Grey Blackwell: From graphics editor to animated cartoon genius
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008If you’re looking for a magnet to pull in eyeballs to our paper’s web site, perhaps you need find the modern equivalent of The Yellow Kid — a columnist or an attraction that creates so much buzz online that your readers can’t resist coming back, time and time again, for the next installment.
And to create that feature, you’d need someone like Grey Blackwell, a cartoonist and illustrator for The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. Grey produces side-splitting animated videos on various topics for newsobserver.com.
Grey, hard at work in his office at The N&O. He’s a little
shy about putting his face online, so we got a little help
from our pal Alfred E. Neuman.
—
A 1992 graduate of North Carolina State’s School of Design, Grey worked at The Gainesville (Ga.) Times for nearly two years before being hired away by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1994 — just in time to work on graphics for the Atlanta Olympics.
He came to Raleigh in March 1997, about five months after I left. The next year, he won an award from the National Cartoonist Society for his illustration work. And a year later, Grey was promoted to graphics editor of The N&O, a position he held for more than eight years.
A Grey Blackwell illustration that ran in
The News & Observer in January 2004.
—
He stepped down last year to become a full-time cartoonist/animator.
Grey agreed to answer a few questions about this new field he’s exploring:
Q. How did you get started doing these web cartoons for The N&O’s web site? Did you approach the editors with an idea? Or did they come to you?
A. Friends in the industry had been telling me for years that I should try Flash animation, since I was producing all of my illustrations in FreeHand. I had always had an interest in pursuing animation, but I never really considered it to be a legitimate career option. On my own time, I began dabbling in Flash, mostly doing cartoons to entertain my two sons.
Then came Chuck Amato, NCSU’s flamboyant football coach from 2000 to 2006. As a State grad, I attend almost all of their football games. During the 2004 season, Amato wore red sneakers on the sidelines in an effort to generate excitement for his team. Keep in mind he was already known for wearing garish shades. Add to that his barrel chest and high-pitched, raspy voice and he was truly a walking cartoon.
That same year, the movie Napoleon Dynamite was making the rounds. It quickly became one of my favorite movies. An idea hit me while driving home from work one evening in the summer of 2005. “Napoleon Amato?” I thought. “No. Chuck Dynamite!”
At that time, the N&O editors were just beginning to push web content. There had been meetings to brainstorm potential “special” projects for the web, but the idea of an animated cartoon was never seriously considered. I decided to do the cartoon on my own and give the editors the “right of first refusal.” I really expected them to say no, so I was already resigned to the idea that Chuck Dynamite would probably reside on my personal website.
Three frames from Grey’s first
animation, ‘Chuck Dynamite.’
—I’ll never forget the day I brought the cartoon into the office and began shopping it around to my editors. At one point, I had about ten people huddled around my computer monitor watching this “new” creature called the animated web cartoon. Some were genuinely laughing. Others were stroking their chins with concerned looks on their faces.
I’ve always given credit to N&O sports reporter Lorenzo Perez for getting the cartoons on the N&O site. He happened to be in my office while I was showing the cartoon to upper management, laughing hysterically and screaming “Don’t worry! This is funny!” Reluctantly, the decision was made to give it a shot.
I must admit, even I was surprised by the response it received. My e-mail In-box was overwhelmed with positive responses. My phone rang off the hook. Message boards lit up. I had been a print illustrator for years and never gotten this kind of response. Maybe, I thought, there’s something to this animation thing. Maybe I SHOULD make my cartoons move!
Since I had done an NCSU cartoon, I immediately began hearing interest in a UNC cartoon. In October of ‘05, I produced Miami Twice, which commented on football coach John Bunting’s shaky status at UNC. It, too, generated lots of buzz.
Two frames from Grey’s ‘Miami Vice’
parody, ‘Miami Twice.’
—Both cartoons went on to generate about 300,000 page views for newsobserver.com. At a time when clicks on the web are crucial to survival, it made sense for me to keep doing them. For the first time in my career, my interest in cartooning finally coincided with the interests of the newspaper. It was (and still is) a great feeling.
Q. Many papers are doing the video thing. Some are even doing cartoon animation. What make yours different from the rest — besides the excellent art and the spot-on writing — is the quality of the soundtrack. The voice acting, the music, the production are all of professional quality in your cartoons. Who are your collaborators? What’s the secret for getting that kind of help?
A. It helps to have friends in radio!
Working for a print publication, I obviously didn’t have access to sound equipment at the time I started doing the cartoons.
A high school buddy of mine had been producing a morning show for a local radio station and occasionally he’d ask me to do t-shirt designs, murals, etc. I called in a favor when I wanted to do Chuck Dynamite. I had heard their on-air personality impersonate Amato during their show, so I approached him with the idea. He was nice enough to give me an hour of his time to record the audio.
I truly believe that made all the difference. His audio added a professional quality to the production that set it apart from a lot of other stuff you see on the web.
As I began to do the cartoons more frequently, I tried hiring professional production companies for audio. While the quality of their work was high, it was also expensive.
Again, I turned to my friend in radio. Last year he took a position as producer of the Rick Dees morning show in LA. He put me in touch with Jay Brady, a voice impersonator that has worked with Rick for years on his Weekly Top 40 syndicated show.
As luck would have it, Jay also lives in the Raleigh area. He and I have collaborated on cartoons for more than a year now. He does a tremendous job at a reasonable price. The N&O has been nice enough to give me an audio budget so I can pay him for his efforts.
Q. You’re smack in the middle of ACC territory. You have the Carolina Hurricane across town and the Carolina Panthers downstate. Can you foresee any time you’ll ever run out of ideas for sports cartoons?
A. Creatively, I always knew I could sustain the cartoons. My only concern was on the production end of things.
My mind is always generating ideas for new cartoons. It’s just a matter of finding the time to produce them. I’m getting faster in terms of production, so I’ve moved to a weekly format this year. This is giving me more of an outlet for my ideas.
I’m also branching out from sports topics to pop culture and politics as well. Since this is an election year, I should be busy for a while.
Top: Obama Barack and Oprah Winfrey plot
to take over the world. Bottom: They’re
opposed by Bill and Hillary Clinton, ‘The
Conveniently Married Duo.’
—Q. How long does it take you to produce a web cartoon, starting from your final script until you upload it to the site?
It used to take me about 50 to 60 hours to produce one minute of animation. Now it takes about 35 hours.
To produce one cartoon per week, I try to write a new script and have it to Jay every Thursday. Then I begin illustrating and animating.
By Monday, I’m receiving audio from Jay via e-mail, editing it and adding it to the Flash document. Tuesday is more illustrating and animating.
Wednesday morning is “Hand and Mouth Day,” when I animate the final hand gestures and mouth movements. I usually have a cartoon ready to post by lunchtime Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon is spent creating promos for the web and print.
Grey’s ‘Statehouse Rock!‘ is a parody of the old
Schoolhouse Rock shorts they showed on ABC.
“Cool! A talking piece of paper,” says the kid
who comes across the budget bill on the steps
of the North Carolina legislature building.
“I can make a fortune with you on eBay!”
—
Q. It’s not surprising your writing is so good — you’ve free-lanced to Mad Magazine, among others. Is there a secret to good comedy writing?
A. There’s definitely a MAD influence to my writing. But, to be honest, I’ve only contributed to MAD as an artist, never a writer.
Two of Grey’s illustrations for Mad.
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When I first started freelancing for them, I tried submitting written pieces, but they were all rejected. That was before I spent years as Graphics Editor for the N&O. I really believe that my experience during that time helped with my writing. It forced me to write more succinctly, which is crucial when trying to capture an audience.Occasionally, readers will say that they hear things in my cartoons that they don’t hear elsewhere in media. I’m not sure I can explain why. I just try to be truthful. I think the best humor is grounded in truth. A little honesty, however brutal, is less painful when delivered through humor. That’s the Southern way!
Other illustrations by Grey Blackwell:
‘Men in Black 2′ for Entertainment
Weekly magazine.
Shaquille O’Neal for Sports
Illustrated Kids magazine.
Packaging design featuring LeBron James.
Grey has also produced work for America
Online, Disney, ESPN and Fox Sports Net.
—
Q. Which of your video productions has received the most feedback or greatest reaction? What kind of reaction did it receive?
A. That would have to be Coach Kommercial. It was a spoof of Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski that posted on March 1, 2006. It commented on Coach K’s multiple commercials that were being broadcast nationally during March Madness that season.
Top: A parody of an iPod commercial
starring Duke basketball coach Mike
Krzyzewski. Bottom: Grey’s take on
ESPN announcer Dick Vitale.
—
Within two weeks, the cartoon had generated 200,000 page views on newsobserver.com. It went on to do about 500,000-plus in traffic. I got e-mails and phone calls from all over the country.
The funniest was the call I got from the Nationwide Insurance corporate office. When I first answered the phone, I immediately assumed they were going to sue me because I had spoofed their MC Hammer commercial in the cartoon. They just laughed and said they wanted to use it in an in-house newsletter. Whew!
Top: Krzyzewski in a parody of a Nationwide
Insurance commercial. Bottom: The original commercial starring MC Hammer.
Watch the original commercial here.
Watch Grey’s parody here.
—Q. You’ve shifted focus from print graphics editor to a full-time multimedia position. Do you ever miss the print side?
A. I still occasionally produce illustrations for print, but there’s something about the animation side that I really enjoy. Had I known fifteen years ago that my true passion was animation, I probably would have done things a little differently - like taken a class in animation!
Q. If I want to produce work like Grey Blackwell, what skills do I need to develop? What applications do I need to learn?
A. It’s a complicated job description…
You have to know Flash and basic animation skills.
You have to develop your own illustration style. There are several software options for doing this. I still use FreeHand.
You have to have at least a basic knowledge of writing screenplays. I have a copy of Final Draft that I use for this, but TextEdit works just fine.
Although I hire voice talent, I still edit my own audio. N&O staffers like to use Audacity, but I like Peak.
Comedy Central’s ‘Lil’ Bush.’
—I recently had a nice phone conversation with Alex Stancioff, producer of the Comedy Central animated show Lil’ Bush. I wanted to pick his brain about Flash, which is what he uses to produce the show. After hearing that I handle most of the production work myself, he said my role would translate in TV-speak to that of “Executive Producer.” Who would have ever thought that newspapers would have the equivalent of Executive Producers on their staffs?
Q. Who is your favorite Mad artist, past or present, and why?
I found them all to be inspiring in their own way. And I still do.
Mort Drucker cover for Mad magazine.
—I always enjoyed Mort Drucker’s caricatures in the movie and TV parodies, and Tom Richmond has done an incredible job of stepping into that role (talk about big shoes to fill!).
I’ve always had an appreciation for Jack Davis’s illustration style as well. He’s also a fellow Southerner, which definitely bumps him to the top of my list.
Find a list of the animated shorts Grey has created for The N&O.
You can also see Grey’s portfolio on his personal web page.
Thanks for taking time out of your animation schedule to answer our questions, Grey. Now get back to work making us laugh!
