Author Archives: Tortola Tailspin

Our textbook, Of Mice and Magic, mentions that Walter Lantz was a survivor (1, 159).  Lantz was a survivor for many reasons, as he owned and operated his own cartoon studio for years, obtained the best talent when it was available, and when things went south, had the ability to take things into his own […] Continue reading →

Upon first glance, Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur (1) does not have a lot going for it. The cartoon, created in 1914, is in black and white, has no vocal sound (you need to read title cards), and has inconsistent animation (the background shimmers from time to time). But despite these qualities, Gertie, even today, […] Continue reading →

The first films created by the Lumière brothers were made to study what could be captured on film. The subjects of their films were the citizens of France and what they did in their day-to-day lives. The Lumière brothers filmed the people of the working class, the elites, family life, and modes of transportation (boats […] Continue reading →

The world has been conveying motion in art for hundreds of years in a variety of ways. Though early works were unable to create the illusion of movement before the late 19th – 20th centuries, they were still able to show motion through important actions and movements. Here, I have a Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) painting […] Continue reading →

After learning about the twelve principles of animation last class, I began to consider how important these principles are in animated films and cartoons. The first principle, squash and stretch, plays a very important role in animated films and cartoons because it can bring a character to life.  The basis of how the principle works […] Continue reading →

The House of the Scorpion (Scorpion, from here on out) is by far the easiest book I have read for this class (with the exception of WE3). Though the book has a straight-forward and somewhat predictable plot, the book is easy to understand with its familiar scenery, non-confusing vocabulary, well-developed characters and, most importantly, a […] Continue reading →

I am finding it easier to focus after walking a bit inside Rorschach. I felt dizzy coming in at first, but I didn’t want it to stop me from the task at hand. Everything looked good so far. No warning signals on the HUD or from the grunts. As long as the team stayed focused, […] Continue reading →

“She was an abstraction in an abstraction: an impossible intersection of dozens of bright panes, as if the disassembled tiles of a stained-glass window had each been set aglow and animated”. Blindsight, Pg. 142   After reading some of Part II in the book Blindsight, I found that the most compelling sentence in the book […] Continue reading →

Note: For the purposes of this blog, I made Akin a little older than he is in Part II, chap. 11, where I got my ideas from. ~KP   I have got to say, today had to be the weirdest, yet most interesting day in my life (well, in my new life). The day started […] Continue reading →

Diseases, though scary and deadly, are part of the everyday existence of man. Many diseases occur naturally, some treatable, some not, and has become something we have learned to accept as humans. Diseases become the fate of many humans, even the human character Lilith in the story Dawn. But after she wakes up in the […] Continue reading →