On Saturday on my way to Quick Draw!, I passed this gent dressed in a Cookie Monster/Star Wars mash-up and thought he was very funny. Then on my way up the escalator to the top floor, I suddenly thought it would be funny to bring him into Quick Draw! and have the panel draw other variations on that mash-up. So I ran back downstairs, found him and invited him to come up for the event later. He never showed up so we did the premise anyway…and he missed out on all that attention, plus I'd sent my assistant out to get him a cookie.
Several folks sent me this photo of him which is apparently on several different sites at the moment. I don't know where it originated so I can't ask permission from the photographer but if it's you, please let me know if it's okay to leave it up here and let me give you credit.
Then on Sunday when I walked into one of my panel rooms, there was the real Cookie Monster. But I've already told that story.
Sunday was my favorite day of the con. As I mentioned, it started with the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel and then we had what was probably the best Cartoon Voices panel we ever did…including the last-ever performance of that "Snow White" script that panel attendees are sick of. Here's a decent video of the panel which featured, left to right, Gregg Berger, Vanessa Marshall, Fred Tatasciore, Debra Wilson, Robin Atkin Downes and surprise (to him) guest, Bill Farmer…
Then we did a panel called Cover Story: Art of the Cover. It's an annual thing I host in which artists discuss designing covers for comic books and this time, we had Amanda Conner, Fiona Staples, Mark Brooks, Jae Lee and Stan Sakai. A lot of folks seem to love the "shop talk" aspect of it. (Note to Self: Next year, either get the con to make this panel longer or have one less artist on it so we can go even more in-depth.)
My final panel of the convention was one called The Business of Cartoon Voices. Let me tell you two quick stories as to how this panel came about…
QUICK STORY #1: Many moons ago, I hosted the first-ever panel at Comic-Con with cartoon voice actors. Now, they're all over the place but back in whatever year that was, I got the con to give me a small room and I got a bunch of such people to come down and demonstrate their craft. Within a few years, we were turning away so many attendees that they moved us into the biggest room they had and because of how easily we filled that hall, we added a second Cartoon Voice panel — one on Saturday, one on Sunday.
For a while, we took questions from the audience but I finally decided not to do that. The questions were almost all about how to get into the profession and they warranted longer, more detailed answers than time allowed. The questioners also had a tendency to audition as they were asking their questions and it was obvious that most of the audience didn't want to hear that. People would start walking out the moment I said, "Let's take some questions from the audience." So I decided to stop saying that and to think maybe there should be a separate panel focusing on how to get into the business.
QUICK STORY #2 and this may not be so quick: There are an awful lot of people out there, mostly young, who want a career in voicing cartoons. By "an awful lot," I mean way more than the business can handle. Even if every one of them had the skills of a Daws Butler or June Foray, there could not possibly be enough work for them all. It's simple math. Not everyone who wants to pitch for the Dodgers will get that opportunity either.
Since there are so many people who want in, there's a thriving industry out there to coach and teach these folks. In Los Angeles alone, there are somewhere between 100 and 300 classes or private coaches and many of them are very, very good. But some are not. Some are, to put it bluntly, ripping off eager wanna-bes and promising them that which can never be. If a teacher has any integrity at all, it begins with not accepting money from folks with no flair for the profession.
The late Daws Butler was, I think, the best teacher of voiceover skills ever. (He was also, I am prepared to argue, the best practitioner ever of his art but if you wanted to say it was Mel Blanc or Paul Frees or Frank Welker or someone else in that phylum, I wouldn't quarrel.) The very first thing Daws did was to turn down students who he believed lacked promise. You could not get into his class with money…and if he did allow you in, he did not take an excessive amount of it from you.
I keep hearing of cases where someone has done the opposite and that's why my friend, the also-late Earl Kress and I started this panel called The Business of Cartoon Voices. Earl was a student of Daws and he shared my anger at such cases. Here's a recent one…
A troubled woman, about my age, approached me at WonderCon and said she was desperate for advice. Her daughter, who's about 25, is studying with a Voice Coach. Her daughter dreams of being a Cartoon Voice performer and has no other dream in life. The mother, who loves her daughter, is shelling out large sums of cash to a Voice Coach who promises the young lady will have a luscious and lucrative career.
This has been going on for around eighteen months without the slightest hint of a job. When the mother asks, "Shouldn't she be getting auditions or an agent by now?" the V.C. says more lessons (i.e., more payments) are still necessary. The woman told me the amounts of the checks she has written and I was shocked. They pretty much amount to her life's savings. She said, "I don't know if I should keep paying him or find another teacher or what." She is clearly motivated by nothing more or less than to help her daughter achieve her dream.
Much of the money she has paid out has been to make "demo" recordings of her daughter's work — the kind of recordings to which agents and casting directors listen. She gave me the most recent one and her phone number and I went home, listened and called her. While I hate to say that anyone could not possibly have a career in a dreamed-of field, I will say that Daws Butler would never have taken this woman's money in the first place.
This kind of predatory exploitation of burgeoning talent bothers the heck outta me. Earl and I talked about it years ago and we decided to start this panel to educate beginners and because we wouldn't feel good if we didn't do something like this. So I bring in agents (this year, Sandie Schnarr of AVO and Cathey Lizzio of CESD) and actors (this year, Gregg Berger, Vanessa Marshall and Bill Farmer) and we give the audience the basics. Some people have paid thousands of dollars just to learn what we dispense for free in ninety minutes. Sandie and Cathey are, by the way, two of the best voiceover agents in the business.
No, there's no audio or video of the panel available but in the coming weeks, I'm going to take some space on this blog to summarize what was said. For now, let me just say: If you want to get into voiceover work, be real careful about who you give your money to. There are great coaches and teachers out there. (Bill Farmer is one and Bob Bergen is another.)
So that was Sunday and that was Comic-Con 2014. I'll have more to say about the convention in the coming weeks. In fact, I'll probably be writing about it until it's time to prep for next year's…which, by the way, is earlier in the month than usual. Comic-Con International 2015 will convene on July 8 and run through July 12. It's barely worth my time to unpack.