Calvin and Max's most recent posts were pretty damning of pretension and personal opinion, and also of independent thought and scholarly debate. They're at school to be like lawyers or some shit, so it isn't really their fault. They got brainwashed or something.
I guess it makes me an ignorant redneck according to Max and Calvin, but nothing in the world brings me more joy than identifying things as shit and then loudly proclaiming all the ways they are shit to everyone in earshot. Now I have the internet so everyone in the world can read my childish rants about how Asher Roth IS awful, no argument, the lowest low in recent creative history, is committing audible treason, makes me poop blood, etc. forever.
HOWEVER, today I am going to be positive. "You Should Really Care About This" is what I calls this new series, and in it I will spotlight artists who give a damn and the beautiful and sincere work they make. I'm going to start with:
Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time!
You've maybe seen Adventure Time? Maybe you think it's the best thing ever? That's because it is. Pendleton Ward made that (I guess probably with some other people but WHO CARES?) and it's the best thing to happen to television in the last decade. In a time where good things seldom happen, Adventure Time was picked up by Cartoon Network to be made in to a full fledged series that starts like next month maybe?
About the Artist: I don't know anything about Pendleton Ward, mostly because I've expended no effort in doing any research about him, but also because he seems like a normal enough dude that there probably isn't that much very exciting about him. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, so he must be boring. Also, he looks sort of like a very hip hobo. That's all I got.
I could unfairly compare Adventure Time to Spongebob Squarepants, but it's more like Spongebob is Brittany Spears and Adventure Time is Lady Gaga. Spongebob pushed the envelope for it's time and garnered a lot of mainstream attention and a shit load of money but hasn't done much of note for the past five or six years. Adventure Time (and its contemporaries: Chowder and The Misadventures of Flapjack) took the Spongebob formula, characterized by absurdism and traditional animation, and pushed it to it's logical conclusion and also added in a lot of sexual ambiguity and outfits made of Kermit the Frog. I'm sure Adventure Time and those other shows will be processed into action figures and lunch boxes in short order, but right now they exist in a form entirely separate from commercialization. They're abstract and intelligent and almost inaccessible in a way that can't be captured on a Hot Topic t-shirt. These shows appear to be made entirely for the entertainment of the people making them, and that's the only way to make really meaningful work.
CARTOOOOONS!
Dig this blog to see production materials for Adventure Time.
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