TEH MISLEADING TALL-TALES OF FLIPJERK!!1

You know, this was originally a huge, mean slam on the show. I said things about how it was one of the worst cartoons I've ever seen and how it would become the first in a series of fan arts called "Cartoon Abortions." But something very strange happened not very long after I put this up.

Thurop van Orman, creator of the show, favorited this piece.

It was a move that set a lot of things in motion for me. I was confused; what reason would he have to favorite my piece that was basically a smack in the face of his brain child? My immediate reaction was panic. I want to be in the biz someday, and I may have just crossed somebody involved with one of the giants. I sent him a note explaining that I loved his art, I just wasn't a fan of the writing.

Then I looked him up on Wikipedia. I realized then that this show is pretty much his spirit placed in cartoon form. He -is- Flapjack. He grew up around adventurous sailors in a bayou. He took a boat out and got lost for three days, only to discover that people were more interested in his adventure than they were that he'd been lost.

For the first time ever, I lost sleep over this. I literally tossed and turned for an hour or more just thinking about the things I'd said, and how harsh I'd been. And I decided that I had been a total jerk about things. I'm here now to try and make things right.

I am a cynical media junkie who has a flair for exaggerating things. Ask anyone who knows me well and they'll tell you it's true. An only child in the middle of nowhere, I grew up watching TV and movies, playing on the computer, and reading classical literature. At this point, I guess I've become fairly bitter and equally (if not more) bitter about entertainment. Cartoon Network showed Flapjack five times a day when it only had one episode out because they've stopped showing their old shows... I've since realized that this is probably why I got so wound up about it.

I'm actually watching the show right now. Knowing now what I know about van Orman's past adds a lot more to my experience and provides a certain satisfaction I didn't have before.

In the end, at least it's not "My Gym Partner's A Monkey."

You've still got one coming, "My Gym Partner's A Monkey."