Bill Ackerman creates "vulgar" display at San Diego Supercomputer Center

June 28, 1990

Media Contact: Warren Froelich, (619) 534-5143 or 534-8564

"VULGAR" DISPLAY CREATED AT SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER

Bill Ackerman will be creating a "vulgar" display for some impressionable kids this summer. What's more, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is helping Ackerman bring his "vulgar" acts, as well as his "clouds of doom" and "mountains of despair," into American homes everywhere.

It's all part of a series of animated cartoons directed at substance abuse prevention and self-awareness promotion that Ackerman is developing with the help of high-performance graphics computers housed at the SDSC on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. Vulgar is one of the series' main characters who lives on Mount Despair under a Cloud of Doom.

The supercomputer center is providing Ackerman -- whose credits include , Hound, and -- with the space to house his equipment, as well as expertise found in the center's newly dedicated visualization lab (VisLab).

By summer's end, he hopes to convince a major television network to buy his series, collectively known as the "Wizard of Us." It's not an alternate to some of the latest cartoon crazes like "" or "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," Ackerman says. But rather, he sees his animated characters as a way to 111 deliver a positive message in an entertaining and colorful manner.

"We've gotten so far into the violence and the turtles and the mutants," said Ackerman. "My thrust is to have the adversary be a problem: a disease, a germ. And the positive aspect is a way to think, a way to organize thoughts."

To SDSC officials, Ackerman's presence offers a way to display how high-performance computers are making a contribution to the graphics industry.

"We're interested in that capability and we're also interested in reaching kids K (kindergarten) through (grade) 12," said Robert Randall, manager of resource development at the supercomputer center. "We feel he is making a contribution in that area with the development of his drug and alcohol abuse prevention and self-awareness programs."

Ackerman, a veteran cartoonist of more than 30 years, became a believer in computer graphics only recently. For most of career, which has included stints at Hanna-Barbera Productions, , and Warner Bros., Ackerman has relied on pen, brush, board and film for his .

Now, he is combining classical cartooning with computer graphics to create what he believes is a higher quality, lower budget product. "I was completely ignorant and skeptical about computers and what they could do," he said recently during an interview at his 411 production studio at the supercomputer center. "What I saw here were time-saving devices that just intrigued me. I said this was the way to go and I'm going to investigate this equipment."

Initially, Ackerman will use graphics computers from Symbolics Inc., based in Littleton, Mass. But he plans on experimenting with other systems already at the supercomputer center, although it's unlikely the CRAY Y- MP8/864 will be part of Ackerman's new tools.

"We are going to want to store for recall and we are going to create some fantastic backgrounds," said Ackerman, whose animation company, U.R.U., is based in Santa Barbara. "The computer gives us a wider and truer range of colors with about 252,000 variations so slight you can go from shade one to shade two and not be able to tell with the human eye.

"It also eliminates a step where many accidents are made in traditional photographing of animation cells. Here, what we have in the computer we can transfer right into video tape or film, or whatever our choice is."

Ackerman's move from big-time animated studios to educational cartoons was prompted, in part, from his inability to persuade the major producers to get involved with this type of public service cartooning. His first venture in health promotion cartoons, "Bad News Booze," was distributed nearly a decade ago.

He has completed the first two of five introductory 20- minute videos for his "Wizard of Us" series, and is planning a 111 series of 11-minute segments to follow. Each of the first introductory videos will focus on some form of dependency, including drugs, alcoholism, and smoking. The remaining segments will be on self awareness, dealing with such topics as cancer, birth, reproduction and death.

SDSC, one of four national supercomputer centers established by the National Science Foundation to serve the U.S. research and development community, is administered and operated by General Atomics. Although the center program was established for the academic research community, computer resources also are provided for industry use.

411 NOTE TO EDITORS: Line drawings and color stills of Ackerman's cartoons are available. See attached sample.

(June 28, 1990)