Aural Favours

Two massive, simultaneous deadlines are kicking my sexy behind right now, so this one'll be brief. Just to say that April's Skwigly Podcast has gone up, with one day of the month left to spare.
Midst chat of Disney layoffs, LucasArts nostalgia and unexpected TV show cancellations Steve chats to Brian Cosgrove, one of the UK animation world's most important luminaries, as well as Kevin Schreck, director of "The Persistence of Vision", a documentary exploring Richard Williams and his doomed passion project "The Thief and The Cobbler".
Continuing in the vein of gifted youngsters chronicling troubled productions, I chat to Thad Komorowski, author of "Sick Little Monkeys" (the book I've championed previously, which tells the tumultuous story behind "The Ren & Stimpy Show").
We also have an update from Dan Greaves of Tandem on his Kickstarter success and a competition where you can win a copy of "The Art of Short Films", a fabulous collection of independent animated shorts artwork. Listen to the podcast for specifics on how to enter and get liking and sharing on our Skwigly Facebook page!

Ben Mitchell's Very Public Emotional Breakdown

It's new Skwigly podcast day, folks - that wunnerfull time o' the month where myself and Steve bring you some insight from the animation world's notable practitioners, sort of held together with our meandering wafflage in between. Everyone listen or risk societal shunning!

Insight-wise I got to talk to Richard Starzak, formerly Richard Goleszowski, known to most as Golly. He's currently the creative director at Aardman and has headed up "Rex The Runt", "Robbie The Reindeer" and presently "Shaun The Sheep", all of which - despite the title similarities - are separate endeavours. He also directed the "Creature Comforts" TV series, developed from the famous Nick Park short of the same name, as well as his own film "Ident" which is probably my favourite 'classic' Aardman short alongside Barry Purves's "Next".

Later on Steve chats to Daniel Greaves of Tandem Films, whose work includes the Oscar-winning "Manipulation", an early-90s take on the "Duck Amuck" character-vs-creator concept, as well as "Flatworld", "Little Things" and the in-progress "Mr. Plastimime".
Wafflage-wise, we discuss recent developments with the VFX debate, merrily gambol down memory lane and I rant psychotically about a recent nightmare commission. Hopefully we can get some listener stories of their own horrendous experiences dealing with clueless clients. It's good to vent.

Meanwhile, somewhere in my happy place, I've learned that HuHa! has been translated into German and French. Best I can tell only the German version of Wobble Box Episode 1 is up now, so treat yourself to the delights of "Assassinen Babies". It's like "Assassin Babies", just German-ier.