Focal Press Book and Natural Disasters

It's been a very eventful week for me – not only because of professional events but also because of natural events. Actually unnatural events.

The main professional event was the delivery of my new book for Focal Press. The title is “Selling Your Film Without Selling Out”. During last winter I wrote all my ideas about how to make a great animated film and John Holderried typed them up over the summer and within the last few weeks my studio has been furiously editing, proofing and designing the layouts of the books to send to the publisher the 1^st of September. If I do say so myself the book looks fantastic! It has all my secrets for animation and drawing. It's going to be a knockout when released in June. Be sure to watch for it.

And while I was hurriedly trying to get this book ready, NYC got hit with a very rare earthquake. Now coming from Oregon, I've experienced a lot of quakes since Oregon sits in the so-called “Ring of Fire”: a string of volcanos and tectonic plates that run all around the Pacific rim.

So when it hit our studio everyone looked at each other not knowing what to do. I heard some buildings actually evacuated – shades of 9/11. But as I sat there on my studio couch and the floor was vibrating, I thought “this is kind of a pleasant feeling – I could get to like this”.

Then one week later all the weather prognostications were warning about the arrival of hurricane Irene – the “Storm of the Century”. So with all the horrific warnings and steps by the city to be safe, like closing all public offices and transportation, I decided to hunker down in my apartment, get some drawing done and avoid the shit storm.

Well I woke up the next morning during the brunt of “Irene” and nothing! What a dud. I went outside – saw a few branches on the sidewalk, but nothing to get excited about. Where were the flying busses, barns, and cows? Where were the shattered windows and collapsed cranes? Where was the high tide and the major flooding? I know I should be happy that there was minimum loss of life and property. But damn, if there's going to be the “Storm of the Century” I want some storm. I want to see the “Day After” kind of devastation.

The big downside for me was a fundraiser being hosted by Robin and Kay in Marlboro, New York, for Signe and myself to help finance our respective feature films.

If NYC was spared, Olster county was not, the flooding was horrific. People were stranded because of downed bridges and overflowing rivers. Also electricity was out all over the area, so people were back to living in the stone age. So here we were, two artists from Manhattan, trying to raise money in a Haitian disaster area. Everyone was very nice – we had a great time, but barely broke even.

Like they say in animation – timing is everything.