Subtle, endearing, and wonderfully complex, Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe has been charming kid and adult audiences alike since its pilot aired in November 2013. Each eleven-minute episode slowly reveals the life and world of Steven Universe, a ten-year-old boy who…
Adult Animation
Maturing Animation on Cartoon Network
by Jacqueline Ristola • November 27, 2015 • 4 Comments
In writing about Cartoon Network and its successful television blocks [adult swim]* and Toonami, I find three intertwining ideas that help elucidates the network’s distinctive style and success in its adult animation, and will briefly explore them here. “Just for…
The Tedium is the Message: How Adult Animation Visualizes Monotony
by Evelyn Hielkema • November 20, 2015 • 1 Comment
Escapist animation aimed at both children and adults tends to bracket out “dull moments” for the sake of narrative efficiency. Sometimes, escaping from monotony becomes the subject of lengthy animated sequences, especially in works like the Wallace and Gromit shorts,…
Articulating Interiors of longing and Desire: “Asparagus” (1979) by Suzan Pitt.
by Chloe Feinberg • November 11, 2015 • 2 Comments
In Suzan Pitt’s 1979 animated film Asparagus, we follow a faceless doll-like figure as she moves through sensuous domestic interiors; as she defecates asparagus stalks into a toilet bowl, as she watches a forest of tangled exotic plants and flowers…