Dean Yeagle Interview

There's an interview with Dean Yeagle over at Super I.T.C.H.

FLIP, Tests and Dean Yeagle

The new issue of Flip (#34) is out. As always, it's an interesting read. For me, the highlights of this issue are a round table of professionals giving their views on art tests for employment and a feature on Dean Yeagle.

Yeagle's Gremlins

Fans of Dean Yeagle will be happy to know that his new comic, Return of the Gremlins, is now available. Written by Mike Richardson with art by Dean, backgrounds by Nelson Rhodes and colour by Dan Jackson, this is the first of a three issue series.

The comic is based on characters created by children's book author Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and they were originally created for an animated Disney film that never got produced. Dark Horse previously reprinted a storybook done by the Disney studio featuring the characters.

The comic can be ordered here or can be found at comics shops.

1000 True Fans

Kevin Kelly writes an interesting essay on artists developing a core audience as a way to finance their work. The problem for animators is always how long it takes to produce something new. It's far easier to build a fan base if you're releasing material weekly or monthly than if your new film is an annual event.

In any case, I think that this model has potential and there are people who have worked in animation (such as Dean Yeagle or Michel Gagne) who have built up fan bases that enable them to produce personal projects. It would be great to see somebody managing to finance actual films (no matter how short) this way.

(Kelly link via The Comics Reporter.)

Various Linkages

The first issue of Dean Yeagle's comic book version of Roald Dahl's Gremlins, pictured at left, will hit the comic shops on March 5.

In this Variety article, Brad Bird talks about writing animation and live action as well as naming some of his storytelling heroes.

In the January issue of Flip, Steve Moore editorializes about the current state of the industry:

"Since the animation boom of the 1990's, an animation industry culture has developed that permeates mainstream animation in the world today. The artists making the films all know each other, move in the same social circles, know the same films, music, and pop culture trivia. The result has been a cross pollination of ideas, where artists of today plagiarize each others' plagiarization of the past. The result is, the audience gets a third hand experience. The animated character are even less genuine, less alive. The characters in one film move and speak and behave like characters in the other films. They express humor, love, anger, and angst all the same way. The indusrty-at-large has become homogenized. Creatively in-bred."

The same page has some letters from people who studied under Eric Larsen at Disney, including this quote from Larsen: "Animate in your head first, then draw it next." Those letters are in response to an earlier article by Dan Jeup about his experiences learning from Larsen.

Animated News has the release dates for seven animated features coming in 2008.

Hans Perk has completed posting the animation drafts for Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

Musician David Byrne talks about different business models evolving in his industry. While music and animation are very different businesses, it's always encouraging to hear that there are ways around corporate ownership and control of creative work.

Along the same lines, Andrew O'Hehir of Salon interviews independent film maker John Sayles about his latest project Honeydripper.

"You know, it would be great to just be an artist and sit back and make these little creations and have somebody else figure out how to get people to see them. But you're probably not going to get to do that. You're probably going to have to be a marketer, a showman, whatever. It's part of the job."

Dean Yeagle Interview

Here's an interview with Dean Yeagle, including a discussion of his work reviving the Disney version of Roald Dahl's Gremlins.

Dean Yeagle's Latest Publications

It's summer, which means it's time for Dean Yeagle to release another collection of his work. This summer, we're lucky to have two new books from Dean.


First is Mandy's Shorts, which Dean will debut at the San Diego Comicon and which will be available from book dealers such as Bud Plant and Labyrinth shortly afterwards. It's a hardcover collection of short stories in colour.

Second is Melange, which is another hardcover that's 128 pages in colour. While it features Dean's Mandy character on the cover, it will offer a wider range of Dean's drawings.

Dean is also working on a multi-comic series based on the Disney version of Roald Dahl's Gremlins, coming from Dark Horse Comics, though I don't know the release date for these.