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Here are my notes from one of my favorite writers, Tom Perrotta, in conversation with John Pierson during a Master Class at UT. Thanks to John for inviting me.

Some words of wisdom: The enemy of good caricature is fear of what your subject might think of the results. (I drew Tom at the Texas Book Festival in 2007.) Lucky for me, Tom’s a really nice guy…

If you want some good reading, go buy some of his books!

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Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, Office Space, and Idiocracy, visited the University of Texas tonight for an RTF “Master Class” with John Pierson. I told John I was a huge fan, and he was nice enough to invite me. Of course, I brought my sketchbook.

Note: if you want to cartoon someone, don’t sit front row. Distance = better abstraction.

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Mike lives right here in Austin, Texas, and came off as a really smart, down-to-earth and unpretentious guy. He was even nice enough to make a Sharpie doodle of Butthead in my sketchbook!

Last night there was a party in town to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Office Space (I missed it, but heard it was great.)

You can read some good quotes and watch some of my favorite clips by him over on my tumblelog.

Went to see John Pierson interview Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park last night at the Austin City Limits studio on campus here at the University of Texas. Here’s a little write-up. I took some crummy sketchbook notes—could not for the life of me figure out how to draw him, so I just drew him as Kyle.

I have a kind of sentimental attachment to South Park: it came out the summer after my parents divorced, and my dad and I used to sit around in his little apartment and watch it and laugh our heads off. Humor when we needed it.

So, it was a real pleasure to hear him speak about the show, and his collaboration with Trey Parker. His thoughts were funny and intelligent.

Some highlights for me:

• The show was originally supposed to be a “X-Files set in the mountains” with all the townspeople seeing aliens, etc. That premise got quickly worn out, but they kept the small town setting, which would later serve as a little microcosm for America, keeping the show continually fresh.
• Their method of cut-outs was born out of procrastination: they do each show in only a week, and the quickness of the whirlwind process keeps them from getting bored. Stone said he barely remembers the shows after they finish them. He quoted Danny DeVito as saying, “Movies are never finished, only abandoned.” (There’s a different origin to that quote, but it’s true for all art forms.)
• Stone said they always used to start a project by making a trailer first, and they’d use that to shop it around.

• He listed three things that make his job the best job in Hollywood:

  1. Complete creative control
  2. Working with friends
  3. Living five minutes away from work

  When you think about it, that’s the formula for any great job…

• Speaking of formulas, here’s the formula to most South Park episodes:
  1. A controversial issue
  2. Two extreme sides screaming at each other
  3. Kids stuck in the middle

  And again, when you think about it, that pretty much describes America.

Lots of other topics were discussed: Youtube, the original “The Spirit of Christmas” short, the Scientology Episode, the Britney Spears Show, lawyers, the 80s, the writer’s strike, Cannibal: The Musical!, and the genius Universal Studios Employee video.

Great, great event. Thanks to Janet for inviting me!

Last night we went over to the Austin City Limits studio to see a Q&A with David Simon, former newspaper reporter and creator of the TV show The Wire. John Pierson was the moderator, and he did a really great job— he asked Simon intelligent questions and then sat and listened while Simon gave intelligent answers.

Discussed topics: the decline of the newspaper industry, journalism and Homer Bigart (“his method: ‘Hi, I’m an idiot and I can’t talk…please help me’”), dumbass editors looking for lame stories about “Dickensian” children (“Pulitzer Sniffing”), Iraq, No Child Left Behind, stealing from Greek Tragedy, the drug war, jury nullification, creative writing students (“my god, you guys are an industry”), books he hasn’t read (Brothers Karamazov), the creative use of profanity, The America That Got Left Behind, and of course, Baltimore (“my favorite character”), and The Wire.

As usual, I doodled and took a lot of notes:

Really cool night, and awesome to finally see the Austin City Limits studio. Thanks to Janet for inviting us!

Links:

• Daily Texan article about the talk
• Believer interview

UPDATE:

I wanted to point out Amanda Marcotte‘s post about the evening (relayed to me by Gerry Canavan):

Awards: A good excuse for fan wanking disguised as academic inquiry

It was a productive hour and a half of discussion, which is somewhat surprising, since they opened the floor to questions, which is usually an invitation for a bunch of assholes to pretend that everyone showed up to hear them talk instead of the speaker. There were a couple of people who asked questions where the question was a minor pretense for them to bloviate, but on the whole, the question askers were respectable and the questions were good.

It’s such a perfect, hilarious observation, a subject that Meg and I constantly complain about: too often Q&As are just a huge waste of time. This one wasn’t, but I drew a cartoon about it last night, anyways…I just didn’t post it. Here it is, now: