Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett looks at the impact of streaming on animation.Last Saturday was the first one in decades where a television network didn't show any cartoons; the last one standing was The CW who retired their Vortexx animation block. And to be honest it wasn’t that great a loss, seeing as for the last couple of years Vortexx has consisted mostly of reruns of basic cable castoffs. And while a certain number of old boys did have a hissy fit over their sudden loss online the reaction of most of the Internet pretty much matched mine. That being this antique Saturday morning ritual could no longer survive in a 24 hour on-demand cable world. But it does mark the end of an era and an opportunity to look at just how much and how fast the animation business has changed.
Because the way cable supplanted broadcast TV, cable is being superseded by instant streaming. Something I've been slow to realize, like, when without warning Nickelodeon pulled Season 3 of Legend of Korra from their schedule and allowed the remaining episodes to be streamed online on their website (see "The Non-Cancellation of 'Legend of Korra'") I saw it as disrespect and a demotion. But as the show's co-creator Bryan Konietzko explained at a San Diego Comic Con panel while while Korra did "pretty good on TV" it's "online presence was just insane… the numbers in the digital streaming greatly outweighed the channel.” And that "pulling it off the channel and moving it to digital exclusively is part of the huge sea change in the whole industry."
Netflix is a good place to see that sea change. Their business model of streaming every episode of a series at once created "bringe watching" and changed how people watch television. It took a while for me to warm to the practice but after I watched the first episode of their dark character driven cartoon BoJack Horseman and liked it, then realized I could watch the entire series, I did. Happily. Kids have always had a predilection for watching and rewatching cartoons (if there had been binge watching when I was growing up I'd probably still be in my room watching Jonny Quest and The Herculoids). And that's where kids are going for their cartoons these days.
Accept for some minor modifications (Tony Stark's facial hair has been trimmed back to a soul path, The Hulk is sporting six-pack abs, etc.) most of the characters are more or less on model. With the exception of MODOK. Maybe it's because they're trying to defuse some of the character's grotesque ridiculousness, as well as waving away the fact that a Mobile Organism Designed Only For Killing really has no business being in a kids cartoon in the first place, animators have always felt the liberty to play with his design. In the 90's Iron Man cartoon he was played mostly for laughs and instead of being a head the size of a guy, he was a guy the size of a head (which is actually far creepier). And in Marvel Disc Wars: Avengers along with having a tendency to giggle like a school girl he's shown to be large enough to comfortably carry a full grown person on his pate. As well as having a cape. Growing out of his head.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
