Glad You Asked Department 7/12/13
Back in the late ’90s I did a little work in animation, creating projects like Fox’s THE SILVER SURFER, which I also ran – as much as a writer can run what is probably the only TV genre where writer-producers don’t get to call all the shots because the animator-directors are the official Big Cheeses – and supervising the writing on SURFER, SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED, DIABOLIK (a French series for all practical purposes although everyone wanted it to be more), and HBO’s SPAWN (a terrific series bujt the less said about it as an experience in my life the better).
As a result of that work (which you can get a quick overview of here), I’m often asked a lot of questions about the television animation process. One of the days, time permitting, I’ll write a nice long article on the subject. But until then I’m happy to use this space to answer the following question from Delia, who wants to writes:
I’ve been a secret fan of Saturday Morning animation for years and have always been amazed at the variation in quality. I’ve seen shows that obviously were intended for 8 year olds, like POKEMON, and shows that scaled upward in age past pre-teens and teens to the viewing group I’d call Young Adults, which clearly was the demo you aimed THE SILVER SURFER at.
Today’s question comes from Lew, who wastes no time: