Venkatesh Rao

My favorite characters are deft impressionist sketches that are archetypes bordering on caricatures. Cartoons basically. You find them in unusual places. Dickens is literary but his characters are basically cartoons.

People mistake cartoonish characters for weak or 2d cardboard-cutout characters. Homer Simpson, Cartman, Butters, entire family in Rick and Morty... cartoons ≠ shallow characterization

Cartoons are low-dimensional but the dimensions retained are eigen-dimensions. 2d characters are bad because they work with low and *superficial* dimensions like “tall and handsome”

Cartoons are lean-startup characters when they workhttps://twitter.com/vgr/status/1353203839453696000 …

Good genre milieus are also low capex. Like classic cozy mysteries are set in English country homes or London... they lend themselves to very quick familiarity with the main world elements: trains, libraries, butlers, rigid Victorian machine-like culture...

Genre pioneers get influential by inventing reusable efficient milieus and character types

By consuming a lot of cartoonish fiction (both literary and genre) I’ve gradually turned into almost a cartoon character myself. My next project is to build a cartoonish milieu around myself.