Merry Christmas!

I'm almost, almost, almost ready for Chrismas. Finally got my cards out today!

Tintin is coming!

The new Spielberg movie "The Adventure of Tintin" is about to open, something I've been both looking forward to and dreading. It's been mentioned in several places that the Tintin books, while hugely successful in Europe, are little known here in America. That seems funny to me, since both my brother and I have been huge fans since childhood, growing up in the wilds of Michigan. I remember reading black and white reprints which were serialized in, I believe, Children's Digest back in the third grade, and we soon had a collection of most of the books at home. My brother Mark even wrote an essay about how Milou, (Snowy the dog in the English translation), was his favorite cartoon character of all for one of his college applications.

Now the Spielberg movie is coming out. The trailers I've seen are full of action and swooping cameras. They're exciting to watch. I've always enjoyed the old-fashioned kind of popcorn movies that Spielberg is so good at. That's the part that I'm looking forward to. What I'm not looking forward to is all the motion capture weirdness. No matter how well its done, the characters come off as soulless zombies. It's a choice I don't understand. If you're going to do a "live action" movie with these stories, why not just hire actors with a resemblance to the beloved characters and let it go at that? What we have to deal with are "actors" who are eerily not quite human and not quite the charming drawing we grew up with. Neither fish or fowl, as the old phrase goes.

I guess I'm just a purist. I would have loved to see an old-fashioned, well done, traditionally animated movie that really captured the spirit and look of these stories that I have loved. Most of all, I'm sorry that my brother Mark didn't get the chance to see this movie. I would have loved to hear his opinion.

CJ, the lawyer

Here's the final illustration that I did for my cousin, a "portrait" of his son CJ who's currently going to law school. I was trying to get it done in time for Christmas, but I guess I didn't quite make it. Oh well...