What's Next

I've been thinking about what's next, while my students spend the next hour and 25 minutes doing the work they were supposed to do on Tuesday.

I keep coming back to cartoons/animation. When I was a little boy, cartoons are what got me

hooked into reading. When the Batman live-action TV show went off the air in March 1968, there was a cartoon series that fall for the 1968-69 TV season that, when combined with the 1966 New Adventures of Superman cartoons, formed the Batman/Superman hour. That show inspired me to seek out Batman, Superman (and Superboy!) comics to read.

That wasn't the only show on Saturday Morning TV that year. There was also a pile of Alex Toth-designed shows, including The Herculoids, Shazzan, Jonny Quest (some of the characters anyway), Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor, as well. And that's just what was on CBS! NBC had Birdman, The Galaxy Trio, Underdog, and the Super 6. ABC showed Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four. There were literally too many adventure shows to choose from! On Sunday was Aquaman's show, which also featured Justice League and Teen Titans cartoons. Is it any wonder I turned out to love superheroes? I was about to turn four, and they were EVERYWHERE.

Having shared these experiences with my dad, who worked third shift at the time and got home in the morning just in time to start the cartoon madness, until he pooped out and went to bed, I always remember watching superhero cartoons as a happy time.

This trend continued even when I wasn't allowed to watch cartoons very much anymore, during the dark times. Starting in 1969, superheroes were neutered, and we got fluff like Scooby-Doo. I was never even really a fan of Super Friends. The action was, how shall I say it, muted for new broadcast standards and practices. One show I did like in the 70s was the Star Trek cartoon. And Bill Krause's Challenger design that I recently commissioned has made me really think of the aesthetics of animation again. Cel-shaded main figures in front of fully painted backgrounds is a staple of animation, and that look is what I really enjoy about Challenger. I can find all kinds of paintings of space phenomena, and just drop one of my transparent PNG files of Challenger in front of it. It never fails to spur my imagination. This still happens in today's animation, but you may never have noticed it, because it's been going on for almost a century.

Now that I've concluded my Champions RPG campaign, I'm ready to work on something without a deadline, and with no intention of publishing or making money. I just want to do something for me. And I think I'm going to spend some time converting some of my many characters to animation style art, and to start world building what I think would be a fun world to play in. World building has always been one of my favorite things to do. Some of my favorite books that I've been reading lately have been game world sourcebooks from Mutants & Masterminds, which aren't limited to just superhero stuff, but even deal with the infrastructure of a city setting, including what music the various radio stations play. It's immersive, and allows for that zen-deep state of thought that lets you imagine what might be, and that appeals to me. I guess we'll see what happens.