant gains the upper-hand and begins to interrogate Maroon using his neck tie and a movieola. In between questions, Valiant happens to glance at a framed cartoon poster on the wall and sees the reflection of a gun pointed through the window on the frame’s glass. Valiant decides not to risk his own life to release Maroon’s neck tie from the movieola (as a result Maroon is shot twice in the back). Instead he ducks and rolls behind the same end table seen earlier. This time, another examination of the tabletop’s contents reveals the framed photo still in place however the Mickey Mouse figure is conspicuously missing:

This may have been a random continuity error, but Mickey was clearly in the line of ‘fire.’ He may have been intentionally removed for his own safety…or simply to remove temptation so the filmmakers wouldn't take a shot at Disney in one of their own films.