Monday Morning Inspiration: Scott McCloud and Family

Scott McCloud explains his “four tribes” theory of comics at the TED conference.

Scott McCloud is one of my heroes. I was considering getting out of puppetry altogether back in early 2003 when I read his book Reinventing Comics and discovered his Morning Improv Blog (sadly, no longer updated). When I first read his arguments about the traditional difficulties cartoonists faced and how the internet could transform comics by opening up all kinds of creative opportunities for cartoonists I felt he could have just as easily been talking about puppeteers, and that was one of the things that led to PuppetVision.

TED recently put online a video of a talk Scott did that explains some of his theories about comics. It's a little short (TED only gives speakers 17 minutes to talk), but a great example of what a great presenter Scott is. You can also check out Scott on The Sound of Young America podcast.

Brilliance seems to run in the McCloud family. Not only was Scott's Dad a scientist, but his daughter Sky seems to be a chip off the old McCloud block. I also really enjoy reading Scott's wife Ivy's blog.

Special thanks to the always-helpful C.B. for not only sending this in, but introducing me to Scott's work in the first place about six years ago!

Comics Artists Playing With Puppets

For along time I've been fascinated by the similarities puppetry shares with comics and animation, in part because there's a great tradition of animation and comics cross-pollinating with puppetry. The best known examples are probably Henson projects like Muppet Babies and Dog City, but a number of independent artists like Ben, Steve Troop and Kevin Williams have created characters that exist in multiple media as puppets, comics and even animated characters.

Last year at the Memphis Comicon, Steve and Kevin were part of a panel discussion about puppetry along with Earl Kress (of Pinky & The Brain and Animaniacs fame). You can watch some of the proceedings here.