My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea begins as any number of high school films and TV shows does: with two weirdos on a school bus, on their way to the first day of a new school year, talking about how things are going to be different. This year, people will like Dash because […]
My Life as a Zucchini is an Uncynical Take on the Orphanage Story
My Life as a Zucchini looks like a children’s movie. The stop-motion film features characters, mostly children, with big heads and long limbs, round eyes and mouths, and oddly-colored hair. The title character looks vaguely like he came out of one of Tim Burton’s later attempts at an animated film, with blue hair and odd, […]
Invoking the Supernatural, Miss Hokusai Considers the Concept of the Muse
Miss Hokusai is not shy about the mystical. Paintings come alive to tell stories of hell and suffering and drives a woman insane. A geisha’s ghost has to be trapped in a net during the night in order to keep it from flying away. Our protagonist O-Ei paints a dragon, not from her own imagination, […]
The Transfiguration of Fiddleford McGucket
There’s a fan theory about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off that I’ve always appreciated, not so much due to the veracity of the idea itself but more for what it reveals to us about story and character. The pitch is that Ferris and his girlfriend Sloane (and I suppose by extension Ferris’ parents and sister) are […]
The Last Joe Casey Interview, Part Two
You might not know it, but Joe Casey is probably the most successful creator in comics. His name doesn’t result in as many fan squeals as, say, Alan Moore or Grant Morrison, but unlike those two, he still approaches the medium with genuine enthusiasm and curiosity rather than outright disdain and boredom. And unlike the […]
Products of Their Time: Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Vol. 3 is for True Animation Diehards
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc–the production studio responsible for creating the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical shorts that became such an iconic symbol of American animation and humor–closed its doors in 1963. The proliferation of television over the previous decade put the continued production of animated shorts into a dubious position and, after a Supreme […]