I know, I’m late again. And this is a pretty sketchy sketch. I’m finding it’s hard to nail down enough time at the end of a Monday. I’ll try working on it in the morning, see if that helps. In the future. For now, heeeere’s Jack! Wrong movie. Dammit.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorite movies, and one my wife and I watch faithfully every year as we decorate the tree. (For some Nightmare is a Halloween movie – for us, it’s a Christmas one.) I adore the entire film and cast, and could honestly draw every monster and have a good time (something to file away for later!). Tonight, however, I had to go with the Bone Man himself, the Pumpkin King, Skeleton Jack.
I have to say that I’ve always identified with Jack. I’m not as skinny as I was, but I definitely had the dark clothes and gothic tastes thing going. I also love Christmas as much as I love Halloween, and that dichotomy seems to weird people out sometimes. When the guy who just recommended Dead Alive squees over Miracle on 34th Street, people look at him funny.
Anyway, Jack’s melancholy and excitement and general determination to figure out what it is that he loves so much about Christmas spoke to me. And while Jack doesn’t make the best decisions, his love for the holiday is pure enough. And he gets the best songs. If I start singing “What Have I Done” my wife will inevitably join in, regardless of where we are.
I always sort of wished there had been more “Nightmare Before…” movies. I’d be first in line for a Nightmare Before Valentine’s Day or something similar. (I guess that leads to Nightmare Before Secretaries Day and nobody really wants that, so maybe I should be happy with what we got.)
Jack’s lesson, or the lesson I took from the movie, is that trying to control something you love can lead to it becoming something that isn’t at all what you fell in love with. You can love things without understanding why, and that’s okay. I love Jack Skellington, for instance, and that, too, is okay.
