Comments on: Miffy – the Making of a Children’s Classic

By: Sarah Cheverton

Sarah Cheverton — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:28:49 +0000

Godzilla, every time. Now the to-the-death I’d like to see is between Godzuki and Scrappy Doo. That puppy was begging to be taken down……

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:07:11 +0000

@ Maupy – Thanks for the background information, I didn’t realise that’s why Miffy was a girl!

I hope we can avoid putting Miffy and Hello Kitty against each other in a fight to the death. I’m a Miffy man myself, but Hello Kitty is undeniably kawaii (cute/charming). I’m sure they can play nicely together.

Tune in next week folks — we’ve got a pillow fight between Godzilla and the Loch Ness Monster!

By: Maupy

Maupy — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:45:23 +0000

Miffy was indeed born way before Hello Kitty.
The author of Miffy had a small rabbit himself, which he got for his child. He used a very minimalistic drawing of a girl rabbit (he liked the simplicity of a dress more than shirts and shorts for a boy character, which would require more colours).

Hello Kitty is a Japanese commercial production, undoubtedly inspired by Miffy. As the author of Miffy said, if you copy try to change at least something. Now its cat version of Miffy. Terrible. I fully agree. The love of the author for his original character has been ditorted by a large Japanese firm, pushing many product into the market based on his invention.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:46:05 +0000

Maybe you’d like http://thepowerofless.com

By: Deborah Richmond

Deborah Richmond — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:37:23 +0000

More with less is not something I’ve thought a lot about lately. It’s a challenge to see how that will apply to our everyday lives. We usually think of doing more more more.

It’s been ages since I’ve seen Miffy!

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:23:28 +0000

I know what you mean about Klee. My world is poetry, where haiku poets like Basho and Issa are masters of paring things down to essentials. Or in the Western tradition, someone like William Carlos Williams.

And Bugs is cool too. Maybe I’ll do him next week.

By: Stacey Cornelius

Stacey Cornelius — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:56:07 +0000

I’m late to the party on this one, but one of my favourite painters is Paul Klee. There was a quality about his work I couldn’t quite define, until I read about his life and discovered he was a musician. At first glance, his work may seem simple, but it is not.

There is always some subtle extra something (please pardon the grammatical massacre) about the work of people who are deeply passionate about what they do, and who have enough sense to get out of the way and let it happen. The extra stuff is usually just nerves.

The bunny I grew up with was Bugs. I think I may have missed out.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:46:42 +0000

@ Josh – Reminds me of Dr Johnson’s comment on editing one’s own work: “Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

@ Frank – Sounds like the perfect excuse for me to read Gormenghast yet again.

@ Mary – I wish I’d had Doc Young as my tutor! He would have been just what I needed.

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:48:11 +0000

I had an English professor who insisted that all of our papers be no longer than 1 page, double-spaced. The first paper I handed in was 1 1/2 pages. I got it back with a comment that it was too long. Doc Young was attempting to teach us to stick to the essentials in our writing, rather than write silo-filler. While I have a tendency toward wordiness, Doc Young’s lesson remains with me.

By: Frank Marcopolos

Frank Marcopolos — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:34:15 +0000

For me as a writer, learning from the masters means reading the classics, even (especially?) the ones I read as a younger man. They usually have so much more meaning to me now.