Getting to Know: John Stocker, Voice Director of Sailor Moon Part 7

Please read Part 6 of the interview before reading Part 7

Specific Events -
The Super Mario Brothers Show, The Adventures Super Mario Brothers 3, Super Mario World

I'd never heard of John Stocker until Anime Boston 2014 made their Sailor Moon guest announcement. That’s basically how I learned about his involvement in Sailor Moon. After looking up his name on the internet, I came across his IMBD resume and I learned that he portrayed Toad from The Super Mario Brothers Show.

Getting to Know: John Stocker, Voice Director of Sailor Moon Part 6

Please read Part 5 of the interview before reading Part 6

Specific Events - Sailor Moon continuation

When we have obtained a new responsibility, we might do some homework as preparation for completing the task at hand. It may be days or weeks in advance. However, in Stocker’s case, the cast and everyone else involved in the recording would not get the scripts or any of the video footage until…wait for it…right before they started recording. I kid you not. “Two or three days at the most for the scripts, and sometimes the other elements arrived at the studio well after our sessions were supposed to begin.” In another words, there isn’t much preparation time. “We often recorded lines we’d never seen till 5 minutes before we started work.”

Getting to Know: John Stocker, Voice Director of Sailor Moon Part 3

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Voice Director Stocker

Another one of Stocker's careers is that of a Voice Director, which involves scheduling and knowing the script. In regards to the first, he has to schedule the recording and be sure that it is completed within the allotted time. Regarding the script, the recording is not done as a full cast ensemble. Because most animation is recorded one performer at a time, “I need to know how every single line in the script has to be delivered…Sometimes the two sides of a dialogue are recorded days or even weeks apart.”

Getting to Know: John Stocker, Voice Director of Sailor Moon Part 2

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Life of a Voice Actor continuation

The work is completed and you get your paycheck. I understand that some actors get paid even after they have already portrayed their characters for a TV series or movie. For example they get money from a portion of a DVD sale or possibly webstreaming. Stocker told me that these are called “residuals” and it is something that actors love. He goes on to explain the process, “commercials or animation productions run in cycles. Some are weekly and some are yearly. When the cycles are completed, the producers must pay performers again for the production to continue running. The amount of the payment is usually based upon a unit value, which is determined by the potential market audience in that particular locale.”

Getting to Know: John Stocker, Voice Director of Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon was anime that many of us from the 1990's generation probably watched. Whether you are an anime fan or not, I'm pretty sure many have at least heard of the title. So when Anime Boston announced that they were bringing guests from the series I was in hype mode!

Now one of the guests intrigued me. Why you ask? Because he has an EXTENSIVE resume in the industry. I wanted to get to know John Stocker, not just as the Director of Sailor Moon, but as the multi talented individual. I wanted him to share with you his knowledge and experience. He kindly agreed and without further ado, I present to you: John Stocker.

Getting to Know: James Daily, Ryan Davidson and Law and the Multiverse Part 6

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Final Questions with Daily and Davidson

1. Have you ever come across a comic storyline that boggled your mind so bad that you just couldn’t figure out how to apply any law or regulations and wish you were able to? If yes, what was it about?

RD: This actually happens with some regularity in Golden and Silver Age comics. Some of the plots are just downright silly in ways that make legal analysis somewhat superfluous. Comic books frequently contain impossible things, and that as such doesn’t pose any particular difficulty for us. But when they contain downright illogical things, the analysis can switch rapidly from “That’s illegal!” to “Okay, that’s just dumb.”

Getting to Know: James Daily, Ryan Davidson and Law and the Multiverse Part 5

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Beyond Blogging

In Geek Speak, Davidson said, “I’d much rather collaborate with comic creators on law-related plot points. We actually made contact with a few creators over the past few months and really hope to do a lot of this in the near future.”

Getting to Know: James Daily, Ryan Davidson and Law and the Multiverse Part 4

Please read Part 3 of the interview before reading Part 4

Book Questions

I read in Geek Speak that Daily and Davidson “retained an agent by the end of 2010, and the auction for the book rights was held within a few months.” Because I am not familiar with the whole book and publishing process, I had to ask them about the agent and auctioning of book rights.

Getting to Know: James Daily, Ryan Davidson and Law and the Multiverse Part 3

Please read Part 2 of the interview before reading Part 3

Comics and the Law

1. From looking through your book, you reference varies laws and cases, and it would be hard to bring in a superhero unmasked to a court room.

a. However, is it possible to have a superhero appears at any level of the court system or type of court, whether it be state, supreme, federal, civil, criminal, etc. if s/he became a defendant or a witness to a case?

JD: This is a complicated question. For example, the Confrontation Clause only applies to criminal cases, which means that it’s possible that superheroes could testify while masked in civil cases.

RD: As James says, that’s a really complicated question. But I will say that of the half-dozen or so judges to whom I’ve put similar questions, not a single one hesitated to say that they’d order the person in question to take off their mask as a matter of course. There is no general right to anonymity, so any interaction between a masked character and the judicial system is going to probably result in the mask coming off.

Getting to Know: James Daily, Ryan Davidson and Law and the Multiverse Part 2

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The Coming of The Law and The Multiverse

So far their experience running and writing for the site has been full of “positive surprises.” It also helps to have a positive support system; their colleagues have been very supportive of their blog and book, The Law of Superheroes, but how did the dynamic duo come together?

I understand that Daily teamed up with Davidson through MetaFilter. Till this day, the internet is not considered a safe place for many. Plus, one may not know who s/he is really talking to. Now my question to the lovely gentlemen is how did they know that the other person is who they were really talking to and that they were going to provide the same amount of dedication to the site as they would?

Getting to Know: James Daily, Ryan Davidson and Law and the Multiverse

I first learned about Law and the Multiverse through a law librarian. He showed me an article in a journal (probably related to law librarianship) about comic books and the law. From a quick glance, I thought it was going to be about some copyright situation. However, when I had the time to read the article, I was intrigued. I thought using comic book storylines in teaching law or at least for us non-lawyers to understand was an interesting approach. So, I started checking their website and purchased their book. Then I had an opportunity to meet them at their NYCC 2012 panel, and now I present to you my interview with James Daily (JD) and Ryan Davidson (RD).

Getting to Know: Chris Giarrusso, Mini Marvel and G-Man Part 5

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Marvel Comics & Image Comics, Inc. continuation

So with the combined years of experience, I wanted to know what was his most memorable moment working at each company? At Marvel, that moment was when he first started working on the Mini Marvel comic strip. Someone told him that Joe Quesada, who is an editor, writer and artist, had a laughed at one of his strips. This was the first time that Giarrusso felt that “‘maybe this will work out after all.’” At Image, a noteworthy experience for him was when his character G- Man met Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon character. “I drew the Dragon into a few strips myself, but that excitement was later trumped by having Erik himself drawing the Dragon on the same art pages I drew G-Man on.” Here’s the best part, Giarrusso was able to keep that artwork!

Getting to Know: Chris Giarrusso, Mini Marvel and G-Man Part 4

Please read Part 3 of the interview before reading Part 4

Marvel Comics & Image Comics, Inc.

What is it like working at two known publishing companies? Let’s dive in and find out. As an artist and writer for both companies, he did not have a typical workday because he does a variety of things that involves a little bit of everything. Sometimes he writes, draws, color and does production or design work for books. There are times where he will wake up early and be at his drawing board. However, there are times when he will be working all night and sleeping all day. Then there are moments of interruptions that can take his work off course. “With Marvel, there was a lot of switching gears in response to rejection or approval of scripts or art or corrections. With Image, there is a lot more work to be done for promotion as far as writing solicits and hunting for interviews.”

Getting to Know: Chris Giarrusso, Mini Marvel and G-Man Part 3

Please read Part 2 of the interview before reading Part 3

The Work Itself continuation

His other work is G-Man: Cape Crisis, which is a graphic novel comprised of five comic issues/chapters that focus on G-Man’s cape. After reading the book, the story presented in each chapter felt like a complete individualized stories. However, each issue was still linked together to create a longer, more complete whole story. According to Giarrusso, this is a goal that most comic writers try to achieve. “Ideally, each individual issue should be comprehensible and a complete story in itself even if you hadn’t read anything that came before.” He had the bigger story in mind, but when he was “fleshing it out,” Giarrusso identified the “smaller arcs” within the bigger story. These arcs then became the individualized comic books/chapters of the graphic novel.

Getting to Know: Chris Giarrusso, Mini Marvel and G-Man Part 2

Please read Part 1 of the interview before reading Part 2

The Work Itself

The one thing that I admire about his artwork is the simplicity of the characters while expressing their emotions. He believes that his artistic style in portraying the emotions was “largely an ongoing organic thing that happens.” It seemed like a natural technique that developed possibly from subconsciously picking up on how other cartoonists have done this. “After reading other cartoonists’ work for years and years, there’s a lot of visual language that just becomes ingrained.”

Getting to Know: Chris Giarrusso, Mini Marvel and G-Man Part 1

When I first met Chris Giarrusso, it was at New York Comic Con 2009. He was sitting behind a table at the artist alley promoting his artwork and selling the graphic novel Mini Marvel. After the initial conversation and conclusion of the convention, we continued to communicate outside the venue. Through his website, I discovered the cancellation of Mini Marvel. However, I also learned that he is continuing his creativity at Image Comics with G-Man.

Getting to Know: Darren Dunstan and His Many Talents Part 4

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His Vocals

Some of you may or may not know this, but Dunstan is a vocal coach. I was looking through his website, and he was promoting his teaching skills. Based on what I read, a student of his will come out of his lessons with positive results. Even though he has 20+ years of professional and educational experience, since student abilities and learning styles varies, how does he know that the tools and skills that he has will actually prepare and improve the students’ vocal ability? According to Dunstan, within the first few minutes of listening and observing the student, he decides on what needs to be worked on. Once the decision has been made, he introduces “those concepts” to the said student. These can range from “basic vocal production concepts” to “advanced ‘tweaks’” that helps improve the performer.

Getting to Know: Darren Dunstan and His Many Talents Part 3

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Voice Director

Besides his voice acting career, Dunstan is also a voice director. When he was acting in Yu-Gi-Oh, 4 Kids began expanding and started producing a few new shows. He was asked to do some directing. After his training with other voice directors, Dunstan began directing his own show.

Getting to Know: Darren Dunstan and His Many Talents Part 2

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Voice Actor continuation

Another fun anime that Dunstan has worked on is Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, where he portrayed Grovyle, Combusken and Munchlax. If you are familiar with Pokemon, in general, most of the creatures speak only their name, which is different from Pegasus, who can speak full sentences. “It’s kind of liberating to only have one word to use. You don’t have to look down at a script, you can just let the video roll and ride the wave of whatever the creature is doing. Then you can go back to tweak and refine it.”

Getting to Know: Darren Dunstan and His Many Talents Part 1

When I first met Darren Dunstan it was at the premiere for Yu-Gi-Oh 3D: Bonds Beyond Time. Initially, I had no idea who he was, nor have I ever taken notice to the voices behind Yu-Gi-Oh. At the premiere, he was standing besides a table that had a paper stand up with his name and the words “Pegasus” and “Voice Director” on it. After I spoke to Dunstan, I thought he would make the perfect interviewee.