I think that says more about you…
I was hanging out at a friend’s Artist Alley table yesterday when a Random Capcom Employee (RCE) came up and started a little conversation. I’m going to transcribe it about as accurately as I can remember.
Edit: I am now doubting my memory, and it is possible that he was from Namco. I think it is funnier if someone from Capcom is talking high-and-mighty about creativity, because they made exactly the same game four times, so much so that they can be beaten with exactly the same inputs.
RCE: I like your work! It’s very original. It’s not like all this other fan stuff.
Friend: What do you mean?
RCE: Some of the fan stuff has pretty good technique, but it has no life. I mean, why take someone else’s character? Why not make your own?
Adrian: Well, there’s something to be said for using existing characters because they have resonance, isn’t there? They say something; they have power. People respond to them. It’s like retelling myths or something. You don’t think anyone wrote them all from scratch, did you? Why do you think people built so many churches, or did so much religious art?
RCE: Yeah, well, I’m an athiest.
Adrian: You should still be able to appreciate, for example, La Pietà…
RCE: “Well, like I said, it’s fine technically.”
Adrian: “You can’t find the emotion and life in La Pietà?”
RCE: “Phh.” RCE exits, stage left
Friend (unfortunately steamrolled): “Uhh…”
This blew my mind, and I’m still having a little trouble wrapping my thoughts around it. Michelangelo’s Pietà is one of the single greatest artworks in all of human history. If following some school of “atheism” means being unable to appreciate its beauty and emotional weight, it says a lot more about its followers than it does about La Pietà.
I don’t know that I like realizing that about people.
…Wow.
That is really depressing.
Sadly every school has its dunces v.V
I cannot honestly understand how anyone who calls themselves an artist can be completely unmoved by the sheer emotion in La Pietà. I also can’t believe he’s at an anime convention which is a celebration of other people’s works. I mean, let’s be honest, there’s not a whole lot of originality found in anime in general. It’s typically a rather set pattern of themes and stereotypes that have the occasional really neat twist. As the saying goes “there is nothing new under the sun.”
I’m not sure he’s an artist, so much as someone that Capcom (I think? Perhaps Namco… I must edit this for uncertainty) sent to man a table somewhere, out for a break.
I think it would be funnier if it were Capcom, since they basically published the same game four times, close enough that the same control sequence can be used to beat them all.
Either way…