Formative experience recollection time.

It's a summer evening in, oh, 1979 (or thenabouts), and I'm standing – gob-smacked and wonder-filled – in the lobby of the (no-longer-existent) prom-side cinema in Lahinch, Co. Clare. I've just seen Disney's Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs for the first time, and its 83 minutes of Technicolor gorgeousness have rocked my little world.

I'm not the only one thus affected. A (presumably awed & dazed) teenage boy emerges from the theatre, ambles across the lobby, and walks up to, into, and straight through the cinema's floor-to-ceiling glass window/door. Miraculously he is (in my memory at least) unhurt. Such is the power of animation. It not only fires and fuels your imagination – it throws a protective aura of invincibility around you as well.

For the majority of the rest of my childhood all I wanted to be was a "cartoonist" (the proper term, I assumed, for someone who produces animated cartoons). I sketched. I doodled (a lot). I drew cariacatures of teachers on classmates' copy-books. I was utterly dedicated to my craft.

Then – as happens with about 99.99999% of humankind – I hit my teens, thought "Ah, fuck it", and went off drinking cider and listening to The Doors. Such (as the platitudinous fella no doubt says) is life.

Skip forward 30 years and I'm buying a Nintendo DSi for my birthday. Skip forward another day or two and I'm downloading Flipnote Studio. Skip forward ten minutes more and I'm giving life to crude stick figures. Here's an early effort – combining the simple joys of (falling flat on one's arse) slapstick with the grim tragedy of (Sisyphean) eternal recurrence.

Bwaa ha ha! Look at him fall! Right in the hole. Over and Over! There he goes again. And again! Ah ha ha ha! The poor doomed bastard…*sniff*

More tomorrow.