Manatee Aesthetics

According to South Park, the writers of somewhat popular TV series 'Family Guy' are in fact Manatees, whom write the series by pushing 'idea balls' into a chute, when three balls are combined they have a flashback scene ready to go.

The implicit insult being that, Family Guy can be written mechanically. This is not really fair, Family Guy can be written almost mechanically.
By freeing themselves of the conventions of story, you can just throw a bunch of pop culture references together with (or as) a paradigm shift that a viewer my find, mildly amusing.
It certainly is not the most intellectual series out there, and in recent years what little merit it had has descended into bitter stabs at other successful comics. Which I feel is a bit hypocritical coming from the Manatee that played Dr Von Schnizel in Hellboy 2.

Anyway, painful analogy explained. Nigo and Shephard Fairy. East and West. Two very successful designers that have risen out of the street scene.
There's plenty to admire betwixt them. By now everyone's seen the 'iconic' (and perhaps ironic) 'Obama - Hope' poster. To see the works of Nigo around you have to be tuned into it. It's most present in the form of 'Bape' and apart from kids in those monkey hoodies, you don't see white people wearing it much.

This isn't because it's 'uncool' to be asian, it's simply because it's easier to buy in South East Asia and Japan thus thuserly I'm guessing most BAPE merchandise that comes into this country, comes in on somebodies back rather than in a box.

You know somebody is a sellout when their name has a registered trademark following it wherever it is printed in a book that documents their design dynasty, and Nigo certainly is. I don't mind tis so muc because Japan being a collectivist society doesn't really have any concept or scruples against 'selling out'.

Nor for Shepard Fairy in the land of the free, where tall-poppies isn't so much a factor. Plus the guy has a foundation that supplies disadvantaged kids with art-supplies which is exactly what I'd do with his money.

But I put it to you that the two men are Manatees of design. Seth McFarlane sized Manatees.

You see Nigo, basically picked a gorilla head still from 'Planet of The Apes' plus a catchy slogan from the Ape's 10 commandments. Then had a designer friend run the Ape face through some early Mac Design software to come up with an easy stencil. Then printed it on a t-shirt. This went down sometime in 1993 in Harajuku.

Pop culture reference, dropped down a chute that we can call a 'Mac' and then transmitted to a market. A year later, he had the idea of combining the BAPE logo with camoflage, having attempted once to create my own disruptive visual pattern, I was impressed by the design skills here, but no, yesterday I read that they used the US Army's old 'Frog Skin' pattern, and simply incorporated the design into it using a Mac.

And that's pretty much the beginning and end of the BAPE story, which is surprising because it takes place on about the 3rd page of print, and the rest of the book is just various applications of the camo-print in its various colour variations as applied to commercial products including MAC cosmetics.

Then there's Shephard Fairy, his story is similar, he took Andre the Giant, a WWF figure, and referencing an existing photo, did a trace and came up with a number of stickers most notably the 'OBEY' sticker campaign.

Then pretty much after that he simply took pop-culture references, dropped them into a 3-colour stencil type formate using the Mac chute, and bingo: Iconic images left right and centre.

Maybe not in the west, but certainly in an East-West sphere Nigo and Shepard Fairy are the highest profile designers of our age. I'd be tempted to throw in Banksy but the guy is kind of an installation artist, in that his best works work with their surroundings, even if Stencils are computer generated aids.

But I feel they are manatees because as far as the contribution to the end artwork is concerned they really only 'select' and do a bit of grunt work. Similar to south-parks manatees that pick an idea ball and nudge it to the other end of the tank.

There's no doubt some technical skill they apply, but why doesn't the Studio FX artist that created the Ape mask, that became the costume that was photographed by someone that was then appropriated and stenciled by Nigo or one of his designer friends getting a bunch of royalties? Or the estate of Andre the Giant (I just assumed he was dead)?

The photographer that took the picture of Obama that SF used rolled over, but I think he should have taken a stand, if not about money, then about the artistic merit of being a manatee.

I'm not one of those people that attacks my work with a knife if its deemed derivitive in the slightest, but the ability of these men to make serious clams from almost little to no effort makes my stomach turn just a little.

I just question whether a manatee is an artist, I mean even Warhol's 'Art Factory' had some guiding philosophy behind it. I don't know with the Manatees. I would be more tempted to call them 'stylists' as people compensated for their taste and selection, if not their creative output.

Anyway, I highly recommend Southpark's 'Cartoon Wars'. Now those guys are artists!