Up the Yangtze

China is fun, isn’t it?

 

The newest controversy surrounding the country is, of course, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Some feel the United States should boycott China for its numerous human rights violations, and Steven Spielberg, who did some work for the opening ceremony, left his position for precisely that reason. Plus the Dalai Lama visiting the United States reinvigorated interest in Tibet, and nobody wants to be the guy that goes against His Holiness. Well, nobody except China.

 

While I can’t say I’m a fan of China’s policies, I don’t think we should boycott the Olympics. One of the major problems we’ve had as a country in the past few years is our refusal to talk to certain countries that we disagree with. And I don’t mean scary, nuke-having countries, I mean countries like Cuba. Cuba! What the hell can they do to us? Where’s the harm in talking to Fidel or Raul? Shutting us off from China, even in a fairly small case like the Olympics is a bad idea and furthers the notion that we just don’t care.

 

But we do care. Sometimes a little too much.

Today’s cartoon actually happened to me. Way back in the 4^th grade (Endeavor Elementary for life!) we did animal reports, and someone reported on the Yangtze River Dolphin.

 

I had forgotten this fact until one day when my father and I were discussing/making fun of China and he mentioned its incredibly poor environmental conditions, specifically in the Yangtze River. This triggered my memory, and my response mirrored what Jillian said in the cartoon. I can only hope they mutated somehow.

 

Because I’m not that much of a hack, I did some research to make sure the cartoon was going to be accurate, and sure enough there aren’t any more Yangtze River dolphins.

 

First the lead in the toys and now this. When will you learn China?

 

But I kid China, they know I love them.

 

Visually, today’s cartoon changed quite a bit from what I had planned. Making the strip four panels instead of three panels changed the way each panel worked, so Jim and Jillian had to be in silhouette instead of being in close up as the amount of dialogue I needed dictated a much smaller amount of space to draw in. I actually think it turned out well, and it was neat to do some full body acting. There’s an old animator’s saying that everything you animate should work in silhouette. If you don’t know what’s happening, then you gotta reanimate it. I think the strip reads pretty well.

 

Fun Fact #40: Jim and Jillian’s hair is almost impossible to draw in silhouette. It's one of those weird things that only works in two dimensions, and if you try to work it out in three dimensions, it doesn’t work at all. God knows I’ve tried to figure out how it works, and it’s almost impossible to do without a complete redesign. I actually think it turned out okay here, so that buys me a little time.

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