Cartoons and Me

I cannot remember a time before cartoons; among the first things I read were comics such as Garfield and Foxtrot. Their short lengths and simplistic languages made them easy to understand and over time, I was able to fully understand the depth of some of comics. From these beginnings, I expanded into similar styles such as Dilbert, Get Fuzzy, and Non Sequitur. After my family got the internet, I discovered the world of web comics. The fusion of comics and animation blew my mind, such as MS Paint Adventures. Soon, I discovered other sites such as XKCD, Questionable Content, and Order of the Stick that I still follow to this day.

Like any kid that grew up in the 1990s, I was exposed to a lot of Disney’s and Pixar’s films such as The Lion King and Toy Story. Those films had the ability to take me from my seat into a fantasy world were anything could happen. It was not until I was much older that I also realized that my ideal world was filled with adult related jokes that I could not capture as a child. This just made me appreciate and enjoy the films more.

I was also a kid that enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons. Such works as Doug, Hey Arnold, and Rocko’s Modern Life seemed to reflect my life and I imprinted myself on the shows. The older I got, the more mature shows I like, for example Family Guy and Futurama, but I still enjoy the older shows for a sense of nostalgia and appreciation for the complexity of how they are made.

I was around two or three when I saw my first anime, Akira and I was immediately drawn to the unique style and continued to fall in love, especially with Hayao Miyazaki’s and Katsuhiro Otomo’s works. Because of anime, I was able to understand that there was more that one style of cartoons and animation. It helped me differentiate between similar looking works such as anything made by Disney and Fox’s Anastasia.

As I grew up, my relationship with cartoons changed. I learned how simplistic styles could make a work more universally appealing while being very mature at the same time. Cartoons and animation are now a huge part of my life and I enjoy seeing as many different variations as I can. From big budgets to student experimental pieces, I am captivated and try to learn something new, not just about animation as a process, but about life as a whole. I could not imagine a world where cartoons were not part of my existence.