Tuesday, April 16, 2019

The Michael Hopkins Cartoons Vlog!

Hello All...


I apologize for the delay between blogs. Sometimes life get in the way of creativity, to succeed, one needs to find a way of combining both and I’m not an expert at that. Anyways…


First off, a “Hello” to my brother and his wife, who are currently visiting China. My brother is one of my biggest supporters and one of my biggest “pains in the derriere”, when I don’t draw...or write in my blog.  Cheers Brother!...I hope you and Fang are having a great time... and have a Chinese Beer on me!

"My brother Roger and his wife Fang"


I’ve been in kind of a subtle, depressionary state lately, over my pen and ink caricatures. Although I love creating them, when they don’t sell as quickly as I think they should, I start questioning my pricing, my marketing decisions and everything else! When that happens, I become prone to rash decisions, about everything! Oh well, at least they are decisions, right?


When I was a young, several of my idols were artists (Al Hirschfeld, Chuck Jones, Bob McCausland, Charles Schutz, Paul McCartney Johnny Cash…) and my love for their work, led me to become an artist. I read (and purchased) books and periodicals related to these artists (which included the comics, of course). I visited museums, art shows, purchased art, music and even tried to learn how to play some instruments (unsuccessfully). I immersed myself in all of this, because I valued these artists work and I wanted emulate them.


These days however, I believe that artists and their creations have lost some value in our society. Why? Partially because, society can enjoy an artists creation for free, via the internet. Why pay the artists (who created the art) for the actual work of art or an album, when one can see it for free? As such, the artist and their creations are of less value to a society.


Creators (including both artists and musicians) have to find ways to make a living in a society that doesn’t value the arts as much as much as it once did. We can collectively bitch, moan and complain about how  technology is making it difficult for us to make a living or we can begrudgingly embrace technology, try to use it to our advantage and grab some of the attention (and dollars) of those, signing their paychecks over to Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Intel...


I have chosen to embrace technology (nose fully plugged), because let’s face it, technology isn’t going away anytime soon. Although I already market myself on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook , I have now decided to take another step into the abyss... Welcome to my YouTube Channel, The Michael Hopkins Cartoons Vlog!