The Gashlycrumb Tinies: 26 varieties of misadventure
"The deaths in Edward Gorey's picture book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, are funny in all these ways: 'G is for George smothered under a rug, H is for Hector done in by a thug ... M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Neville who died of ennui, O is for Olive run through with an awl, P is for Prue trampled flat in a brawl ... R is for Rhoda consumed by a fire...'
The Gashlycrumb Tinies is many things. It's a rhyming alphabet of 26 boys' and girls' names. It's a Dance of Death, detailing 26 varieties of misadventure. It's in a tradition of cruel comic verse: Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter, Belloc's Cautionary Tales, Graham's Ruthless Rhymes. It's a homage to the Victorian cult of childhood innocence and child mortality (eg Little Nell)."
(Tom Lubbock, 08 August 2008, The Independent)
Edward Gorey (1963). "The Gashlycrumb Tinies": or, "After the Outing".
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Dumb Ways to Die ad becomes surprise hit
"'Set fire to your hair, poke a stick at a grizzly bear ... Dumb ways to die ... dumb ways to die-ie-ie.' If the chorus isn't stuck in your head, it will be soon. Melbourne Metro Trains' darkly cute - and irksomely catchy - new ad for transport safety has gone viral, notching up a whopping 4.2 million YouTube views in less than a week. And nobody is more stunned by its success than the man behind the music, Sydneysider Ollie McGill. The Cat Empire keyboards player was commissioned to write the score to accompany lyrics to the McCann Group's new ad and has watched Facebook likes, Twitter shares and YouTube hits skyrocket as word of the animated video has spread like wildfire. ... In the ad, cartoon characters meet their ends in a number of colourful, sardonic ways, including a couple of nasty mishaps on train tracks, while the sweet chorus, 'dumb ways to die ... ' is instant earworm material."
(Daisy Dumas, 19 November 2012, Fairfax New Zealand Ltd.)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Cartoon Brew: animation news and trends
"Each day, Cartoon Brew brings the latest news and trends in animation to over 20,000 different artists, entertainment execs and cartoon aficionados. Animation authorities Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi ... cover a wide range of topics, including contemporary and classic animation from around the globe, CGI, advertising, design, anime and industry/business news."
(Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi)
Fig.1 Joshua Catalano (2011). "Demoreel 2011".
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Pendleton Ward: on Adventure Time and being an animator
"I made this interview for http://www.adventuretime.tv and http://www.frederator.com --- Man, I don't know what I'm sayin. To follow up on some of these ideas.. what I'm trying to do with Adventure Time is create a cartoon that kids are going to have fond memories of after they grow up.. and hopefully will be able to go back into and watch again and appreciate it a new way after they grow up. I'm tryin to make it timeless - - - like peewee's play house. With jokes that should be funny for adults and kids. When I was muttering about "real characters" What I mean is.. when I was a kid.. I cared about cartoon characters. I cared about Lisa Simpson when she loved her substitute teacher and how she felt when he left town on that train.. I cared about Doug Funny when he was nervous around Patty Mayonnaise. Even Beavis and Butthead had real moments.. when Butthead choked on that chicken.. it was real.. it wasn't.. cartoony.. but it was still funny. So I'm into that idea. Not that my characters are overly sensitive like Doug or Lisa.. I'm not trying to re-create those emotions. But just find out how Finn and Jake would react to the situations they are in and then play them real. Finn is turning into a little spitfire actually.. and Jake is Bill Murray and The Dude from The Big Lebowski.
The show is turning out really good I think. There are a lot of amazing people working on it. Thanks for staying interested and watching this video."
(Pendleton Ward)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Gangpol und Mit: sonic & visual in love
"As a music and graphic duet, Gangpol und Mit works on a peculiar world of digital pop inhabited by colourful and geometrical characters - a bestiary that evolves in lysergic musicals and takes part in apocalyptic cartoons. In this project, music jumps from synth assaults and woody flute leads to mondo beats and cinematic harpsichord keys, with futuristic social songs wrapped in fake MIDI string quartet attempts. Meanwhile, on the visual side, salarymen dive into greasy food, call-center employees start a batucada, and computer motherboards are slaughtered on a wild island while some terrorist confettis explode everywhere."
(Gangpol und Mit, 29 Octobre 2011)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
