Tuesday 25 December 2012

Merry Thingfish!

Happy holidays, everyone! Here's hoping your tides are...yuley?
But more than anything I hope that you, like myself, are spending the season with the person who matters to you the most:

Monday 17 December 2012

Before I Submerge Fully...

Here's a brief overview of how the next few weeks of my adorable li'l life are looking set to pan out:
WORK WORK WORK WORK bit of Christmas holiday WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK and so forth. Best case scenario is that the world may end on Friday and grant me some respite.
Needless to say things may be quiet on the blog front, so here's one last pre-season entry before I'm submerged in deadlines and yuletide alcoholism. We have our last Skwigly Podcast of 2012 and, eschewing the variety of religious holidays that are active around this time of year, we've opted for the atheist favourite and made it a Christmas Special. Or Xmas Special, as I think I'm supposed to spell it.
Makes perfect listening for the long voyages home, hours of painstaking food preparation or to drown out unbearable acrimonious squabbling. Steve interviews Tim Searle from Baby Cow Animation who have two seasonal specials lined up, as well as Michael Rose of Magic Light Pictures whose not-especially-Christmassey-but-looks-pretty-good kids' short "Room on The Broom" will be shown on the 25th. There's also the second part of my interviews with the folks from Lupus Films following on from last episode, this time chatting with assistant director Robin Shaw and co-writer/director Hilary Audus about the hugely anticipated "The Snowman and The Snowdog", a follow-up to "The Snowman" which, along with Channel 4 itself, will see its thirtieth anniversary this year. All this and some needless trivia, cartooney Christmas nostalgia and I even wrote a little radio play. That's right, ya bestids. With sound effects and everything.
Stream it below, download it and/or subscribe on iTunes!
Elsewhere, the wonderful people over at Toon Boom (the Montreal-based animation software company) has picked my ol' Christmas toon "The Naughty List" for their showcase today. What lovely Quebecians they are! Granted, at the time the version of Toon Boom I used was incredibly basic and mainly just helped out with the clean-up, but I've since become rather enamoured of Toon Boom Animate. In fact, I'll probably be using it exclusively for the job I'm currently working on, so I may have become a full convert a few months from now. Now that I finally have a post-Intel Mac that can run it. Yep, I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the year 2006.
Lastly, today is most likely the last shopping day to get "Throat" in time for Christmas, so if you're still struggling to find the right gift for the indie graphic novel snob in your life - or if you just want to treat yourself - head on over to Amazon (US and now, for the convenience of my Brit compadres, UK) and grab one!