2010 – Page 13 – The Animation Anomaly

Anomaly Approved: Michael Sporn

Michael Sporn is a great man. The reason? Not only is a gifted animator who has run his own, indpendent studio for well over 20 years, he also has a blog, affectionately known as his Splog, where he posts every single day.

To say that his knowledge of animation is extensive would almost be an insult. The man knows an awful lot about the artform and not-coincidentally also happens to know a heck of a lot of people in the industry. This is relevant for two reasons: lots of animation folks read his Splog and a few help contribute to it by way of personal collections and stuff kept from the old days.

In this, Michael’s posts fall into a few main categories:

Mechanics posts
Creative posts
Event posts
Review posts
Photo posts

The mechanics posts are basically ones based on the nuts and bolts of animation. Timing, animating, characters, walk cycles, storyboards and so forth. These are really interesting to read as an outsider as the explanations and advice given is simple and straightforward. I may never use it, but you can never learn too much.

The creative posts look at animation design, things like backgrounds, layouts, character design (as opposed to drawing) etc. These posts are even better because they provide the reader with some fantastic art to look at. Michael doesn’t just stick to animation, he also posts about books, illustrations and the odd naughty cartoon thrown in for good measure.

The event posts are pretty straightforward. As a pillar within the animation community, Michael often attends events and he thankfully posts short recaps on most of them. Living in Baltimore, I really appreciate posts like this as I can find out what went on and how things went, even if I attend the event myself!

Michael’s review posts are often some of the best I can find for animated films. He is very objectionable and I highly commend him for this as it is so easy to become a cynical film critic. As an example, check out his reviews for Ponyo on the Cliffs by the Sea and The Secret of Kells (the same showing I went to).

Last but certainly not least, are his photo posts. Normally reserved for Sunday, these posts focus on life in New York city and the various eccentricities that one notices from living there. The photograph posts provide a break in the posting schedule and also mark the end of one week and the beginning of a new one.

With posts stretching back over 4 years (that’s every day for 4 years) the Splog itself is now a treasure-trove of information that can offer assistance even now. I have personally posted about stuff here on topics that Michael covered ages ago and who’s posts have been of enormous benefit to me.

With such an excellent repertoire of posts and his unique and thorough knowledge, I can safely say that Michael Sporn and his Splog are Anomaly Approved. 🙂

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Animation Directors Moving to Live-Action: Jumping a (Sinking) Ship?

Animation, Opinion, The Cleveland Show / Charles Kenny

It has been a topic of debate for quite some time and even within the animation community, there is suspicion that many students who study the artform are really looking for an easy leg-up into the film industry. While this may be true for some, it does imply that animation really is a second-class citizen in Hollywood, despite the proven track record of box-office receipts.

Michael Barrier has an insightful post on the topic of animation directors and the opportunities open to them at the present time. I highly recommend you head over to his site and read it.

In the post, he singles out Brad Bird for not only being perhaps the greatest director of his generation, but also for moving onto live-action and the unliklihood that we will see another animated film from him in the foreseeable future.

In that he may be correct. Brad is no longer at Pixar, where he developed my favourite, The Incredibles, and the somewhat drama-strewn Ratatouille, but is in line to direct Mission Impossible IV. Michael Barrier speculates that Brad may have moved on for the simple reason that he is unable to find a studio that is willing to create his kind of film.

In this he may be right. I wrote on the topic previously and it is fair to say that of the main animation studios in Hollywood, none bar Pixar are suited to Brad Bird. Barrier hints that Brad did not figure in the long-term plans at Pixar, which may be true. In this I am reminded of one of David Ogilvy’s maxims:

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

Brad is one of the most creative guys in the industry and the reality is he has been left to fend for himself in a sea of sharks. Directing a live-action movie may well be putting bread on his table but it is a real loss to the industry as a whole when one of its best people ups and jumps ship.

Animation directors are a enthusiastic bunch. The vast majority have a genuine love for the artform, and Brad Bird is certainly no different. He has three films to his name and each one is superb. In a way, he’s the Quentin Tarantino of animation, putting out a film every couple of years that wows people every time. The fact that he has a fine attention to detail is secondary.

With just three main studios and smaller independents (although even Henry Selick, director of Coraline has joined Disney in order to develop projects for them) the source of jobs is scarce to say the least.

Live-action represents a bigger pool to swim in with more variety thrown in for good measure. Unless and animator goes the personal or independent route, they are unlikely to be able to create an adult-orientated (i.e. serious) animated film. This is a shame but we have only ourselves and the studios to blame. They will never take a risk with animation, even Pixars supposedly ‘brave’ and ‘experimental’ film Wall-E was still well within the unspoken walls that imprison animation in the family-friendly market segment.

Time will tell how this trend develops. In the meantime, I agree with Michael Barrier in that studio head must make a dilligent effort to retain and nurture key creative talent, not insulate their favourites into an old-boys club of sorts. Fresh faces, even those better than you, will only serve to increase the studio as a whole. Their loss only serves to decrease the gene pool, with a corresponding drop in quality.

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Did the Shrek Series Outstay Its Welcome?

2 Comments / Animation / Charles Kenny

The original Shrek was a breath of fresh air in the otherwise rather rarefied world of feature animation. Besides Disney (and by extension, Pixar), no-one company seemed to be able to crack the whip when it came to attracting audiences. Enter Dreamworks with their debut CGI film about an big green ogre. Fairytales have, in this blogger’s opinion, been done to death in the animation world, but that is not what made Shrek bring in as much dough as he did.

Back in 2001 when Shrek first appeared, it was lauded as being every movie that Disney wasn’t. No song-and-dance numbers, no perfect princes and no sugar-coating on every corner of the screen. That was then, when such a thing was new and in style. Today, such films are commonplace, even expected. When was the last time you saw a CGI flick with some songs in it? Probably never.

Since the first movie was such a runaway success, we’ve had three more films and with each installment, the whole idea has gotten a little staler. The reason? Well, we’ve seen it all before haven’t we? The first film broke new ground in that it took a swipe at what was considered acceptable for a family film.

Since then the series has tried to outdo itself. I dare say that Shrek is somewhat of an over-saturated market.

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My Tumblelog: Genuinely Imported

Me / Charles Kenny

No, I’m not that vain or egotistical, but I do post a fair amount of stuff over on my Tumblelog. I’m just posting about it in case you didn’t know.

Tumblr by the way, is a pretty neat blogging platform that favours short posts at shroter intervals than a regular blog like this one does. I’ve been on there for nearly two years, so you already have your work cut out by having to visit my archive 🙂

As I’m heading to Milwaukee this evening for the weekend, don’t expect a new post until Sunday night, that’s not say I won’t have any surprises though 🙂

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Looney Tunes: Why Are They Falling in Popularity and What Can Be Done to Stop It?

Animation, Cartoon Network, Opinion, TV / Charles Kenny

Word come through from Cartoon Brew about a feature in the New York Times about the new, upcoming Looney Tunes TV to be broadcast on Cartoon Network leter this year. There was plenty of consternation a while back after the upfront where the show was unveiled. The comments on the Brew then as well as now were pretty much about as big a backlash as you could expect from the animation community regarding classic characters such as Bugs and Daffy. (By the way, I know I’ve touched on this topic before, but this is more of a commentary/opinion post and not nearly as sarcastic as the last one).

The NYT piece made light of the fact that kids these days don’t seem to know much if anything about the Looney Tunes. Quote from the article:

Ask a first grader to identify Bugs Bunny and the response more likely than not will be a blank stare. Dora, sure. Mickey, alive and kicking. But Porky who?

Anyone over the age of 15 will give you a wry smile as all the memories come flooding back. the same can’t be said for youger folks, they may even look at you as if you had two head, or began speaking Japanese!

The distinction was made between the Looney Tunes and Winnie the Pooh in that the latter still pulls in close to $5 billion in contrast to the $1 billion for Bugs & Co. Such a comparison isn’t really fair though. Winnie the Pooh isn’t exactly aimed at the same market, skewing much younger. Additionally, Winnie the Pooh has been longer established and has a seperate set of books to his name, all of which continue to bring in merchandise dollars.

Another aspect that is important to mention, Disney continually markets Winnie the Pooh. In contrast, Warner Bros. (or Time-Warner for that matter) has done little over the last 10 years. Let’s examine it together. Long ago, the Looney Tunes/Merrie Medodie shorts reigned supreme. Not only were the extremely popular, they were broadcast almost continuously, either as shorts themselves or as part of a TV show, e.g. The Bugs Bunny Show.

That time seems like the land of milk and honey compared to now. Would you be able to tell me where I could see a Looney Tunes short on TV today, or even this month? There’s no very many places is there? Sure we’ve had the odd marathon on Cartoon Network, usually on holidays when most people are distracted by turkey or what Santa Claus brought them.

Which brings us back to the age-old problem of “if it’s not readily available, no-one’s going to watch”. A fate which has befallen many fine cartoons and TV shows. Only a fool would try to convince you that an entertainment product can maintain its popoularity without advertising. Now when I say advertising, I don’t mean actual commercials, I mean the shows themselves! If a Looney Tunes short is on TV, that acts like a seven minute commercial that can entice people to watch another short.

The usual plan is to create a “new” TV show, or “update” the characters to the contemporary era, which in itself is a waste of time because within 5 years, the show is outdated. Remeber Lunatics Unleashed? Yeah, yeah I know, it still sucked when it was dubbed into Irish. Well, do you see any shows out there being “anime-fied”, doesn’t that seem so early-2000s? Well that’s basically what happens when you “update” classic cartoon characters, they go stale and end up getting locked in the Warner Vault.

So hear me out. Why not broadcast some of the classic shorts? Instead of, say, starting a TV show on the hour, why not show a short first? Your audience is already there, why not give them something new, or rather not really seen before? They’re still going to stick around for the show they got comfy for, right? The proof is in the pudding, Looney Tunes receipts are higher abroad then in the US. I know myself that RTÉ 2 in Ireland still broadcasts shorts during prime-time children’s programming. Guess how many Irish kids a re growing up with Bugs Bunny in their lives?

In addition, according to the NYT piece, there may be some new theatrical shorts on the way, not unlike “How to Hook Up Your Home Theater”, released in 2007. Well, that’s one thing, but why not plant the seed with some old favourites? Once you’ve guilt up a wee bit of an audience, you can then start throwing on some fertilizer in the form of new stuff. People are likely to be much more receptive to something fresh if they are more familiar with the old classics. Look at Tiny Toons, there was a TV show that gained a following all of it’s own. The classic crowd were mixed with newcomers, who eventually became popular in their own right, giving you a whole new property to exploit.

Personally, I think shorts should be filmed before every major feature film, not only does it increase my theatrical experience, I feel like I’m getting better value for money. That’s never a bad thing, eh?

While a new show is undoubtedly necessary to bring Bugs and Daffy in from the cold, a more comprehensive strategy is needed. Disney is the gold standard in this regard, Mickey Mouse is still as popular and well known as he has ever been, having said that, he as never exactly been out of the public’s attention either. Warner Bros. needs to do the same, starting with creeping the gang back onto screens slowly building their way up to the big stuff, i.e. films.

C’mon guys, Warner Brothers Animation is so much more than Detective Comics direct to DVD movies you still have plenty of fans out here.

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Napoleon Dynamite, Animated

Animation, FOX / Charles Kenny

The original Napoleon Dyanamite was the sleeper movie of 2004. Besides being a pretty decent movie, it gave rise to a number of cultural phenomenons, namely “Vote for Pedro” T-shirts. In recent days, word has come through AWN that an animated series based on the film is in the works.

There are a number of curious aspects to this announcement. First of all, why now, more than 5 years after the fact? Surely it would have made more sense to strike while the iron is hot? Surely nothing indicates the dwindling public appetite more than the Napoleon Dynamite Festival, which was held for a few years after the film was released but was discontinued due to near non-existent attendance numbers, right?

The other question I’m asking myself is where will it be broadcast? As it turns out, FOX is the one who is ~~hoping~~ betting heavily that the series will take off. When it would be broadcast is another matter. Sunday is firmly the realm of Seth McFarlane and FOX has yet to find an animated hit for a weeknight outside of The Simpsons.

The overall idea could stand up as a series, but the characters will not. Back in 2004 they were fun for 90-odd minutes, but can you imagine them coming back every single week? Things could get very stale very quick. Past experience has shown us that even a show with a great plot, diverse characters and progressive animation can get tossed over the fence almost as soon as it hits the airwaves.

Personally, I wish the Hess brothers all the best with their endevours, just don’t expect me to be waiting with baited breath.

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Crowdsourcing Animation – UPDATED

Animation / Charles Kenny

Animation is an expensive business, there’s no doubt about it. Besides being time-consuming (typically 6 months for a half-hour show) it also requires the talents of a vast number of people, from designers, writers, storyboard artists, animators, etc. etc. On the flipside, animation tends to have a very long life. For instance, we still watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs today, over 70 years after it was first released.

With such a large outlay of capital, animation has been scattered among various genres in the past. On the one hand, you had Disney with it’s big budget theatrical releases, on the other side, indie filmmakers were putting out shorts from the their bedrooms.

The arrival of the computer changed all that, and today, a film can literally be a one-man show made for a few thousand dollars. Having said that, a few thousand dollars is still a few thousand dollars and plenty of animators I know don’t happen to have that kind of money laying around to fund a film.

The historical (and risky) stratedgy is to make one film, shop it around and use it to get commissions and the like in order to fund a second. The cycle thus repeats giving the animator a somewhat healthy revenue stream that he or she can use to produce personal films on topics they enjoy. A great example of this is PES, who routinely undertakes commercials in order to put out such gems as Western Spaghetti.

The arrival of the internet changed everything. Besides changing distribution (YouTube) and the actual production itself (The Secret of Kells was put together in three very different continents), it has spurred the idea of “crowdsourcing”.

Crowdsourcing is a principle where many people doing a little piece of the work collectively contrbutes to a whole. The principle has been used in software for years. In fact the machine I’m typing this on right now runs on Linux, which has thousands of programmers actively contributing to its development.

With that in mind, the idea of crowdsourcing animation is that many people can donate to the capital funds needed to get a project off the ground. An excellent recent example is Joe Murray, creator of Rocko’s Modern Life and Camp Lazlo. His wish to create a creator-driven vidoe streaming website (Kaboing TV), which he describes as

…an animation and Cartoon Web channel with content worthy of television if television had the space and the balls to do it.

While admirable, Kaboing TV is unlikely to attract investment unless Joe has some proof that the idea will be successful. Enter Frog in a Suit, desribed as being:

…our chance to “turn the engine over ,and get the car onto the track.

In other words, the short is the nectar that entices the bee to come over and get cozy with the flower. Joe is certain that there is a market for a cartoon channel on the interent. The likes of Channel Frederator and Cartoon Brew TV all of these offer animation podcasts or shorts with each having a dedicated following. With this in mind, he has decided to reach out to the community and fans alike for some help getting the project off the ground.

Using the website Kickstarter to handle the nuts and bolts, Joe is already well on his way to achieving his goal. The interesting thing is, he only has 176 backers! He’ll need a few more before he’s finished, but it is astonishing that he can get a few shorts made with as little people as this. In contrast, the Simpsons and other mainstream cartoons require audiences in the millions in order to make them cost effective.

The idea has worked before, Nina Paley asked fans to help out when she was unable to release her film “Sita Sings the Blues” without coughing up $50,000 to copyright owners. Having gone into debt just making the film, Nina asked for donations in order to ensure her film would be seen. She managed to achieve her goal and today, with her film released under a Creativ Commons license, you can download it for free and share it with as many people as you like.

Crowdsourcing is not the ideal funding source in my opinion but it is the best if you are an independent filmmaker. New York hero Bobby Miller has been using the idea to fund the DVD release of his film, Tub, which will help promote his film without the need for exepensive marketing.

Until now, there has been a wide gulf between animation that was produced by a mainstream media company and those by independents. Through crowdsourcing, we may see a narrowing of this gap with the rise of medium-cost, independently made films that are of high quality, medium cost and still achieve satisfactory market acceptance. Time will tell, but for now, things look good.

UPDATE: All-round nice guy Lee Rubenstein has decided to fund his series, Fred & Earl through Kickstarter. In return he’s offering some unique gifts to doners, including the chance to voice a character in a future episode! Click here to get involved.

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Anime And Me (Or Anime And I For All The Grammar Police Out There)

1 Comment / Animation, Japan, Opinion / Charles Kenny

Anime. It’s one of those things, you either love it or you hate it, for the most part that is. Unlike the Philly Cheesteak place in Mechanicsburg, PA, where there is no middle ground; you either leave bursting at the seams or still wanting more, anime does have its casual fans. On the other hand, anime seems to have its fair share of fans and detractors alike. As for myself, I don’t love it to death but I don’t exactly hate it either.

For the longest time, my only exposure to the medium was Pokemon and the like. No joke, there’s not a lot of otaku (fans of anime, among other things Japanese) in Ireland, or at least not back in the day when I was growing up. It was only once I moved to the US the first time that I discovered (not entirely by accident I must admit) Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I will freely admit that this is still the only anime show I have on DVD (unless you count one disc of FullMetal Alchemist episodes). It is by far my favourite for reasons I am still not absolutely sure about. It may be the characters who continually collide and explode (or implode as the series progresses) or the overall story arc, I don’t know. What I do know is that I was willing to cough up $50 for the boxset plus the End of Evangelion and I’ve never regretted it.

Fans of western animation sometimes tend to deride or sneer at anime. This happens in reverse as well I should point out. No one form of animation is perfect, despite what Pixar would have you believe. Indeed there is much debate about just what is “anime” exactly. Some consider it any animation to come from Japan, others consider it a more specific form of Japanese animation. I’m going to be lazy for right now and send you to Wikipedia, who is just as vague as you can get on the subject. I intend to post about the origins/differences in a later post anyway.

Anime in general suffers from budgets that would make most Western animators weep for days on end. That’s why they make so much use of recurring backgrounds, limited animation (to the point of using only two or three positions for the mouth, and often having that the only moving thing on the screen) and action scenes that are as generic as you can get. Imagine what the great John K. would say? Actually, not a lot. he has a grand total of three blog posts on the subject. Here’s a quote I couldn’t resist sharing:

A decade after I worked on shows like the Transformers and being ashamed of it, young Spumco artists in the late 90s would come up to me in awe and recite whole storylines about how Gangamons beat up Rotundabeast with his triple tread whitewall tires while his half-human, half-koala girlfriend chewed eucalyptus paste in delight and bore him 17 new Astroboys and girls – all with spiky hair as a reward.

Priceless stuff. Anyway, my opinion towards the medium is that it is certainly no better or worse than western stuff. There were plenty of horrendous cartoons put out for years (decades?) before things got funkier in the 90s. Granted, they were on a scale that doesn’t even come close to something like Pokemon, which has an episode count of well into the thousands at this point, but the quality was much the same.

As for the actual types of shows? Personally, I seem to be able to enjoy something as sugary as Paniponi Dash just as easily as Akira. Arguably, Japan seems to have been able to maintain a sizeable market in serious (i.e. non-comedic) animation. Such a market was sadly lost in the US a long time ago (even with the best efforts of Ralp Bakshi in the 70s).

I don’t watch anime on a regular basis (too cheap to pay for cable) but I do watch it if I find it one somewhere (airplanes, bored, etc.) and I still enjoy it. I guess in a way it’s my guilty secret, even though it’s not really guilty and it’s not really a secret. I did actually attend an anime club on a few occasions. It was fun, and I will say that I really do prefer anime fans to Twilight ones (ughhhh, just typing that gave me the shivers).

As for the genres of anime? Well they’re far more varied than in the west that’s for sure. You can have your pick of action, sci-fi, romance, comedy and even magical girls! Sure, there is some repetition among them, but it’s no worse than an American TV show where the whole family goes camping and calamity ensues when Dad tries to put up the tent or find “natural” food.

A lot of anime also get the feature-length treatment. It’s important to draw a line of distinction between anime TV films (and OVAs) and actual films though. I deeply love the work of Hayao Miyazaki, to infer that his films are on the same level as something like Escaflowne is something that just can’t be done.

We should not have contempt for anime. Sure, the fans can be annoying, the non-synching mouths can be distracting and the percentage of recycled material would make Al Gore proud. But I can’t help but think that even the most die-hard Western animation fan would have to admit that it has made a significant impact on animation here over the last 30 years. If you look past its shortcomings, it can be really rewarding entertainment.

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A Quick Note on Movie Scores

2 Comments / Animation / Charles Kenny

Just a quick note to say I love them and that I intend to start reviewing the ones that I have. Look out for them over the next couple of months.

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Anomaly Appraisal: Daria: The Complete Series

Animation / Charles Kenny

This is a bit of a rare post, just warning you in advance. I don’t normally tend to rant about stuff, but when something as idiotic as I am about to describe occurs, I can’t help but bang my head against the wall.

Daria. We all know the show (or should for that matter). Broadcast on Music Television (which is what I prefer to call it, not only out of respect for Fred and Frank, but also because the acronym “MTV” has been turned into a redundant one, ironically enough as a result of shows such as Daria) starting in 1997, the show was a spin-off from the teenage animated show of the 90s, Beavis & Butthead. Centred on the eponymous Daria Morgendorffer and her life at home and in school, it was notable for being perhaps the most sarcasm filled show ever made.

This fact however, was to the show’s benefit. Daria was hugely popular with teens because it pretty much mocked authority in a much more subversive way than Beavis & Butthead. Not withstanding the usual high-school stereotypes (the jock footballer, the blonde cheerleader, nerds and geeks, etc.), the core of the cast were perfectly poised against each other while we, the audience, got the chance to sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

Should you watch this show? The short answer is yes, yes you should. The writing is still as sharp today as it was back then, which for a TV show is a pretty difficult thing to achieve, especially one such as Daria that uses poop-culture references fairly often.

But that is only part of the story. The real talking point about the Daria DVD release, is that all (or rather, 99%) of the original music has been substituted with original works. Why is this so? Well, according to series creator Glenn Eichler,

…the cost of licensing the many music bites we used would have made it impossible to release the collection (and for many years did).

So the bottom line is, because Daria used actual music samples in episodes, they must then be licensed again for a DVD release. This once again shows how ridiculous the whole music business is at the moment and why they continue to shoot themselves not only in the foot, but in the bloody face as well.

The long and the short of it is that because record companies demand a quick buck from 30 second recordings, a show must be altered. The studios don’t get a penny, so they end up with nothing. Why on earth would you do something like that?

If Music Television, the one channel that has perhaps done more to grow the music industry than any other, and indeed create a whole new industry in music videos has to pay for short bursts of actual songs, there is something seriously wrong.

Why oh why couldn’t someone have realized that if the actual music was used, there might be a upsurge in demand for the music? Don’t say it doesn’t work. Look at the Sporanos, they used that one Journey song and suddenly I can’t change the radio without hearing them. Once again, short-sightedness gets in the way and ruins everything for everyone in the process.

Does the change in music ruin the show? Not entirely, and it shouldn’t stop you from buying the boxset, It’s well worth the money, especially for 8 discs packed with episodes we all know and love.

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Anomaly Approved: Steve Lambe

Animation, Anomaly Approved / Charles Kenny

I tend to like character designers, I’m not sure why though, but it probably boils down to the vast variety of designs they normally put out, often drawing many different characters in the same show. Some have a speciality for envisioning characters that are the creations of others (Bill Morrison of Futurama and Bongo Comics springs to mind here) others can pull designs out of mid-air with the greatest of ease.

Today though, it’s a shout out to Steve Lambe, who has worked on the Nickelodeon/Frederator co-production, Fanboy & ChumChum as well as the Ricky Gervais Show on HBO. Steve is much more than a character designer though, he’s also done numerous title cards for the former and has a bit of a flair for illustrations too.

With mainstream TV animation there is the danger that character designs can get bogged down in repetitiveness (just look at the Simpsons for proof). That being said, most cartoons being put out on cable are interesting enough for the designer to engage in a bit of exploration or experimentation. One need only look at some of the character designs being put out for Adventure Time to see the superb work that can be done.

Steve is clearly adept to different styles. Take for example the difference between the designs for El Tigre and Fanboy & ChumChum.