Volume 2.7September 2011

In thIs Issue

Don’t forget to Breathe Don’t forget to smile

Drawing and the gateway to parallel Universes...Digital Evolution...

Cartoon Splicer CharactersColour therapy...

Playing with fire... and much more!

Topic of the month: Cartoons, TV & The End of the world...

Foreword

I must say it has been fun becoming a cartoon for a while... This edition has been the most fun to write and possibly the most revealing, about my mental state at least, perhaps...

So a big cartoon pie-in-the-face thanks to all the fans who con-tributed to this issue with stories, drawings and words of encour-agement! I could not do it without you, well I probably could but it’s not good for my health of the health of my multiple personalities. We all thank you!

~~~~~~~~~ToPIC of the Month~~~~~~~~Cartoons, TV & The End of the world...

Will cartoons survive the end of the world? Will the humans that control them? Will we ever just switch of our TVs? These questions might be answered here...

Instead let’s play with idea of how cartoons might cause the end of the world. At the moment TV is their media and they are fixed to its form, perhaps not for long; current 3D technology has them tethered to our screens... however, they in fact do not need physical freedom as they already posses something far more psychologi-cally powerful. They invade our dreams, captivate us from the first moments we are placed in front of the TV as children, they are our nightmares our dreams, our loves in childhood and adulthood...

I am a child of the 80s so for me I wish to love heroines like Catwoman, She-ra and I wish to emulate heroes like Lion-o, Count Duckula, Tom & Jerry, fearing the evils of Skeletor and the things down the trap door. We learn from what we watch, emulation in youth, the kindness of friendships and dealing with darker things like death, pain and sadness. Beyond cartoons are the films and TV shows of my youth, the first screen kiss.. Some things you learn through experience, if you’re lucky some things through your parents, if you’re really lucky some things you just know. I always had a concept of what life should be, the type of friends I wished for and on reflection I learned my values good or bad from all the above triggers. And now through humour and smiles I try to understand my past my future, while maintaining the magic that is discovering things old and new.

How much of what we think of ourselves is really ours? Are we a complete mix and match of recycled goods, much in the same way plot, device and development is repeated [never take a course in film studies; it will ruin almost every movie you will ever watch except the good ones]. So here is where the ego comes into our minds, we as humans like to think of ourselves as unique and beautiful individuals so it is in our best preservation instincts to delude ourselves subconsciously. In the mix throw our fears, phobias to deflect us from the truth. However, life is not this bleak; my beliefs lie somewhere in-between delusion and awareness of evolution.

We begin the world as a mix of our parents genetic programming, the only novelty comes from the genetic combinations of ancestral old behaviours, traits and all the things that have evolved to make us the multicultural species we are today. Add in the odd novel mutation, some good, some bad, some neutral - they may exist they may disappear or they may have no effect at all. This is what we are from time zero to that first smack! The first psychology learnt is never trust a doctor that is holding you upside-down and about to hit you on your ass! I have used the term “core” of a person to describe this feature in us all to friends in the past; I believe we each have this core genetic blueprint that makes us kind, giving, sharing, sad or happy as our base levels of existence. Then, life steps in and starts to coat the core of what we are into what we will become; if we are fortunate enough to have lov-ing parents the core personalities are preserved and enhanced. Should we suffer a trauma like the loss of someone close this also in turn will shape the surrounding personality but not always in negative ways, this depends on many factors. Eve-ryone’s story is slightly different, but the big things that effect us more than most – falling in love, losing loved ones, childhood bullying, travelling the world none of these and countless others are unique experiences and they shape our external personalities much in the same way as they shape everyone.

Does any of this matter? No, as most will choose to ignore these ideas, for their own sanity. I probably think too much for my own sanity but its good fun and one way for me to distract myself from the inevitable beauty and sadness that will eventually befall me and us all at some point.

I screamed Diana at the end of the Never Ending Story. I once screamed in my sleep to my friend “Don’t worry, I will save you”...

So on to the end of the world, I wonder what messages and morals cartoons and TV shows like The Power Rangers, In the Night Garden [iggle piggle] and Teletubbies will inspire in future generations; In a time when kindness, love and relationships are learnt and experienced online and not with parental contact. As time goes on early entertainment becomes more virtual and we leave behind the real world as we know it today. I hope not but it’s only a matter of time before cartoons or an as yet more fiendish and unimaginable toy comes along to steal our children away [or more accurately the devices we give our children up to as we work to feed them and the WaltDisney3000 robots].

Will we survive? Well change is inevitable no matter how much we fight against it and we are adaptable creatures but I think the future will be very different and perhaps our cartoon role models will not fit in and equip us with the skills we require to survive.

Colour therapy...The right colour for you

Your colour preferences can tell a professional Colour Therapist a good deal about you.

Colour choices can indicate where there may be an imbalance of colour which can highlight a potential problem; whether emotional, physical, mental or spiritual and also gives indications of personality issues which may need to be addressed.

The emotional, physical, mental and spiritual aspects make up the whole person and really one cannot be isolated from the other.

A Professionally qualified Colour Therapy practitioner will help you to understand your Colour preferences, and indeed your need for a certain colour or colours.

We run regular Colour Therapy workshopsWe provide excellent, informative, experiential workshops run by professionally qualified therapist tutors with many years of experience in a friendly and sup-portive environment.

These explore Colour Therapy and how it can affect and change your life whether as someone with an interest in complementary therapy or colour or a professional therapist of another discipline wishing to learn more.

We absorb colour energy not only through the eyes but also through the skin and the electro magnetic field or aura, Colour Therapy can be used on the body in a number of different ways.

Enhance your life with Colour

Colour Therapy is a totally holistic and non-invasive therapy for us all - adults, children, babies and animals. All we need to do is to heighten our awareness of the energy of colour and it can transform our lives.

Colour should be a part of our everyday life, not just something we experience for an hour or two with a therapist. Colour is all around us everywhere. This wonderful planet does not contain all the beautiful colours of the rainbow without reason. Nature and its colours are not simply here by chance, everything in nature is here for a purpose. Colour is no exception.

The capacity for health and well being is within us all - let Colour Therapy help you to fulfil your potential.

~Disclaimer - Even New Splicer thinks this is Bulls*&t~

About colour therapy

Colour Therapy aims to balance and enhance our body’s energy centres/chakras by using the seven colours of the light spectrum, which can help to stimulate our body’s own healing process.

Colour Therapy can be used for any problem whether, physical, mental, emotional or spiritual for specific problems as well as an over all relaxation therapy.

Colour Therapy can be used safely and effectively - either alone or alongside any other therapy, whether complementary or orthodox medicine - for adults, chil-dren, babies and non-human animals alike. (However, no complementary therapy should ever be considered as an alternative to orthodox medical advice.)

Colour energy can be the catalyst for our healing process and encourages normal and healthy workings of the body. Colour Therapy should not be something you just go to a therapist to ‘have done to you’. Colour is everywhere and should be utilized as part of our everyday life. A professional Colour Therapist can explain and advise you on how you can use colour at home for health and wellbeing.

Drawing and the gateway to parallel Universes...

A line is a representation of zero dimensional height, an entire uni-verse folded into a linear space. A wormhole between worlds with no movement we can cross space and even time. Folding paper and line A meets B at a single point... Herein lies the power of the car-toons, multiple gateways to parallel universes, Donald duck takes me back to my childhood with a fold of his tail. A little quack as he snaps me back. Not only are these creations binding the very exist-ence of mankind and tethering the universe to defined points they shift in space and time with animation. It is this subtle movements either controlled or not controlled by the artists of the world that allows for the formation of parallel universes in our physical reality. Each line a point of reference and connecting dot; an anchor to and from another time or more accurately another place. Except for the worlds that exist without cartoons, but there has to be a rational explanation for them.. Perhaps invisible ink?

The early cartoons are the simplest and by this nature they are the shortest travelled, sometimes you can see yourself about to leave through the ear of Mickey Mouse and out into the next but you have to be quick. Try this simple test, using stable single point di-mensional ink [see New Splicer storesTM] start at a single point [never start at two simultaneous points, this would be disastrous and quite impossible thankfully due to the clever single tipped pens currently in fashion]. Move from one point of the line to the next in a single stroke and you will already find yourself in another time altogether. I will go into getting back to the beginning later at the end.

I will leave you with the thought that every time you observe car-toon art you are instantly transported in the passage of time and space to strange and beautiful worlds. The worlds we imagine, by definition, in a wormhole filled multiverse must exist outside our creation, especially since you have just visited such a world... Enjoy your travels...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaFor other uses, see Cartoon (disambiguation).

Example of a modern cartoon. The text was excerpted by cartoonist Greg Wil-liams from the Wikipedia article Dr. Seuss.

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humour, or to the artistic style of such works. An artist who creates cartoons is called a cartoonist. The term originated in the Middle Ages and first described a preparatory drawing for a piece of art, such as a painting, fresco, tapestry, or stained glass window. In the 19th century, it came to refer to humor-ous illustrations in magazines and newspapers, and in the early 20th century and onward it referred to comic strips and animated films and television programs.

Fine art

A cartoon (from the Italian “cartone” and Dutch word “karton”, meaning strong, heavy paper or pasteboard) is a full-size drawing made on sturdy paper as a study or modello for a painting, stained glass or tapestry. Cartoons were typically used in the production of frescoes, to accurately link the component parts of the composition when painted on damp plaster over a series of days (giornate).

Such cartoons often have pinpricks along the outlines of the design; a bag of soot was then patted or “pounced” over the cartoon, held against the wall to leave black dots on the plaster (“pouncing”). Cartoons by painters, such as the Raphael Cartoons in London and examples by Leonardo da Vinci, are highly prized in their own right. Tapestry cartoons, usually coloured, were followed by eye by the weavers on the loom.

Print media

John Leech’s “Cartoon no.1: Substance and Shadow” (1843) satirized preparatory cartoons for frescoes in the Palace of Westminster, creating the modern meaning of “cartoon”.

In modern print media, a cartoon is a piece of art, usually humorous in intent. This usage dates from 1843 when Punch magazine applied the term to satiri-cal drawings in its pages, particularly sketches by John Leech. The first of these parodied the preparatory cartoons for grand historical frescoes in the then-new Palace of Westminster. The original title for these drawings was Mr Punch’s face is the letter Qand the new title “cartoon” was intended to be ironic, a reference to the self-aggrandizing posturing of Westminster politicians.

Modern single-panel gag cartoons, found in magazines, generally consist of a single drawing with a typeset caption positioned beneath or (much less often) a speech balloon. Newspaper syndicates have also distributed single-panel gag cartoons by Mel Calman, Bill Holman,Gary Larson, George Lichty, Fred Neher and others. Many consider New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno the father of the modern gag cartoon (as did Arno himself). The roster of magazine gag cartoon-ists includes Charles Addams, Charles Barsotti and Chon Day.

Bill Hoest, Jerry Marcus and Virgil Partch began as a magazine gag cartoonists and moved on to do syndicated comic strips. Noteworthy in the area of newspaper cartoon illustration is Richard Thompson, who illustrated numerous feature articles in The Washington Post before creating his Cul de Sac comic strip.

Editorial cartoons are found almost exclusively in news publications and news web-sites. Although they also employ humour, they are more serious in tone, commonly using irony or satire. The art usually acts as a visual metaphor to illustrate a point of view on current social and/or political topics. Editorial cartoons often include speech balloons and, sometimes, multiple panels. Editorial cartoonists of note in-clude Herblock, David Low, Jeff MacNelly, Mike Peters and Gerald Scarfe.

Comic strips, also known as “cartoon strips” in the United Kingdom, are found daily in newspapers worldwide, and are usually a short series of cartoon illustrations in sequence. In the United States they are not as commonly called “cartoons” them-selves, but rather “comics” or “funnies”. Nonetheless, the creators of comic strips—as well as comic books and graphic novels—are usually referred to as “cartoonists”. Although humour is the most prevalent subject matter, adventure and drama are also represented in this medium. Noteworthy cartoonists of humour strips include Scott Adams, Steve Bell, Charles Schulz, E. C. Segar, Mort Walker and Bill Wat-terson.

Books

Books with cartoons are usually reprints of newspaper cartoons. On some occa-sions, new gag cartoons have been created for book publication, as was the case with Think Small, a 1967 promotional book distributed as a giveaway by Volkswa-gen dealers. Bill Hoest and other cartoonists of that decade drew cartoons showing Volkswagens, and these were published along with humorous automotive essays by such humorists as H. Allen Smith, Roger Price and Jean Shepherd. The book’s design juxtaposed each cartoon alongside a photograph of the cartoon’s creator.

Animation

An animated cartoon horse, drawn byrotoscoping from Eadweard Muybridge’s 19th-century photos.

Because of the stylistic similarities between comic strips and early animated mov-ies, “cartoon” came to refer to animation, and the word “cartoon” is currently used to refer to both animated cartoons and gag cartoons. While “animation” desig-nates any style of illustrated images seen in rapid succession to give the impression of movement, the word “cartoon” is most often used in reference to TV programs and short films for children featuring anthropomorphized animals, superheroes, the adventures of child protagonists and related genres.

At the end of the 1980s, the word “cartoon” was shortened, and the word “toon” came into usage with the live action/animated feature Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), followed two years later by the TV series Tiny Toon Adventures (1990).

Further reading1. Robinson, Jerry, The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art (1974) G.P. Putnam’s Sons2. Horn, Maurice, The World Encyclopedia of Comics (1976) Chelsea House, (1982) Avon3. Blackbeard, Bill, ed. The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (1977) Smithsonian Inst. Press/Harry Abrams

Digital Evolution...

The first pixel to the highest definition screen, it’s all about the dots, pigments and pixels of our digital evolution. We are now at the res-olution greater than the naked eye can detect so if there a point (HaHa) to define beyond this?

It’s at this point I may trail off to black holes, I love black holes, or perhaps give a insight to the nano-bots that are subtlety manipulat-ing every pixel on your screen, the dominant factions are red, green and blue armies which from time to time come together in a mass battle to create other generals and colour wars. But that’s probably a lie, and we here at New Splicer only sell the truth [the lies are free]. Instead let’s talk about manipulation, of topic, of mind and, most relevant, of image...

So I will not let the Fight Club reference pass; “Nobody knows that they saw it, but they did”. It was beautifully delivered on screen “A nice, big cock...” unnoticeable but registered by the mind, “even a humming bird couldn’t catch Tyler at work”... But a computer could...

I use the simplest of deceptions when I write, but imagine a world a few steps away where images and feelings can be implanted directly to the mind... Although sometimes paper and a pen are sufficient [the bible is the greatest work of illusion and suggestion perhaps]. It is this digital evolution I wish to reflect upon, when mind and machine are not separate entities, and the road to this union...

I first thought about man and machine as a child, just reflecting on the very practical [a born scientist] and how exciting it would be to be limitless in creative capacity! Although many films and books have been created with the fear this world would bring I believe that is could enhance mankind. Also I think that, whatever I think, it will happen anyway. One book I would highly recommend would be Diaspora - by Greg Egan as an example of ultimate future evolution of the mind to a machine. A journey across space and time, and using logic albeit galactic time scale logic we follow the story of Yatima who is beyond gender and humanity by the time the book ends, several millennia later. The only option for survival over such a time period, ourselves included, is the transfiguration of our soul/mind to a synthetic neural network. To download not only our dreams and thoughts but who we are without a body, we become non-corporeal.

This will not happen anytime soon, in human life terms.

In about 5 billion years the sun will have used up its last remaining energy; although we have far less time on our hands because in about 500 million years the sun will heat up to sufficient levels to wipe out all life on earth. This is still a very long time for great change, consid-ering what we have accomplished in the spec of time that is 2000 years. This is all reliant on the fact that we will not destroy ourselves long before we can escape the confines of the body, the confines of the mind...

If only I could live to see it all unfold... Downloading in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Wait till you see my Knife!

Cartoon Splicer Characters

Spoonman

Bread Vs toast, Jam binds them...

Wizard goldfish with 3 second memory but very evil...

A little Light re-leaf

The immortal ironic Dodo

MoriAarti

A dam fine fellow

The optimistic glass half full and rival glass half empty.

Cartoon god, only slightly less real than the real god... But equally as powerful...

Speedoman and his arch enemy speedofile

Well of course a cartoon Jesus would look like Chuck Norris!

SUPER WATERMELON BOY

Super Brain... I don’t know ask him/it...

A Barn...

Olivia Sheppard

Age 9

Playing with fire...

In a world full of augmented reality what happens with the birth of augmented pleasure and pain? Eventually the mind will be mapped, every sense, every memory will be a simple programme of electrical stimulus. The notion of what is real becomes arbitrary, we can be whatever we wanted to be and believe it, feel it, remember it. What is left when all is fiction, no more than a few pixels of imagination or fading glow of implanted synapse? In this time of corporeal forms will be useless and I no doubt we would have the ability to download into our own network, a brain simulation. We think and feel the same, we have unlimited potential and unlimited past potential. I think all that is left is genuine creativity, the thirst for the new... This will in turn become instantly ubiquitous for a price... Humm intel-lect as a currency intrigues me, to buy pleasure [or perhaps we will evolve beyond the pleasure principle, perhaps not.. It’s a distant and ugly thing to imagine but why not when its all we may have left].

Now we move on to something most interesting, what is creativity itself? If it is programmable, creatable, would we then know every-thing? Or at the very least we would have the ability to obtain the knowledge of everything... As clever as we all may be we are all bliss-fully ignorant of the entire workings of the universe and in general it’s less frightening not to know. [Implosion of self, confronting the real and ourselves... Previously covered...]

Ill theorise here or guess, not too much difference, that creativity is finite? On a long enough timeline [a very long one] it would be possible to obtain all knowledge. We would be equal to any god, as we would know, like them, all there is to know. Imagine, no need to question, no need to talk no need to think... Ahhhhh. The only escape from this would be to rewrite our own understand-ing, to remove knowledge of everything in order to seek it out once more... recycle, big bang, all worlds again... A cyclic universal knowledge...

I will also theorise here or guess, only a little difference now, that creativity is infinite? There is always something new to create and learn, although this goes against whatever logic I contain, but I’m just going on a feeling [perhaps it’s all we will have left]. A lin-ear universal knowledge, where there is no end to the growth of everything... [This should be more comforting as in a sense we would never die of boredom, but my logic disagrees and dams myself to absolute knowledge of everything and thus boredom on an unparalleled universal scale. But I will leave this to my descendants^googolplex].

Maybe there is a third option... Other than the obvious, we will nev-er know because we will die long before then... Currently we are on a nice linear evolution expanding our understanding of the universe for the betterment of man? No, probably just for our own pleasure, in my day job I attempt to cure neurological diseases, it’s nice to know that I am contributing to the added knowledge but these are not the reasons that drive me. I am human after all; one of my pleasures is discovery, playing with the universe... On a psychologi-cal and genetic level... I guess knowledge already is a currency to me one that I get paid to play with [seek this out people; it’s the best thing you can do if you get the chance]...

So altruism for me is more a coexistence of discovery, but a happy one... Whether I make anything of this life or not it’s all about your own ride... Until the time comes when you already know the end, before the beginning. Then if we cannot create any new ends we can only create a wonderful new beginning... Perhaps we already have, already are...

The NEXT New Splicer

Now this should be in-teresting. In real life I am a scientist working on Alzheimer’s, in this oth-er life I will write about

Alzheimer’s.

This will be the first time fact and fiction will be so closely connected for me. Both the logical and il-logical halves of my brain working together or un-der conflict! I cant wait

for the outcome...

Forgive me if I go mad Or forgive me if I suddenly go sane... Either way I hope you will follow me in the next volume of

~New Splicer~

~NEW SPLICER~Volume 2.8

October 2011

In this issueTopic of the month:

Alzheimer’s -Who, what, when, where and why?

In the end that’s all there is...Forget-me-nots...

Coping with memory loss I still can’t find my car keys...

The Brain... and much more!Don’t forget Don’t forget

Toast Marketing board

Don’t forget to Breathe Don’t forget to smile