Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Off the Table

Here's an e-mail from Brian Trester that deserves a public answer...

From what I have read in your strike updates, it seems to me that the WGA does not seem to respect animation writers or the field of animation. It seems to me they (the writers of animation) always get shafted and dumped as part of the compromises. I know you're a big name in writing for animation so my question for you is if I was solely an animation writer, why would I continue to support the guild when they always dump my demands in order to reach a better deal or just a deal with the motion picture people?

I maybe misunderstanding this and be 100% wrong, but that's what I perceive has gone on in the last several contracts, including this one. Also has there ever been talk of Animation writers forming their own guild to look after their needs since they seem to fall through the cracks quite a lot?

Brian, I was smack dab in the middle of the WGA's attempts to organize Animation Writers from about 1978 through the early nineties, and I've been watching the situation since then and occasionally helping out. Within the Guild, there's often a tendency for people to focus on their specific work area — feature writers who care only about feature writing, sitcom writers who think the WGA should expend all its capital on the needs of sitcom writers, etc. Apart from being neglected in that context, I have never seen any disrespect shown to the field of writing cartoons. When I was out lobbying various Guild officials and influential members to address the issue, I got back nearly 100% enthusiasm. It wasn't everyone's highest priority but everyone was in favor of it.

Unfortunately, there is the Art of the Possible. We're governed by labor laws, most of which favor the status quo. I was heavily involved in two major efforts — one to get the National Labor Relations Board to permit what is called Craft Severance. That means carving a group of employees out of one union (in this case, Local 839, the Animation Union) and allowing them to join another (in this case, the WGA). We lost in a very puzzling, illogical decision. Later, there was an attempt to do exactly what you ask about...form a guild for Animation Writers. Again, it was back to the same N.L.R.B. hearing rooms. This time, we won the battle on the regional level and then got reversed, via another of those illogical rulings, at the national. To make it all more baffling, a major part of the reversal was later reversed but there are other obstacles to trying that route again.

A union cannot do the impossible, and I am satisfied the WGA has done its best. I'm also satisfied that they're going to keep at it and that further inroads will occur. The Writers Guild will never represent all cartoon writing — it doesn't even represent all live-action writing — but it will represent more in the future.

I think you're wrong that they always dump Toon Writers' demands to reach a better deal in other areas. As far as I can tell, this latest negotiation is the first time anything relating to Animation has been a real demand. Actually, in many of its past negotiations, the WGA has been denied the opportunity to even present real demands of this kind. This time, it was able to make some and the one relating to Animation Writing among the first ones out of the briefcase. Yes, it eventually was taken off the table but I think this is the first time it ever really got onto the table. A number of past Guild advances suffered similar fates before eventually becoming reality.

One last thing. There's a limit to how much any union can do to improve your lot as a writer. There are studios that work off a financial model of delivering the cheapest product and often by screwing over the people who work for them. There's only one real way for a writer to avoid being abused by this kind of company and it's not "work hard to get WGA representation there." That's not going to happen with a certain kind of employer. The way to protect yourself is not to work for them. Some jobs are just like marinating yourself and leaping into the lion's den, and you shouldn't be surprised when you get gnawed upon.

• Posted at 10:48 PM · LINK

Loose Change

Lately, everyone running for public office — Democrats and Republicans alike — seems to be campaigning as The Candidate for Change. They mention "change" more often than the panhandlers outside Canter's Delicatessen.

And what's odd to me is that the candidates rarely bother to emphasize that they're (presumably) talking about change for the better. I mean, no matter how bad things are, someone could change them for the worse. Supposing a candidate was in favor of banning all delicious food, giving everyone in America a case of whooping cough, letting everyone out our prisons and issuing them a loaded howitzer as they leave, replacing our currency with bowls of gravy, nuking one random U.S. city per week and banning all TV programming that does not include Tom Arnold. That would be a platform for change. It would also be the old Lyndon LaRouche platform but never mind that now.

It's good to be open to change and willing to change...but change just for the sake of change is kind of simple-minded. And I've come to think that when a candidate says that, it's because they and/or their handlers have decided that the American people are simple-minded.

If we believe this recent AP poll (and the others take you pretty much to the same place), the country is really disgusted with George W. Bush and Congress. Bush is at an all-time low, even with Republicans. Overall, he's at 30% and Congress is at 22%. I suspect the latter number is misleading because it encompasses two disparate kinds of dissatisfaction: Some voters are mad at Congress because of all it's done to oppose the Bush agenda and some are mad because it hasn't done more. Also, as the above-linked article notes, "[Congress] usually has lower ratings than the president because it is an institution people love to criticize. Many have negative views of Congress while still supporting their own House and Senate members." This country may report strong disapproval of Congress but we're going to vote to re-elect an overwhelming majority of those people.

But clearly, we aren't happy with two of our three branches of government...and if they asked about the judiciary, they'd probably score just as poorly. At some point, some focus group testing of us must have realized that we've started to salivate at the mere mention of the word, "change." We're so desperate to have confidence in someone in Washington that we aren't even thinking about making the wrong kind of changes. We should. Because we so often do.

• Posted at 10:34 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Did you ever wonder how they came up with the name for Kellogg's Raisin Bran? Yeah, me neither. But I always love to hear the voices of Daws Butler (who plays Mr. Jinks in this spot) and Don Messick (who plays Pixie). Here's a vintage cereal commercial...

• Posted at 10:07 AM · LINK

Software Search

Hey, maybe you can help me with something. That is, if you own and know about BlackBerry handheld devices.

I'm looking for a good "notes" program for it...something on which you can enter notes and tasks and a "to do" list and maybe even maintain your calendar. The ideal software — and I'm not sure anyone makes this — would have a PC Desktop interface and could be synched up via the web. Back when I had a Pocket PC, I used a program called PhatNotes that was ideal for this. When I chose to upgrade to a BlackBerry, a salesguy told me (falsely) that he was reasonably sure PhatNotes had a version that would run on a BlackBerry and that if they didn't, there were several other programs that would give me the same thing. Well, there is no PhatNotes for BlackBerry and I've yet to find anything comparable. If you know of one, send me a note. Maybe I'll even pick it up on my Blackberry.

• Posted at 10:04 AM · LINK

me on the radio

I'll be on Stu's Show this afternoon for a while, discussing the resolution of the Writers Strike. Stu's Show is the keystone program over on Shokus Internet Radio, our favorite online station. It can be heard live on your computer beginning at 4 PM Pacific Time, which is 7 PM back east and other times in other places. Stu Shostak and I will be discussing the strike at the top of the program for 20 or 30 minutes and I know you'll want to listen in, which you can do by clicking on this link at the appropriate time. The show then repeats throughout the rest of the week in (most days) the same time slot.

• Posted at 9:54 AM · LINK

Wednesday Morning

The other day here, I wrote about receiving the first printed copy of my new book, Kirby: King of Comics and instantly finding a typo. I hope no one took this as any sort of criticism or complaint about its publisher or any of the fine folks who worked on the book. This rule — when you first open your new book, you find a typo — is something I've been saying for years and it applies to every book from every publisher. There's something about the finality of it finally being printed that causes you to suddenly notice mistakes that weren't visible when it was possible to fix them.

I wrote about this many years ago in a column that was reprinted in my book, Superheroes in My Pants. And of course, when I got the first copy of that book from the printer, I instantly found a typo.

Let the record show that I am enormously happy with my new Kirby book. I have never been reticent to complain mightily about companies or editors with (or for) which I work and I have zero beefs this time. If you're a writer or you want to be a writer, I hope you someday have as fine an experience as I've had with my editor on this one, Charlie Kochman.

• Posted at 1:55 AM · LINK