Comments on: Pooch Cafe animated strips now on YouTube

By: Mike Peterson

Mike Peterson — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:25:48 +0000

“>>> Of course everybody WANTS full animation, but nobody wants to PAY for it.

Great point! Thatâ€™s one reason why these little dohickies are not the â€œbe-all-and-end-allâ€ future of newspaper comic strips. Thereâ€™s something to be said about the subtleties of a static cartoon image and how it engages the audience by massaging their imagination while tickling their funny bone.”

Well, yeah, but nobody wants to pay for those, either.

Thank god we’ve got the Internet where art just HAPPENS!!!

By: Mike Cope

Mike Cope — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:32:54 +0000

>>> Of course everybody WANTS full animation, but nobody wants to PAY for it.

Great point! That’s one reason why these little dohickies are not the “be-all-and-end-all” future of newspaper comic strips. There’s something to be said about the subtleties of a static cartoon image and how it engages the audience by massaging their imagination while tickling their funny bone.

By: Kelly McNutt

Kelly McNutt — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:38:01 +0000

Of course everybody WANTS full animation, but nobody wants to PAY for it. I wouldn’t count on seeing an extended series of these any time soon.

By: Alan Jones

Alan Jones — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:18:59 +0000

These are fabulous. They work. Why? For one, these are not simply comic strips that are animated, not at all. By definition those sort of things would NOT work. We’ve seen such.

These are _cartoons_ as in animations as in a Terrytoon or Merry Melody, etc or even a Charlie Brown cartoons (!). They happen to be cartoons based on the Pooch Cafe strip.

The studio did a great job of marrying action to the story concepts, while managing to maintain what makes Pooch the great strip it is to begin with (characterizations). The ‘Catnip sequence is perfect example.

These serve to bolster the attraction of the comic strip IMO.

I for one want to see more such cartoons based on print/web strips. Bravo!

By: mike witmer

mike witmer — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:53:53 +0000

I agree with Scott and Piers. I love all the strips that have been animated. I just feel like it takes something away from the timing and the craft when they are interpreted by someone else. Specially Argyle Sweater. It’s such a well-written strip in it’s own form but the animation just feels force fed.

By: Norm Feuti

Norm Feuti — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:59:45 +0000

These are great. The best of the Ring Tales series I’ve seen so far IMO.

I agree that the style of Pooch CafÃ© lends itself well to animation.

By: Tom Wood

Tom Wood — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:59:35 +0000

The folks at Powerhouse Animation are great, very dedicated to the craft. I couldn’t afford them at the time a few years back, so I bought my own software/hardware. I like having my own tools now.

By: Scott Metzger

Scott Metzger — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:12:53 +0000

Piers, since you asked….no, you’re not alone.

“IMHO comic strips should be read, not heard.”

I feel the same way. I am a big fan of all the strips listed above. They are all excellent comic strips but the animation doesn’t do anything for me.

By: Piers Baker

Piers Baker — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:02:46 +0000

Pooch Cafe, Cul de Sac, Zits, Argyle Sweater and Lio are super wonderful fantastic comics but animating strips just doesn’t work for me. It’s not the voices (I thought the Cul de Sac ones were spot on) it’s the whole spoon-feeding a joke to the viewer rather than letting them do some of the work. IMHO comic strips should be read, not heard.

I feel bad saying this. Am I alone?

By: Anne Hambrock

Anne Hambrock — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:19:30 +0000

My favorite is the first one and I think it’s the elegance of the timing on it without the dialogue. Voices are such a tricky thing for a character that always has its own voice in your imagination. I found the voices on the dogs to just not match enough to my imagination, making them distracting for me.

Still very great funny stuff though!