"What I do is draw but if you make an animated feature obviously it takes a whole team of people, and Zippy is my work. I felt that turning it over to a team of people would be wrong"
- Bill Griffith
About this Quote
In this quote, Bill Griffith reviews the naturally personal nature of his creative process, especially concerning his production, Zippy the Pinhead. Griffith is mainly a cartoonist, and his work is driven by specific imagination and expression. When he says, "What I do is draw," he highlights his function as a particular artist who produces directly through his own hand, rather than through the collective efforts that other types of media, like animation, typically require.
Griffith contrasts his personal illustration process with the production of an animated feature, which "takes an entire team of individuals" to produce. Animation is a collective art type including numerous specialists, consisting of authors, voice stars, animators, sound designers, and producers, among others. Each person brings their expertise to produce a cohesive end product. Nevertheless, Griffith suggests a tension in between this collaborative requirement and the initial, solitary development of his work.
When he describes Zippy as "my work," he underscores a sense of individual ownership and maybe an intimate connection to his development. Zippy, being his creation, brings his distinct artistic signature and viewpoint. To "turn it over to a team of people" indicates relinquishing some control and enabling interpretations or modifications that might diverge from his original vision. This expression of hesitation highlights the potential loss of the singular voice and authenticity that comes from solo work.
Griffith's concern about turning Zippy into an animated feature stems from a worry of jeopardizing the character's essence and the individual expression embedded in the original creation. In essence, the quote talks to more comprehensive themes of creative stability, control, and the worth of specific expression versus collaborative interpretation on the planet of imaginative arts.
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