Ken Griffey Jr. is returning to my hometown Seattle Mariners. I’m excited! I have a treat for folks tomorrow, but in the meantime, I present to you, what was, in my opinion, the best looking baseball video game in 1994.
Welcome Back Junior!
People
Inang…
It has been a little over a year since my Inang (ilokano for grandma) passed. Her passing obviously saddened me at the time, but since I was so busy with the many things happening in my life at the time, the impact of her loss didn’t hit me until a month or so later, where I almost broke down at an Arts Kollective meeting.
My Inang was responsible for raising me until I was about 4 years old and I visited her in San Diego every summer after that until I was teenager. She had a big hand in making me what I am today. Here’s the thing though and I never noticed this before until just recently, but reflecting back one year later, her passing represented a huge paradigm shift in my life. Ever since my Inang’s passing, here’s a partial list of things I have done/ accomplished
- 222 Show
- Had an art piece in a gallery/ exhibition space
- Established a brand new department at the Wing Luke…Visitor Services
- Hired 4 new staff
- Opened a brand new museum
- Partied in Vegas (or maybe I didn’t….shhh!)
- Lost a couple of pounds
- Completed 2 marathons
- Had 2 art pieces auctioned off
- New clothes/ New Image
- Went back to school
- Started a new blog…=P
Okay so back on topic (I have a hard time doing that sometimes), this is a blog on animation and cartoons and the like, what does my Inang’s passing have to do with cartoons? Well, here is the painting(s) I did for the Sarili Cycle exhibition. It was entitled “Homage to the Fallen” and it was inspired by the passing of my Inang:
Can you see the cartoon/ animation influence?
Rest now Inang. I may have just focused on your influence on MY life in the past couple of words, but I hope you also know that you had influence and love for many countless others as well.
I’m starting to ball, so I better end this…
Filipin@s: Floro Dery
All Transformers geeks should recognize that a large part of the Transformers phenomenon was begun by a Filipino.
Let me introduce everyone to Floro Dery, a Filipino, who did the original character designs of the G1 Transformers cartoon show:
Let me not blow this out of proportion now. Floro Dery DID NOT come up with the initial Transformers G1 designs. That credit goes to Japanese illustrator, Shohei Kohara (Transformers did start in Japan after all, look at the original G1 toy boxes for Kohara’s work ). What Floro Dery DID do, was simplify the designs so that Optimus, Bumble Bee, Soundwave, Starscream, Megatron, etc…were able to move fluidly (albeit with limited animation) in the cartoon series. He also designed Hot Rod and some other Transformers from the 1986 animated classic, Transformers: the Movie.
Floro Dery has said that without his designs, Transformers wouldn’t have taken off and would have gone the way of the GoBots (ouch!).
Is that true? Hard to tell, but Transformers fans, a reason for the Transformers success is due to a Filipino!
Plus, without his designs, Megatron would always be sporting some wood…
Ricardo Montalban (1920 – 2009)
On January 14, 2009, the world lost a fine actor and one of the most recognizable voices ever.
We will never see a Fantasy Island, Mr. Roarke or the wrath of Khan Noonien Singh ever again.
In terms of cartoons, his voice gave life to Armando Gutierrez from Freakazoid, Vartkes from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, El Encantador from Dora the Explorer, Senor Senior Sr. from Kim Possible, and his last great voice work, the Cow from Family Guy.
At least he will live on, in cartoons, as I know there are voice actors out there who will forever copy his signature voice.
RIP Ricardo Montalban
Art of the Cartoon 