Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538315
24 KEYFRAME Moving on Up Born in Russia, Tartakovsky was just seven when he and his family arrived in the U.S. It was the mid-1970s, and one of his strongest memories is when his dad bought a TV set: "There was this explosion of animation." He discovered Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Tom and Jerry, and the Hanna-Barbera classics. "I fell in love with it—really fell in love with it," he says of the characters and styles that have inspired so much of what he's created, including a pack of dirty-minded dogs. He also discovered comic books, buying them off spinner racks at 7-Eleven and using them to learn how to draw little flip books. Then VCRs came along, and "I'm like, oh my God, I could record cartoons and then I could pause them and draw," he says. Around the age of 14, two events supercharged the passion that would later drive his career. He saw a revival of The Jungle Book at the theater and was mesmerized by the blend of animation and artistry. And his family took a vacation to Walt Disney World. He came across The Illusion of Life, considered a bible for the art of animation. But this was pre-internet days, and he had never heard of it. He only knew that he wanted it, and it was $30— big bucks back then. "I begged my parents to buy it, and they actually [did], which is kind of shocking," he says. "We didn't have a lot of money." He spent the entire drive back to Chicago reading the book, "and every page made me so excited. I wanted to create movement more than anything." Despite how much he loved animation, he applied to Columbia College Chicago for film and video, thinking he would do storyboards for commercials and his own indie projects on the side. But when he signed up for classes, the art courses he needed were full. There was, though, an available elective: animation. "I walked into the class, and as soon as I saw the animation desks… I switched my major," he says. "I always joke that the animation gods [have been] guiding me somewhere through this whole [ journey]." Influenced by the careers of Disney's Nine Old Men, the studio's legendary animators, Tartakovsky figured his path would look similar: "I'll assist some animator, maybe Don Bluth for 10 years. Then I'll become an animator, do that for [another] 20, and then maybe get a chance to be a director." It wasn't until he transferred to California's CalArts in 1990 to major in Character Animation that he began Dexter's Laboratory images courtesy of Cartoon Network Studios F E AT U R E "[GeNNDY] BReAKS DoWN eVeRY ASPeCT oF HiS CARTooNS iNTo RHYTHMiC, MUSiCAl BeATS. eVeRY CUT AND CAMeRA MoVe, DoWN To eACH GeSTURe oR eYe BliNK, iS PReCiSelY TiMeD... To Me THiS ViSUAl MUSiCAliTY iS WHAT SeTS HiS SHoWS APART FRoM oTHeRS." –Craig McCracken 24 KEYFRAME this page: (top) Dexter's Laboratory character models; the show's crew (from left): Craig McCracken, Genndy Tartakovsky, Randy Myers, and Dan Smith; opposite page: (clockwise from top left) Dexter's Laboratory concept art for Dexter's chalkboard; key backgrounds for the episode "Ego Trip."