ANIMATED SHORTS 284: ANT BULLY, BROKEN SAINTS & MORE

[MattBrady]

ANT BULLY READY TO SWARM THEATERS
Broken Saints, Kids Next Door & More

by Steve Fritz

There’s an interesting trend starting to develop in American animation these days.

With very rare exception, U.S. animation had primarily been the providence of two states: New York and California. True, there were notable exceptions, such as when Max Fleischer thought he could be out paying union dues by moving his operation to Miami or Don Bluth and Fox set up shop in Arizona. They both tanked. Even Disney eventually closed its studio in Orlando recently. And yes, Laika Entertainment is based in Oregon and I’d be remiss to dismiss Adult Swim’s Williams Street in Atlanta. But it’s still a safe bet to say over 95% of all animation produced today comes from the two aforementioned states.

But that’s changing. It looks like a new player has entered the field. To say this new guy could become as big as the state of Texas is intentional, because it is the state of Texas. By that I also don’t mean any one particular city either. You have ADV Films in Houston. Rick Linklater’s crew is in Austin. There’s FUNimation Entertainment and the recently formed Illuminata in Ft. Worth. But probably the biggest of all is DNA out of Dallas.

“We also have Real EFX in Dallas, who are doing Yankee Irving and the guys who did all the Spy Kids stuff in Austin,” says John S. Davis, founder and president of DNA. “It’s really kind of funny. A few years back the state government tried to do this thing they called ‘the south coast,’ as a way to build and attract all these live action movie studios to Texas. They didn’t get much live action, but all these animation studios took them up on the offer. Now there’s a lot of animation going on, and not only in film and television, but also a lot of game animation companies down here. It’s cool for me as I was raised in Dallas. Because of my job I fly to LA a bit, which is fun, but I still get to go home to my own little creative cocoon.”

Actually, it’s cool to be John S. Davis for a number of other reasons. He helped form DNA less than a decade ago. It also didn’t take him long to make an impression. By 2000, he had scored a huge contract with Nickelodeon to create and produce The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, which then turned into a hit TV series. The tale of the big-headed kid from Retroville also garnered the attention of an even bigger kid in Hollywood, who thought DNA just might the right studio for a special project of his.

“It started one day when I got a book in the mail from Tom Hanks,” Davis recalls. “The Ant Bully is actually based on a children’s book Hanks read to his son, Truman. He realized it would make a good movie. He sent the book to me because he really liked Neutron. So that’s how I first got exposed to it.”

As is now well know, Ant Bully is the story of another diminutive, big-headed kid. This time his name is Luke. Like DJ in Monster House, he’s new to the neighborhood, but he really has no bud like Chowder to work his anxieties out with. Like a lot of kids, rather than deal with his problems constructively, he takes his problems out on something even smaller than him, an ant colony.

“Lucas is really a pretty normal kid,” says Davis, and he’s being picked on by a big bully. He doesn’t tell his parents or fights back. The ants get sick of it, so they strike back. They shrink him, and then put him on trial for destroying many of their lives and much of their colony. That’s when the ramifications of what he’s done hits him. He realizes these aren’t faceless little creatures but a whole society.”

It’s when you get to the world of the ants that you see the true detail and care DNA has put into the project. It’s a wondrous yet dangerous world. Has it been done before? Sure it has. The second (and last) feature length film Fleischer ever did was Mr. Bug Goes To Town, which was very much about insects coping with the human world. More recently you’ve had Pixar’s A Bug’s Life and Dreamwork’s Antz, which were both much more insular.

But DNA did manage to put another completely different take on their bugs. Their colony not only has a queen, but sorcerers, lawyers, warriors and just about every kind of worker. They also have a lot more distinct personalities than the previous films. Even the design of the ants is particularly interesting.

“We’ve all seen insect-based CGI movies like A Bug’s Life and Antz,” Davis admits. “But this story is very different. It’s not about the ants, it’s about the boy. It’s about the human world colliding with their world. I saw it as this tribal and very alien world under your feet that we don’t know anything about. It’s got plenty of adventure in the form of battling wasps and giant frogs that could eat you in one gulp. You also see characters change and mature over what they go through.

“As for the design, the ants operate on all six legs, and only raise their front two arms when they need to. For instance, when they are walking and talking to Lucas, I had them go to four legs. I did that because I felt this made them easier to relate to.”

Of course, the big wheels in Hollywood feel that animation fans need big names to relate to. So Ant Bully has more than its share of A-list actors doing voice work; among them Nicholas Cage, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Paul Giamatti, Regina King, Bruce Campbell and lots more. Davis gives credit to Tom Hanks for that.

“First of all, I couldn’t believe it when they started signing up,” said Davis. “Then you suddenly realize that you have to direct them. What happens though is once you meet them, you realize all they really care about is the work, just like you. So when I tell them I need certain things to help the animators, which can be a little tricky because they all did it in isolation. Some, like Nick, was a little impaired over this because he likes to work visually. I had to provide him with some pictures, storyboards and then talk him through until he got it. Once he got a good mental picture, and all of these guys have good imaginations, it became a lot easier.”

But the actor who really shone was Zach Tyler Eisen, who though still a pre-teen is an animation vet with the likes of such shows as Avatar: The Last Airbender and Ice Age. He could actually give tips to the more established actors.

“He was,” said Davis. “He’s been doing animation now for 5-6 years while some of the others were doing it for the first time. He had no problem, for instance, giving me all kinds of deliveries to suit the changing situations. He’s so good that when I would tell him to give me three more reads, he would give me three completely different ones.”

The film also finds itself in a very interesting situation. It’s the middle button of three animated feature films being released, one per week. This hasn’t gone ignored by Davis.

“It does feel kind of strange,” he admits, “but it’s also kind of nice. It’s nice to see a new animated feature film starting every Friday back to back to back. I think we’re starting to see that if the stories and the films are different enough, then the film will do well. It won’t matter that we’re sandwiched between Monster House and Barnyard. Besides, I think we’re three very different movies. I mean Monster House is a horror movie. Ant Bully is more a traditional kids film with some action/adventure, comedy and a message at the end. I’ve seen Barnyard and it’s a straight-up comedy. I hope they all find their audiences.”

In the meantime, Davis admits that after he finishes this PR tour, he’s got more than enough to keep him busy.

“I’ve did a script when I had some down time three years ago, he laughs. “It’s for a very different kind of animated film. It’s more for a teen audience and has a much more mature tone. It’s more like Austin Powers in that it involves spies, fast cars/girls and martinis. It was a blast to write. The working title is Supersonic Swingers.

“I’m also producing another animated film for DNA and Warner Bros. called Seahorse. Right now the studio is on vacation, but we’ll be ramping it up soon enough. We’re also talking to Nickelodeon about doing a spin-off of Neutron, but that’s just talk at this time.”

He’s also looking into something really interesting in the live action field.

“The project I’m actually working on next is a live action film based on a Robert Heinlein novel,” says Davis. “It’s called The Star Beast, and its based on one of his youth novels he did in the 1950s. It’s not a big space opera thankfully. It’s based mainly on Earth, but about 400 years in the future. What I have to admit though is I love the story. I love the questions that it raises. I also love it’s a little different so there will be plenty of things for me to learn.”

So, from the sounds of things, we’re going to be seeing a lot more interesting films coming out of Texas. Just don’t be surprised when you see Davis’ name attached to a lot of them.

BREAKING GROUND WITH BROKEN SAINTS

It’s interesting to think about. But when Brooke Burgess first started thinking about doing Broken Saints the last thing he was thinking of doing was breaking new ground for animation. He was thinking about a much more traditional medium.

“Actually, I had originally planned it to be a regular novel,” he admitted. “I had left EA Canada after working there for four years, where I had been a producer for a number of their larger franchises. I went travelling over the South Pacific disillusioned by my inability to tell real stories on a more profound level. Instead I had been making games and cranking out drugs for kids. As I was travelling, I started developing this overall narrative arc that I thought I could turn it into a novel.”

On his return to his native Vancouver, BC, Burgess met up with some friends of his who had some different ideas.

“I used to meet [them] at a game store that I had previously owned,” said Burgess. “They said that they were thinking of doing some comics. Why don’t I convert my idea into a comic? Being such a huge graphic-novel-fanboy-geek I thought about it and realized that really wasn’t that bad an idea. I also realized that self-publishing is exceedingly difficult. If you really wanted to succeed you had to publish through one of the Big Two or you didn’t really publish at all.”

Sure, there was the possibility Broken Saints could have ended up a Vertigo title. But be realistic comic book boys the odds of someone like Karen Berger giving a hoot about then complete unknowns like Burgess and crew were slim, if not known. It’s conundrums like this where one either gives up or goes back to the islands, or find a way around the problem. Burgess and company set up their own company, Budget Monks, and then proceeded to set the world ablaze with some very fresh ideas.

“We played around with Flash,” Burgess recalled. “We realized we could do something really different. That there were current software tools that were exceedingly affordable and other people hadn’t used to their fullest potential for storytelling yet.”

So five years ago Budget Monks did something extremely different for the day. They put Broken Saints up as a serialized animated series on their own self-financed website. Thanks in part to good old luck, solid (if a little purplish and prosy) storytelling and a lot of innovative use of the net and the home computer, the final result is now being released as a 4 DVD set on Fox Home Entertainment this Tuesday, August 1.

Now luck, whether it’s good or bad, just happens. But let’s give credit where credit’s most certainly due. While he’s not there yet, I can see where people are starting to compare him to Neil Gaiman. Personally, I see his style more a cross between the “godhead” material of later Philip K. Dick and the better end of William Gibson. Broken Saints is incredibly effective for a first effort. Just tighten up the copy a little, sharpen the humor a tad, and we got a major creator on our hands folks.

On the other hand, one must admit he knows his share of good source material.

“The basic concept story came from just my own political, spiritual and conspiratorial beliefs,” says Burgess. “One was Microsoft talking about launching a low-flying satellite that would within ten years that would provide free broadband wherever you were. There was always the possibility of the government piggy-backing onto that and grabbing info; the Big Brother vibe and all that. There was also the Marshall McLuhan idea of global village; and the possibility of being good, or bad, depending on who was using it.

“Then there was a story that I had been following for something like 20 years. There was a professor, Dr. Michael Persinger over at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada, who had been hooking people up to this huge contraption. It’s a chair that fires up these low frequency electromagnetic fields into the temporal lobe and other parts of the brain. He said it was able to inspire what he said was a ‘god response.’ It made him think he was hitting a part of the brain that was naturally wired for what he called a ‘divinity within.’ All the people—be they Aetheist, Muslim, Christian, Jew, female, male, what have you—were getting the sense of something very profound, much greater than themselves, in the room with them. It would change their lives. It was based upon their faith. Again, that would support the theory of the many faces of one god theory.”

“That began my idea for Saints,” said Burgess. “ It was me sitting there and thinking, here were these two kinds of technology. What would happen if you put these two things together and applied them to contemporary situations?”

An admitted fan of conspiracy games and theories, Burgess also included some very interesting source material from the comic book world.

“A big influence was actually The Invisibles, Grant Morrison’s psychedelic look at the idea,” says Burgess. “That really resonated with me. I also really resonated to Watchmen. Grant really made me see the geo-political idea. I think there are different facets to the same gem.”

Still, conceiving the first online graphic novel and actually executing it are two different things. Fortunately Burgess and his friends had the fundamental knowledge to pull it off.

“It was really the guy who suggested we work in Flash, Ian Kirby, that had the nice set-up,” said Burgess. “He’s the series technical director, post-production guru, DVD authoring master, editor, photoshop God, and all-around good kid. Andrew West was the artist for the series – he did over 5000 unique shots by himself in under 3 years, and then totally revamped the first half of the series for the DVD release in only 9 months.

“So we got some software and that’s what we made Saints on. It was a real basement operation. I mean I would literally get up at 8:00 a.m. every morning, walk up a hill to Ian’s house and would work in the basement for 8-12 hours a day on Broken Saint chapters for three years.”

Just what kind of software? It’s an interesting mix.

“We started with Flash 4 back in the day, and quickly progressed to Flash 5, which had better audio tools, frame rates, and file management,” said Burgess. “Then, we realized it was also possible to easily import bitmap images, detailed painted shots from Photoshop or Corel Painter, into Flash, with compression rates that didn’t horribly distort the image or crank the manageable file size too high. This was the key to establishing Broken Saints unique look at time. Most people were working with cel-style ‘vector’ images painted directly into Flash, as opposed to using the software to shift between more textured and layered images.

“For audio, the cheap and easy tool at the time was Sound Forge. It gave us everything we needed to craft quality loops from the original soundtrack material. Also, we created unique soundscapes from standard libraries when brought into the software and fiddled with in tone, pitch, reverb, etc.”

“The kicker now is that so much of what we did, including some really time-consuming layered shots, 3D sequences, and video embedding—stuff that required additional software and production steps--can now be done directly in the new versions of Flash,” says Burgess. “Seriously! If we had Flash 9 back in 2001? Hell…we would’ve finished the series in half the time!”

But the real kicker was it didn’t take long for Broken Saints to get noticed. The combination of Burgess’ story with West’s generally eye-pleasing art caught the attention of the growing global net community in a hurry.

“When we started getting nominated for awards in magazines like Flash Forward and getting invited to major Flash festivals,” says Burgess. “I think what made us different is we were one of the first to really try to do something with long form. People couldn’t believe that we would be able to do six hours of Flash, much less twelve.

“Also, when we started getting floods of responses from people saying they couldn’t believe we were doing what we did, which by the way also was creating emotion and drama with Flash, that we could use it as a tool that way. To me, it was like just second nature.”

Then, in 2003, Burgess, Kirby and West got invited to the Sundance Film Festival. The scent of fresh meat brought the big dogs, aka the entertainment conglomerates, sniffing around.

“We had gotten a lot of press and had a number of studios really stick around,” says Burgess. “The problem was when we would pitch the story to them, they would go ‘Wow! That’s really heavy and smart.’ They wanted us to simplify the story to having the four people just go and get powers and fight evil. That was so not what Broken Saints is.”

It should also be noted that by this time Budget Monks also had a grant from the Canadian Film Board in their pocket, so they had some negotiating room with the bigs.

“I mean when we originally did the online series, we were basically broke,” says Burgess. “We had survived on fan donations, but we basically did it for free. Then we were approached by a government agency, the National Film Board, in Canada. They had read where we had wanted to do a DVD version. They said they really liked what we were doing and were willing to give us a grant. So we got a nice chunk of money from the government to redo the work in nine months.”

And one can assume Budget Monks got an even bigger chunk of money from the studio they eventually signed with, Fox.

“The great thing about that is we were actually able to give the money back to the board,” Burgess said. “I don’t think that ever happened before, at least from an animation studio. Now the woman who was shepherding the whole grant process, Carol Parnell, the last project she worked on was ours. She’s now with Telefilm Canada. Then the person who was with Fox who made the acquisition, and had done such films like Donnie Darko, Napoleon Dynomite and Waking Life, John Scott, this was one of the last thing he did before he retired.

“I learned some very important lessons. One of them is I never want to work with a studio again. The big problem is trying to get someone to make a decision. Nothing gets done because of the fear of making a mistake. It’s the nature of a bureaucracy. It was really something to actually witness that. But what’s really great about the Fox deal is I can now consider bigger endeavors thanks to the relationships I have since formed.”

Which is precisely what Burgess is doing these days.

“We’re developing a new feature film, which all going well we will start to shoot in the Fall,” says Burgess. “Have you seen Jacob’s Ladder? It has some similar elements to it. It will be live action with some animation elements. Plus there will be a web element and, hopefully, a printed element for it.”

From a last email Burgess sent post-interview, it looks like he just might have that printed element set up thanks to a visit to this years SDCC. Don’t be surprised if we start seeing the results of this in another year or so.

KIDS NEXT DOOR DOING THEIR OWN ZERO ISSUE

Ever wonder about the origins of the Kids Next Door? No, I don’t mean how the series was created technically, but a real fanboy-type origin. An animated equivalent of a Zero-issue, you might say.

Well, it’s coming in the form of a made-for-TV movie on Cartoon Network on Friday, August 11, at 7:30 p.m. eastern. Appropriately the movie’s being called Operation: Zero (Zero Explanation Reveals Origins).

The plot revolves around the looming threat of both kids and adults being turned into tapioca-eating, hideously wrinkly Senior Citizombies, forcing the team to re-commission their greatest operative ever to join them in a battle that exposes Earth-shattering revelations about KND as well as their arch enemies. If that isn’t enough, CN will be doing a “Top 10 Villains” countdown to this special event, starting on July 31.

KND is a sweet-natured, semi-psychotic expression of Award-winning animator Mr. Warburton. He developed the Cartoon Network animated short “Kenny and the Chimp” and served as director on Cartoon Network's critically acclaimed but truly underappreciated series Sheep in the Big City. Warburton was the lead character designer on Pepper Ann and worked with J.J. Sedelmaier Production on television projects including Saturday Night Live and Schoolhouse Rock.

HERE COMES TEN TIMES THE TOYS

OK all you action figure geeks, there’s something new to burden your overtaxed toy shelves with. Bandai American unveiled its Ben 10 toy line at this year’s San Diego Comic Con.

The lineup of stuff will include the following:

• Alien Collection: Collectible 4” figures of all the 10 aliens that Ben can initially transform into come with a collectible lenticular card an exclusive animation disk of 8 cels from the show that can be used with the Alien Laboratory playset and Omnitrix Alien Viewer.

• DNA Alien Heroes: 6” figures that ooze DNA slime bubbles from their bodies when you press the button on their backs

• Metamorfigures: 8” figures that transform from their alien forms into unique spy gear, including a working flashlight, binoculars and water gun

• Transforming Alien Rocks dissolve in water to reveal a translucent miniature 1” alien figure hidden inside.

• Alien Ships: space vehicles inspired by the home planets of the aliens and feature unique water pumping action

• Role-play, including the Omnitrix Alien Viewer, where kids can insert the animation disks (from the 4” figures and deluxe playset) into the device’s face to see Ben transform right before their eyes, and the Omnitrix F/X, which features red and green flashing lights and transformation sound effects from the show

• Deluxe playset: An exact replica of the “Rust Bucket” that Ben is traveling in, which transforms into an Alien Laboratory where kids can conduct their own experiments


NEXT COLUMN: That funky fresh order coming down the pike is Paramount/Nickelodeon’s next effort in taking over the world, Barnyard. We also have that previously reported interview with voice super-talent Richard Horvitz in the can, too. Hey…and things are just getting started.

[LunarDaydreamer]

Great journalism, sharp opinions and wonderfully written. A genuine pleasure to read

[Kolimar]

Originally Posted by LunarDaydreamer

Great journalism, sharp opinions and wonderfully written. A genuine pleasure to read

Yeah, nice article.

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by LunarDaydreamer

Great journalism, sharp opinions and wonderfully written. A genuine pleasure to read

Thank you...-s

[creatorman]

I remember when Broken Saints first came out online. Mind blowing stuff, so original, it was really groundbreaking. The website was so elaborate. I am looking forward to the DVD release and future projects.

[Spaz_Monkey]

Kinda funny - AintItCool.com has a review of Ant Bully comparing it to a thinly-veiled Communist Manifesto. Even going so far as to take many scenes from the movie and showing how they relate to Communism. Hopefully, John Davis isn't actually pushing Communism with the movie. That would be a little sad.

[robzass]

this movie looks so lame. its basically just taking themes that worked in other animated movies and combining them and claiming its original. plus that will make 3 ant related cgi movies that have been released.

[MattBrady]

Originally Posted by robzass

its basically just taking themes that worked in other animated movies and combining them and claiming its original.

You saw it at a pre-release screening?

Originally Posted by robzass

plus that will make 3 ant related cgi movies that have been released.

I know! they're trying to get up to the number of Westerns, War Movies, and science fiction films that are out there.

MattB

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by robzass

this movie looks so lame. its basically just taking themes that worked in other animated movies and combining them and claiming its original. plus that will make 3 ant related cgi movies that have been released.

The truth is, as I said before, there's been bug-related movies as far back as the 1940's. You can go much further back when you factor in shorts.

It's all what you do with the material that counts, and I think DNA has done a darn good job.

Besides, Antz and Bug's Life are over five years ago. Now if you asked about films that seem to all be going on the Madagascar/The Wild riff, that's a different story. I mean there's that new one featuring Martin Lawrence as a domesticated bear due in September.

-s

[beta-ray]

Fnny, I thought the ants in the Ant Bully looked a LOT like the ants in AntZ... So much so that I thought it might be a continuation...

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by beta-ray

Fnny, I thought the ants in the Ant Bully looked a LOT like the ants in AntZ... So much so that I thought it might be a continuation...

Well...there's not that much you can do with them graphically after you decide what process you're going to use.

But I think most people are missing the big point here. The story really isn't about the ants, it's about the boy who's shrunk down and forced to work for the colony. The film has a lot more human interaction in it that either Bug's Life or Antz, which had virtually none. In fact, the ants are only half the total cast. The rest are quite human.

-s

[Taltos]

I thought Monster House looked stupid, but apparantly it's just the animation (MoCap sux!). The story is supposed to be pretty compelling.

I think Ant Bully looks stupid too (mostly due to it's extreme resemblance to AntZ, which is so ugly; you can't argue that there wasn't another way to render them), but Tom Hanks is behind it, so it seems like it will represent some level of quality. I'll probably Netflix this one.

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by Taltos

I thought Monster House looked stupid, but apparantly it's just the animation (MoCap sux!). The story is supposed to be pretty compelling.

I think Ant Bully looks stupid too (mostly due to it's extreme resemblance to AntZ, which is so ugly; you can't argue that there wasn't another way to render them), but Tom Hanks is behind it, so it seems like it will represent some level of quality. I'll probably Netflix this one.

Regarding Monster House, I found the only annoying thing was the way the humans were rendered, and when the film really got going I soon forgot about that. The story and action more than made up for it.

Regarding Ant Bully, well I didn't find Antz ugly, but I found Woody Allen really annoying. Then again, I always find him annoying, even when he's a cartoon character. The animation itself didn't bother me at all. Same for Ant Bully....and it has the bonus of not having Woody Allen! I'll take that any day.

-s

[Taltos]

CartoonBrew.com is having a Hayday over MoCap vs. Human Animation because of a reviews from James Lipton and Mike LaSalle.

Check out their main page: (http://forum.newsarama.com/newreply....te=1&p=2262267)

this blogger:
(http://blackwingdiaries.blogspot.com...at-gotten.html)

and this blogger: (http://pidgeonblog.typepad.com/pidgeonblog/)

It's just kinda funny.

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by Taltos

CartoonBrew.com is having a Hayday over MoCap vs. Human Animation because of a reviews from James Lipton and Mike LaSalle.

Check out their main page: (http://forum.newsarama.com/newreply....te=1&p=2262267)

this blogger:
(http://blackwingdiaries.blogspot.com...at-gotten.html)

and this blogger: (http://pidgeonblog.typepad.com/pidgeonblog/)

It's just kinda funny.

Taltos - You're right, this whole thing is kind of funny.

Now if you recall, I did point out in my original column on Monster House what I thought was wrong with it. Quoting myself (AS #282):

"What?s truly amazing is the cast does this highly credible job in spite of the way the characters are animated. Like Polar Express, this particular brand of motion capture makes all the humans have a waxy sheen and anatomical stiffness that jars against everything else surrounding them. Even when the kids are screaming in justifiable horror, they end up as expressive as the character of James in Harry Sellick?s James & The Giant Peach, and those were puppets.

So am I in agreement about the personality animation? You bet.

On the other hand, read the intro of the darn article...the part where I talked about the little girl. She LOVED the movie, even though she watched most of the darn thing with her knees up to her forehead and peeping at the film from between her legs. She even slapped her mother, another critic by the way, when the mother thought it would be a good idea for them to leave.

OK...a little background on me. I've personally been "schooled" by some interesting people regarding animation. Guys with names like Bakshi, Jones (who once did a very, very illuminating lecture on personality animation using certain creations he made called Roadrunner and Coyote) and Plympton. Am I as sharp as an animator. F*** no. Can't draw to save my life, but my eye's gotten some training in the 15 years I've been writing about toons of all varieties.

But even though I may be more "educated" than the average joe on the street, I really write for them. As much as we might want to criticize the technical elements of Monster House (and yeah...that guy LaSalle is an idiot or someone's payroll), I was truly grateful to be sitting around all those childen at the screening.

Their reactions were worth a million times more than all the animation bloggers in the world.

As for this stuff? Well, thanks for pointing it out to me. I'll check back into it whenever I need a chuckle.

By the way, keep the opinions going. I really do enjoy the dialog. -s

[Taltos]

I'm actually new to this collum (the first one I've read) and I'm certainly no hater of animation. Like you, I just like the dialogue. So I hadn't seen your review of Monster House.

Also, I'd like to thank you for bringing the art of animation to this news site.

[sfritz]

Originally Posted by Taltos

I'm actually new to this collum (the first one I've read) and I'm certainly no hater of animation. Like you, I just like the dialogue. So I hadn't seen your review of Monster House.

Also, I'd like to thank you for bringing the art of animation to this news site.

You're welcome. For your reference, please look over my past columns, which Matt & Mike do archive in the Op/Ed section. This way you can see what kind of maniac you're talking to.

In the meantime, keep the flow going. I love talking animation with informed people like yourself. -s