Good Photograph

Emru Townsend, founder and editor of fps, has been suffering from leukemia and monosomy 7. His family, especially sister Tamu, have been campaigning to raise awareness of bone marrow registration. If somebody needs a bone marrow transplant and no members of their immediate family are a match, the next step is to search databases worldwide, hoping to find someone, somewhere, who can provide a match. The Townsend family has worked hard not only to locate someone for Emru but also to increase the size of the database so that others in need have a better chance of finding a match.

The reason this is a good photograph is that Emru had his bone marrow transplant on September 16. He is posing here with the donor stem cells. I certainly hope that the transplant does its job and starts Emru on the road to recovery. He's a longtime booster of animation in its many forms and the sooner he can resume his normal life, the better for us all.

If you're interested in details of Emru's story or how you can add yourself to the bone marrow registry, the best place to go is here, where Emru and family have documented his experiences.

You Can Be a Hero!

I avoid putting personal material on this blog. For one thing, I'm a private person. For another, I assume that readers come here for a discussion relating to animation, not about what I had for breakfast.

This really isn't about me, except as background material. My mother died last summer from Hodgkins Lymphoma. My father currently has pancreatic cancer. I've spent a fair amount of time at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the cancer hospital in New York City where both my parents received treatment. Sitting in the waiting rooms and walking through the hallways, it's astounding how many people are being treated for cancer. While some of these people may have engaged in behavior or occupations that put them at risk, the majority are just unlucky. Cancer doesn't discriminate much in terms of age, sex or ethnicity.

I went to school briefly with Glenn McQueen, the Pixar supervising animator who passed away several years ago from cancer. Recently, two people I admire, musician Jeff Healey and artist Dave Stevens, both died of cancer at relatively young ages.

Since my mother became ill, I've lost my innocence. Cancer was something exotic that didn't touch my life. Now, the damned thing is everywhere. Another friend, Emru Townsend, is battling leukemia and a condition called monosomy 7, which complicates his treatment.

You may know fps. It started as a print magazine about animation and has become a website. Emru is the founder and runs it. He's also worked as a technical writer for animation software companies, so if you're in the business, you may have read some of his words. He's using his media savvy to publicize his situation, hoping that print and the internet will help his cause. The best thing about it is that no matter what happens, his campaign will definitely help others.

Emru needs a bone marrow transplant. The tough part is finding somebody who is a genetic match. All it takes for a potential donor to be tested is a saliva swab or a blood sample. The odds of you being the person who matches Emru are, frankly, pretty low. But the odds of you matching somebody needing a transplant are higher. Emru is urging people to provide samples to the world-wide database. With every additional sample, the odds for Emru and those with similar needs get better.

If you have encountered cancer, you know how tough the treatment is and how stressful it is to contemplate an uncertain future. Anything that offers hope is a valuable gift. You may offer someone that gift by providing a sample. The terrible irony is that someday you may need that gift and Emru's campaign may provide it for you.

Visit healemru.com for more details and click the graphic above to learn more about how and where to provide a sample.

fps Charity Auction

For the fourth year, the fps animation site is running a charity auction through November 30. This year's beneficiary is The Cancer Research Society. The auction includes some rare or hard to find items such as crew baseball cap from Meet the Robinsons, a 1926 edition of Animated Cartoons by E. G. Lutz, and some memorabilia from the 2007 Ottawa International Animation Festival. There's even software, such as Softimage XSI and Toon Boom Studio Express. Go here for a list of items and links to the ebay pages for each.

Two Ratatouille Links

My review of the book The Art of Ratatouille is up at the fps site. The short review: buy the book. Also on the site is something I should leave as a surprise. Check this out and make sure to click on the picture when you get there.