Cartoons are basically short stories. I tried to find one that didn't have a whole lot of words. Not all of them have happy endings. So how did I get started cartooning? I doodled a lot as a kid, and if you spend enough time doodling, sooner or later, something happens: all your career options run out. So you have to make a living cartooning.
漫畫其實就是短篇故事, 我找到一篇沒有太多字的漫畫, 不是所有的漫畫都有快樂的結局。 那我倒底是怎麼開始畫漫畫的呢? 我小時候很喜歡塗鴉, 如果你花很多時間塗鴉, 遲早有一天,你會發現: 你對未來沒有太多選擇, 你只能靠畫漫畫過活。
Actually, I fell in love with the ocean when I was a little boy, when I was about eight or nine. And I was particularly fascinated with sharks. This is some of my early work. Eventually, my mom took the red crayon away, so it was [unclear]. But I'd like to relay to you a childhood experience of mine that really made me see the ocean differently, and it's become the foundation of my work because, I feel like, if in a day, I can see the ocean differently, then I can evoke that same kind of change in others, especially kids. Before that day, this is how I saw the ocean. It's just a big blue surface. And this is how we've seen the ocean since the beginning of time. It's a mystery. There's been a lot of folklore developed around the ocean, mostly negative. And that prompted people to make maps like this, with all kinds of wonderful detail on the land, but when you get to the waters edge, the ocean looks like one giant puddle of blue paint. And this is the way I saw the ocean at school -- as if to say, "All geography and science lessons stop at water's edge. This part's not going to be on the test."
我從很小的時候就愛上海洋了, 那時我大概才八、九歲, 我對鯊魚特別有興趣, 這是我那時的畫作。 後來,我媽把紅色蠟筆拿走了, 所以我就... 但我想讓你們知道,在我小時候曾經歷過一件事, 讓我對海洋的印象完全改觀, 也讓我奠定未來工作的基礎, 因為我覺得, 如果我能改變自己對海洋的印象, 我也一定能改變別人對海洋的印象, 尤其是改變小孩子的印象。 在那件事發生之前,我對海洋的印象就像這樣, 我覺得海洋只是一片藍海, 這是我們所有人對海洋的最初印象, 很神祕。 有很多關於海洋的 民間故事, 但都很負面, 所以人們畫出來的地圖會像這樣, 對陸地描繪得巨細靡遺, 但一畫到陸地邊緣的海洋, 就只是用藍色的顏料描繪成一大潭水而已。 這是我在學校時對海洋的印象, 就好像老師說:「所有的地理和科學 都只教到陸地邊緣而已, 其他部分不會列入考試範圍。」
But that day I flew low over the islands -- it was a family trip to the Caribbean, and I flew in a small plane low over the islands. This is what I saw. I saw hills and valleys. I saw forests and meadows. I saw grottoes and secret gardens and places I'd love to hide as a kid, if I could only breathe underwater. And best of all, I saw the animals. I saw a manta ray that looked as big as the plane I was flying in. And I flew over a lagoon with a shark in it, and that was the day that my comic strip about a shark was born.
但那天,我低空飛到那些小島上-- 我們全家一起去加勒比海玩, 我們搭乘一架小飛機低空飛過那些小島, 我看到這個,我看到丘陵和山谷, 我看到森林和草地, 我看到石窟和隱密的花園, 我還找到小孩最喜歡躲藏的地點, 就在海裡,真希望我能在海底呼吸。 最棒的是,我還在海裡看到動物, 我看到一隻和我搭乘的小飛機一樣大的魟魚。 然後我到了一個有鯊魚的潟湖, 我的鯊魚漫畫就從此誕生了。
So from that day on, I was an ordinary kid walking around on dry land, but my head was down there, underwater. Up until that day, these were the animals that were most common in my life. These were the ones I'd like to draw -- all variations of four legs and fur. But when you got to the ocean, my imagination was no competition for nature. Every time I'd come up with a crazy cartoon character on the drawing board, I'd find a critter in the ocean that was even crazier. And the differences in scale between this tiny sea dragon and this enormous humpback whale was like something out of a science-fiction movie.
從那一天起,我這個踩在陸地上的 平凡小孩, 滿腦子想的都是海底世界。 在那之前, 最常出現在我生活裡的動物是這些, 我喜歡畫的也是這些動物, 全都有四隻腳,也都有毛。 但我到了海底之後, 我發現我的想像力根本比不上大自然, 每次我好不容易在畫板上畫出一個怪異的角色, 我就會在海裡發現一個比它更古怪的生物。 各式古怪的生物都有,小到像這隻小海龍, 大到像這隻巨大的座頭鯨, 全都像是從科幻電影裡走出來的生物。
Whenever I talk to kids, I always like to tell them, the biggest animal that ever lived is still alive. It's not a dinosaur; it's a whale, animals as big as office buildings still swimming around out there in our ocean. Speaking of dinosaurs, sharks are basically the same fish they were 300 million years ago. So if you ever fantasize about going back in time and seeing what a dinosaur looked like, that's what a dinosaur looks like. So you have living dinosaurs and space aliens, animals that evolved in zero gravity in harsh conditions. It's just incredible; no Hollywood designer could come up with something more interesting than that. Or this fangtooth. The particles in the water make it look like it's floating in outer space. Could you image if we looked through the Hubble Telescope and we saw that? It would start a whole new space race. But instead, we stick a camera in the deep ocean, and we see a fish, and it doesn't capture our imagination as a society. We say to ourselves, "Maybe we can make fish sticks with it or something."
每次我和孩子們說話,我都會告訴他們, 世界上最大的生物到現在都還活著, 不是恐龍,是鯨魚, 他們就像辦公大樓一樣大, 還在海洋裡游著。 講到恐龍,在三億年以前, 鯊魚其實是和恐龍同種的生物, 所以如果你曾幻想回到過去, 想看看恐龍長什麼樣子, 你會看到像鯊魚這樣的生物。 你在海裡會看到活的恐龍 和太空生物, 還有在零重力這樣嚴苛環境下演化出來的生物, 很不可思議,連好萊塢的設計師 都沒有辦法想出比這些更有趣的生物了。 這是尖牙(食人魔魚),水裡的一些雜質 讓它看起來像是飄浮在外太空, 你能想像透過哈柏望遠鏡 看到這隻尖牙嗎? 你可能以為那是一個全新的太空物種。 其實不是,那是我們放在深海的攝影機拍的, 我們看到的魚,幾乎都是我們以前 沒有想像過的。 我們心裡還想著: 「或許我們可以用這種魚來做炸魚排或什麼的。」
So, what I'd like to do now is try a little drawing. So, I'm going to try to draw this fangtooth here. I love to draw the deep sea fish, because they are so ugly, but beautiful in their own way. Maybe we can give him a little bioluminescence here -- give him a headlight, maybe a brake light, turn signals. But it's easy to see why these animals make such great cartoon characters, their shapes and sizes. So some of them actually seem to have powers like superheroes in a comic book. For instance, take these sea turtles. They kind of have a sixth sense like Superman's x-ray vision. They can sense the magnetic fields of the earth. And they can use that sense to navigate hundreds of miles of open ocean. I kind of give my turtle hands just to make them an easier cartoon character to work with. Or take this sea cucumber. It's not an animal we draw cartoons of or draw at all. He's like an underwater Spiderman. He shoots out these sticky webs to entangle his enemy. Of course, sea cucumbers shoot them out their rears, which, in my opinion, makes them much more interesting a superhero. (Laughter) He can't spin a web anytime; he's got to pull his pants down first.
我現在要來 畫一些圖, 我先來畫這隻尖牙。 我很喜歡畫深海魚類, 因為他們很醜, 但是醜到有一種他們自有的美感。 或許我們可以幫它加上一點它自己發出的光, 像是幫它裝一盞頭燈, 再裝一個煞車燈, 還有方向燈。 很明顯的,這些海洋生物 很適合當卡通人物, 因為他們有特殊的形狀和大小。 這些生物有的還具有某種力量, 像是漫畫書裡的超級英雄一樣, 舉例來說, 這隻海龜, 它似乎具有超強的第六感, 可以像超人一樣具有X光的透視力, 它可以感測到地球上的磁場, 並運用這種感知能力, 在無邊的大海裡遨遊數百哩。 我習慣幫海龜加上手, 好讓它更具有卡通人物的親和力。 再來看看這隻海參, 平常我們完全不會畫海參, 或是把它畫成卡通人物, 但它卻像是海底的蜘蛛人, 它會發射黏人的網子, 把敵人包纏起來。 其實,海參是把它的屁股發射出去攻擊敵人, 在我看來,它更像搞笑的超級英雄。 (笑聲) 它不能隨時隨地發射網子,它得先把褲子脫下來才行。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Or the blowfish. The blowfish is like the Incredible Hulk. It can change its body into a big, intimidating fish in a matter of seconds. I'm going to draw this blowfish uninflated. And then I'm going to attempt onscreen animation here. Let's see. Try and inflate it. (Laughter) "You talkin' to me?" See, he can inflate himself when he wants to be intimidating. Or take this swordfish. Could you imagine being born with a tool for a nose? Do you think he wakes up in the morning, looks in the mirror and says, "Somebody's getting stabbed today." Or this lionfish for instance. Imagine trying to make friends covered with razor-sharp poisonous barbs. It's not something you want to put on your Facebook page, right?
再來是河豚, 河豚就像綠巨人浩克, 它會改變身體的形狀, 變成體型很大、嚇人的魚, 只要幾秒就變身完成。 我先畫變身前的河豚, 然後我要在這裡 現場幫它製作動畫, 來了, 變大了! (笑聲) 「你在跟我說話嗎?」看,它變大了, 只要它想要嚇別人,就會變大。 接下來是劍魚, 你能想像自己天生就有一個長鼻子嗎? 你以為它早晨醒來,會看著鏡子說: 「今天有人要被捅了。」 或是獅子魚, 想像這隻獅子魚想要交朋友, 但自己身上卻佈滿了像刀片一樣鋒利的有毒螫刺, 你不會想要把這東西放上你的Facebook吧?
My characters are -- my lead character's a shark named Sherman. He's a great white shark. And I kind of broke the mold with Sherman. I didn't want to go with this ruthless predator image. He's kind of just out there making a living. He's sort of a Homer Simpson with fins. And then his sidekick is a sea turtle, as I mentioned before, named Filmore. He uses his wonderful skills at navigation to wander the oceans, looking for a mate. And he does manage to find them, but great navigation skills, lousy pick-up lines. He never seems to settle on any particular girl. I have a hermit crab named Hawthorne, who doesn't get a lot of respect as a hermit crab, so he kind of wishes he were a great white shark. And then I'll introduce you to one more character, this guy, Ernest, who is basically a juvenile delinquent in a fish body.
我的卡通人物... 我的漫畫主角是一隻叫做謝門的鯊魚, 它是一隻大白鯊, 是我創造了謝門。 我不想讓謝門保有殘暴的 掠食者形象, 我讓它成為像我們一樣討生活的人, 就有點像是有鰭辛普森家族的人。 這個漫畫的配角 是一隻海龜,就像我之前提過的,它叫做費爾摩, 它具有高超的方向感, 可以在海裡遨遊,它最希望能找到伴侶, 而它也盡力去找了, 但是它高超的方向感並沒有幫上什麼忙, 它似乎 永遠不能 和哪一個女孩子定下來。 還有一隻叫做哈松的寄居蟹, 因為老是得不到別人的尊重, 所以它還滿希望 自己變成一隻大白鯊呢! 再介紹另一個角色, 恩尼斯這傢伙, 其實是披著魚皮的 少年犯。
So with characters, you can make stories. Sometimes making a story is as easy as putting two characters in a room and seeing what happens. So, imagine a great white shark and a giant squid in the same bathroom. (Laughter) Or, sometimes I take them to places that people have never heard of because they're underwater. For instance, I took them skiing in the Mid-Atlantic Range, which is this range of mountains in the middle of the Atlantic. I've taken them to the Sea of Japan, where they met giant jellyfish. I've taken them camping in the kelp forests of California.
有了這些角色,就可以開始說故事了。 說故事有時候很簡單, 就只要把二個角色放進同一個房間裡, 看看會發生什麼事就行了。 好,現在想像一下,一隻大白鯊和一隻大烏賊一起待在洗手間裡。 (笑聲) 因為他們海底生物,所以有時 我會把他們帶到大家沒聽過的地方, 像是我會把他們帶到大西洋中部滑雪, 就在大西洋中部附近的山區; 我也曾經把他們帶到日本海域, 他們在那裡遇到了大水母; 我還曾把他們帶到加州的海帶森林裡露營。
This next one here, I did a story on the census of marine life. And that was a lot of fun because, as most of you know, it's a real project we've heard about. But it was a chance for me to introduce readers to a lot of crazy undersea characters. So we start off the story with Ernest, who volunteers as a census taker. He goes down and he meets this famous anglerfish. Then he meets the yeti crab, the famous vampire squid -- elusive, hard to find -- and the Dumbo octopus, which looks so much like a cartoon in real life that really didn't have to change a thing when I drew it.
接下來, 我畫了有關海洋生物戶口普查的故事, 這真的很好玩,因為大家都知道 戶口普查這項計畫。 對我來說,這是為讀者介紹 古怪海洋生物的大好機會。 一開始是讓恩尼斯當主角, 它自願當戶口普查員, 它去到深海看到那隻有名的鮟鱇魚, 還看到雪蟹、 著名的吸血鬼烏賊(傘蛸)--它很會躲,很不容易找到-- 還有小飛象章魚(煙灰蛸),它真的很像卡通人物, 我在畫的時候,一點也不必修改它的樣子。
I did another story on marine debris. I was speaking to a lot of my friends in the conservation business, and they -- I asked them, "So what's one issue you would like everyone to know more about?" And they said -- this one friend of mine said, "I've got one word for you: plastic." And I told him, "Well, I need something a little sexier than that. Plastic just is not going to do it." We sort of worked things out. He wanted me to use words like polyvinyl chloride, which doesn't really work in voice balloons very well. I couldn't fit them in. So what I did was I made an adventure strip.
我還畫了另一個關於海洋廢棄物的故事。 那時我和許多保育界的朋友 在一起談話, 他們... 我問他們:「哪一個議題是你們想讓大家多瞭解一點的?」 他們說...我的一個朋友說: 「只有二個字:塑膠。」 我說:「嗯,我需要更吸引人的東西, 光是塑膠二個字,提不起別人的興趣。」 於是我們一起想辦法解決, 他要我用聚氯乙稀這種字眼, 但我覺得一點都不響亮, 也放不進我的漫畫裡。 我後來把這個主題畫成一段冒險旅程,
Basically, this bottle travels a long way. What I'm trying to tell readers is that plastic doesn't really go away; it just continues to wash downstream. And a lot of it ends up washing into the ocean, which is a great story if you attach a couple characters to it, especially if they can't stand each other, like these two. So, I sent them to Boise, Idaho, where they dropped a plastic bottle into the Boise sewer system. And it ended up in the Boise River and then on to the Columbia River and then to the mouth of the Columbia and to the Pacific Ocean and then on to this place called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- which is this giant Pacific gyre in the North Pacific, where a lot of this plastic ends up floating around -- and then back onto the lagoon. So that was basically a buddy story with a plastic bottle following along. So a lot of people remember the plastic bottle anyway, but we really talked about marine debris and plastic in the course of that one.
我讓一個瓶子漂流到很遠的地方, 我想告訴讀者, 塑膠不會消失, 只是不斷地在我們的河裡漂流, 最後他們會漂流到海裡。 我把幾個角色放進故事裡,尤其是這二個 互相看不順眼角色,就成了很棒的漫畫。 我把場景設定在愛達荷州的首府波伊斯, 有人在那裡丟了一個塑膠瓶, 掉進波伊斯的下水道系統, 來到波伊斯河裡, 接下來漂到了哥倫比亞河, 來到哥倫比亞河口, 漂進太平洋, 來到太平洋垃圾處理場這裡, 而北太平洋的洋流 會把聚集在這裡的塑膠瓶, 全都沖回到謝門的潟湖裡。 這其實是一般的朋友情義故事, 只是多了個塑膠瓶而已, 但是大部分的人都會記得那個塑膠瓶, 而我們要透過故事傳達的,也只是海洋廢棄物 和塑膠的概念而已。
The third storyline I did about a year and a half ago was probably my most difficult. It was on shark finning, and I felt really strongly about this issue. And I felt like, since my main character was a shark, the comic strip was a perfect vehicle for telling the public about this. Now, finning is the act of taking a shark, cutting the valuable fins off and throwing the live animal back in the water. It's cruel, it's wasteful. There's nothing funny or entertaining about it, but I really wanted to take this issue on. I had to kill my main character, who is a shark.
一年半前,我製作了第三個故事, 那是三個故事裡最難的一個。 這個故事是在講鯊魚鰭(魚翅), 我很重視這個議題, 我認為,既然我的主角是鯊魚, 我的漫畫就最適合拿來宣導這個議題。 魚翅是把鯊魚捉上來後, 把貴重的魚鰭切割下來製作而成, 至於沒有鰭的鯊魚,則又被丟回海裡。 很殘忍,也很浪費, 一點也不好玩,也沒有好笑的笑點, 但我就是想談這個議題。 要畫出這個議題,就得讓我的鯊魚主角死去。
We start with Sherman in a Chinese restaurant, who gets a fortune that he's about to get caught by a trawler, which he does. And then he dies. He gets finned, and then he gets thrown overboard. Ostensibly, he's dead now. And so I killed a character that's been in the newspaper for 15 years. So I got a lot of reader feedback on that one. Meanwhile, the other characters are talking about shark fin soup. I do three or four strips after that where we explore the finning issue and the shark fin soup issue. Sherman's up in shark heaven. This is what I love about comic strips, you know. You really don't have to worry about the audience suspending its sense of disbelief because, if you start with a talking shark, readers pretty much check their disbelief at the door. You can kind of do anything. It becomes a near-death experience for Sherman. Meanwhile, Ernest finds his fins on the internet. There was a real website based in China that actually sold shark fins, so I kind of exposed that. And he clicks the "buy now" button. And voila, next-day air, they show up, and they surgically reattach them. I ended that series with a kind of a mail-in petition that encouraged our National Marine Fishery Service, to force other countries to have a stronger stance with shark management.
一開始,我們讓謝門坐在中國餐館裡, 它從幸運餅的籤詩上得知,它會被拖網漁船抓走, 然後它真的被抓走了, 然後它就死了。 它被割走雙鰭,然後被丟回海裡。 表面上看來,它是死了, 我讓一個在報上連載了十五年的主角死掉, 很多讀者都投書來討論這件事。 在此同時,其他的角色則在討論魚翅湯, 我用三到四幅連環漫畫 來討論割鯊魚鰭 以及魚翅湯這件事, 謝門則上到鯊魚天堂。 這就是我喜歡連環漫畫的原因, 你不用擔心讀者不會相信你畫的東西, 畢竟我畫的是一隻會說話的鯊魚, 讀者一直都很捧場, 你可以在漫畫上為所欲為。 後來,謝門沒死,它只是在鬼門關前走了一遭, 而恩尼斯則在網路上找到了謝門的魚鰭, 中國真的有這樣的一個網站, 他們在網站上銷售魚翅, 我只是把事實說出來而已。 恩尼斯按下了「購買」鍵, 接著第二天,他們就收到了魚鰭, 還用外科手術幫謝門把魚鰭給重新裝了回去。 在漫畫的最後,我發起一人一信的請願行動, 要我們的國家海洋漁業部門 去約束其他國家, 對鯊魚管理採取更強硬的態度。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Thanks. I'd like to end with a little metaphor here. I've been trying to think of a metaphor to represent Mission Blue, and this is what I came up with. Imagine you're in an enormous room, and it's as dark as a cave. And you can have anything in that room, anything you want, but you can't see anything. You've been given one tool, a hammer. So you wander around in the darkness, and you bump into something, and it feels like it's made of stone. It's big, it's heavy. You can't carry it away, so you bang it with your hammer, and you break off a piece. And you take the piece out into the daylight. And you see you have a beautiful piece of white alabaster. So you say to yourself, "Well, that's worth something." So you go back into the room, and you break this thing to pieces, and you haul it away. And you find other things, and you break that up, and you haul those away. And you're getting all kinds of cool stuff. And you hear other people doing the same thing. So you get this sense of urgency, like you need to find as much stuff as possible as soon as possible. And then some yells, "Stop!" And they turn up the lights. And you realize where you are; you're in the Louvre. And you've taken all this complexity and beauty, and you've turned it into a cheap commodity.
謝謝! 最後,我想要用一個隱喻來做結尾。 我一直都在想要用什麼樣的隱喻來傳達Mission Blue的概念, 最後我想到了這個: 想像你待在一個很大的房間, 裡面暗得像個洞穴, 你可以拿走房間裡的任何東西,任何你想要的東西, 只是你看不到房間裡面有什麼; 你只有一個工具,就是一把鎚子。 所以你就在黑暗的房間裡走來走去,接著你撞到了一個東西, 你感覺那是石頭做的, 很大又很重,你根本搬不動, 所以你用你的鎚子敲下了一個碎片, 把碎片帶出房間,來到有陽光的地方, 你發現那是一塊很美的白雪花石, 你說:「嗯,這還滿值錢的。」 所以你又回到那個房間, 把那整個東西敲成碎片,再把碎片搬出來。 接下來,你又發現了其他東西,你一樣把它敲碎後帶出來, 最後你拿到了許多很棒的東西。 然後,你聽說也有其他人在做相同的事情, 所以你就加快速度, 希望在最短的時間內找到最多東西。 突然有人大叫:「住手!」 接著燈被打開了, 你終於知道這是什麼地方了:你竟然在羅浮宮裡! 你把那些價值連城的美術品, 全都當成了廉價商品。
And that's what we're doing with the ocean. And part of what Mission Blue is about is yelling, "Stop!" so that each of us -- explorer, scientist, cartoonist, singer, chef -- can turn up the lights in their own way. And that's what I hope my comic strip does in a small way. That's why I like what I do.
這就是我們現在對待海洋的方式。 Mission Blue的其中一個目的, 就是要喊出:「住手!」 所以我們每一個人, 包含探險家、科學家、漫畫家、歌手和廚師等, 都可以為我們開啟照亮海洋的燈。 我希望我的連環漫畫能為大家開啟一盞小燈, 這就是我喜歡畫漫畫的原因。
Thanks for listening.
謝謝各位!
(Applause)
(掌聲)