Animate: verb “to give life to… to give vigor and zest to… to make or design in such a way as to create apparently spontaneous lifelike movement…”

What’s so hard about animation? All you gotta do is sit down and make 20 million drawings that work together to create the illusion of life. Easy. Ha, ha. Ok, it’s really hard. You have to be God, one 24th of a second at a time. But the real difficulty doesn’t begin until you try to mix money into the picture. Because not even God can control marketing weasels.

A while back Bill Watterson described an exhausting battle with his syndicate over character licensing. I did a strip for the same syndicate (sadly, not a successful one) and I know the people there. They’re good people. But it’s still dangerous for the creator. What’s so bad about making a little merch? Nothing. I’m as big a whore as the next guy. Money from licensing deals is what supports the studios and allows people to spend time making these things in the first place.

But here’s one of many things I imagine ol’ Bill was fighting: If you don’t maintain tight control over your creations, the marketing weasels lose all sense of perspective, become self-destructive, pee in their own water dish, and take your work down with them. And monitoring them is a full-time job that can really eat into your creative time.

Here’s how it works: You spend all your energy and passion, and it almost kills you, but somehow you manage to breathe a tiny bit of life into a character… your baby. Then some genius comes along and– cha-ching– sells the rights to print that character’s face on a napkin. That people wipe their food on. On your character’s face. That you worked so hard to breathe life into. Chocolate cake and filth all over their face. How disrespectful. It shows contempt for the very idea of a character, because they only exist where we put them. It only makes sense if your goal is to just cash out, leaving behind the husks of other peoples’ once lively creations to rot and stink in the nostrils of posterity.

(These photos might be poor examples. Some of these particular characters were created by committees specifically to have their faces on napkins… but you get the point. The animators that worked on them surely saw them as alive in some way. They had to.)

There’s a great chapter in the book, Dr. Seuss: American Icon, that describes his licensing troubles. Not to mention the abominations that have been made in his name since he died. They have a Cat in the Hat book with pictures of Mike Myers, instead of the original illustrations! I can’t even type that without throwing up in the back of my mouth. Those characters have now been polluted and corrupted. And in the long run, it’s not even good marketing, because they shittied the very product they were trying to milk. Kids aren’t going to have fond memories of that crap, so no one is going to buy it in the future. Way to go. Is shittied a word?

Mickey Mouse is a logo. The Looney Tunes characters are mummified. They’re not in real films or books anymore. They don’t take risks, say controversial things, feel joy, fear, pride, envy… They decorate sweatshirts, grinning and staring, numb and stiff, careful not to offend. It’s a wax museum for cartoon characters.

Doesn’t it seem like there is an inherent contradiction between the very definition of animation– giving life, vigor and zest– and plastering a character’s mug on disposable and absorbant sanitary products?

How about diapers?! We get the kids started at a young age. By the time they get older and have money to spend, they’ll already have fond associations with our characters!

Hey, that’s Winnie the Pooh! I remember him! I used to shit on his face!

Obviously, most of you marketing folks are not weasels (you know who you are). And the problem isn’t napkins and diapers. These examples are just symbolic. There’s nothing wrong with a souvenir. Maybe it’s just a matter of balance.

The very least we should expect as fans and artists is that the licensing stop recklessly undermining the art. This is well-worn territory. The cart is before the horse when merchandise becomes the one and only goal, films and books are only made to sell products, and people who don’t care about stories are in charge of stories. They don’t see the characters as alive– it’s not their job, nor should it be. Their job is to see “napkin opportunities” and “potential diaper impression franchises.” Not to be overly dramatic about it, but it’s ruining everything.

UPDATE: Since there was some great feedback on this rant, a follow-up has been posted here!