Computer sourcery guides much of what happens in the 21st century. But the real magic of animation, the creative wizardry that brings drawings to life, still comes mainly from pencils, says Larry Feign, an American-born artist widely regarded as one of Asia’s leading cartoonists.

“The best creative stuff still happens with pencils and paper,” Larry said. “If you draw straight onto a computer, the viewers can tell. At any animation studio, the main thing remains its people, the talent.

“When you tell a machine to fill in the movements between positions, you get the equivalent of a robot walking. All the characters move in the same way. If a person does it, you get the subtleties of personality and body language. That’s what a person gives to animation that a machine can’t.

“In fact, computers have changed post-production work the most. Instead of relying on human ‘inkers’, you take black-and-white drawings and scan them at high contrast. You add color by pointing and clicking. If the characters don’t move too much, you take shortcuts by just transferring the colors.”

For years, Larry drew the popular daily cartoon strip The World of Lily Wong, then seen in the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s largest English newspaper. His Lily Wong character starred in most of his 14 books and twice won Amnesty International’s Human Rights Press Award. But as media self-censors assailed Lily more than a decade ago, Larry lost his newspaper job. “I got dumped by one paper and then blacklisted,” he said.

“Since then, Hong Kong’s media situation has changed – not entirely for the better or worse. Before the 1997 handover to China, there was so much nervousness. Many things that people worried about didn’t come true, not on the surface. Nervousness gave way to apathy and blandness. Now rather than leading public opinion, the media follows it. Both the English and Chinese newspapers will be very forthright on issues after a half-million people march on the streets. Public sentiment arises on its own. Newspapers sheepishly follow. They speak out on safe things, but behave cowardly on basic issues like democratic development.”

After Lily Wong’s departure, Larry advanced to other pursuits. In 2001, he established Stvdio Media, an animation enterprise based in an upstairs office at his home in Mui Wo on Hong Kong’s outlying Lantau Island.

“Computers and technical advances make a small animation studio feasible,” Larry said. “Twenty years ago you’d need US$1 million to buy all the equipment and to have 200 tables where 200 people would sit painting. Now I can produce TV or cinematic-quality animation in my office at home, working on projects with people around the world, linked by the Internet. It’s very flexible.”

He has freelance collaborators in Auckland, Brussels, Honolulu, London, Manila, Milan, Mumbai, Shenzhen, Toronto, Vancouver and elsewhere. Their work, all “high-end stuff”, involves TV or Web cartoons.

Larry directed The AlphaJets series for Walt Disney, handled short animations for the Cartoon Network and does TV commercials. “The AlphaJets became a real feather in my cap – Disney’s first animated show done totally overseas for the Asian market.

“The Cartoon Network always gives us the most difficult stuff because we’re more expensive than the animation sweatshops in China, Vietnam or India. We do a lot for its India channel.

“Once we did a 90-second spoof on all Bollywood musicals using every Cartoon Network character and many from Warner Brothers. We needed every element of a Bollywood musical: a fight scene, a love scene, a near-death scene when a doctor just happens to arrive and a scene when long-lost relatives discover each other, using every emotion from overblown joy to overblown sorrow. I watched so many Bollywood movies that I started to like them. We studied them, boiled them down to core elements and came up with storyboard after storyboard. Finally, we did it, a mini-spectacular in 90 seconds, but it took a year to make. What a huge challenge!”

A self-taught cartoonist, Larry also worked with Hong Kong author Nury Vittachi on a pilot show, The Feng Shui Detective, and depicted the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens in animation. Time, Newsweek, The Economist, Fortune, Business Week, The New York Times and Pravda have featured his cartoons.

Larry’s father worked as a computer-software systems consultant. His mother operated a chain of women’s clothing stores.

“I’ve been drawing cartoons since before I can remember,” Larry said. “It’s like a chronic disease. It’s a thankless profession, a real struggle. Many times, I dreamed of safe, easy jobs where I didn’t have to strain my brain, but I just can’t stop doing cartoons.

“At conventions for cartoonists, everyone has the same story. All of us grew up sitting at the backs of classrooms and scribbling in notebooks. We drew things to get even with the world – nasty caricatures of people we didn’t like, awful stuff, not cute kitties and puppies.”

Fans of Larry’s work may recognize influences from Pogo, Li’l Abner and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, his favorite cartoons in the 1960s and ‘70s. At age seven, Larry created Hoiman the Mouse, his first profitable character, the star of DUM, an alternative school magazine. In high school, he progressed to Billy Wizard, a mean, obnoxious, rude “and really funny” character prone to drugs and violence.

“Drawing cartoons releases steam,” Larry said. “When people ask where I get my ideas, I reply ‘whatever makes me storming angry’.”

For a time, Larry worked as an animator in Hollywood, notably on the Heathcliff, the Cat show. “That was such an intensive job. Day and night, I drew Heathcliff,” he said. “When sleeping, I’d have dreams with my wife in them, but she’d have cat ears.”

Born in New York in 1955, Larry later lived in California, Ohio, Vermont, Massachusetts, Georgia and Hawaii, plus Germany, England and Hong Kong.

“It’s partly wanderlust,” Larry said. “For two years in the 1970s, I roamed as a hobo hitch-hiker who slept under park benches. With less than $5 in my pockets and wearing a backpack, I felt intensely happy, even in blizzards.”

At a shopping mall in Hawaii where he drew caricatures of tourists, Larry met Cathy, a Hong Kong-born student, later a psychologist and his wife. They have two children, Ivan, age 15, and Annika, 12, plus two dogs, Toto and Otto. Ivan plans to study animation in Toronto. Annika writes short stories.

Ironically, Larry seldom reads cartoons or watches them. “I prefer great literature,” he said. “In some ways, knowing exactly how animation’s done spoils the magic.”

Originally, Larry arrived in Hong Kong for a two-week visit with his in-laws. He’s stayed for most of the past two decades. But “Hong Kong’s like a cosmic joke, probably the worst place to do independent cartooning and animation,” he said. “There’s no respect for it, certainly no government support or grants.”

Despite Lily Wong’s recent absence, Larry knows she still has fans. “I miss having regular cartoon characters,” he said. “When Lily ended, I felt like I’d lost my mistress. Definitely, I miss her.”

Will she return? “I’m starting a project that I promised myself for years – putting together an omnibus collection of the Lily Wong series,” Larry said. “With material from all the books, plus some that never made it into the books, it’s like a graphic novel.”

What about new cartoons starring Lily? “Probably not,” Larry said. “It’s too much work to do just for the love of it. I’m not trying to convince anyone to revive Lily Wong. But if someone came along and wanted to do something with her, I’d consider it.”

For more information: www.humorist.net or www.stvdio.com.

ARCHIVES

Larry makes a point: pencils remain essential.


Pencil meets paper at Stvdio Media's headquarters.


Lily Wong: a Hong Kong heroine in the 1990s.


Dogs Toto and Otto consult the resident artist.


Images from famous 'toons decorate Larry's home.


New characters emerge from pencils,
paper and creative processes.


Larry's cartoons reflected anxieties about
Hong Kong's 1997 change of sovereignty.


The antics of Lily Wong made Hong Kong's
famous harbour a more fascinating place.