It’s been a while since the last installment of Animated Fragments so here’s another random assortment of short animation tests, exercises and other brief pieces that I’ve run across recently:
AD by Adam Dedman (UK)
Bassawards “Call for Entries” spot by Lobo (Brazil)
Animated walks and runs by Michael Schlingmann (UK)
“Cuckoo” by Alexander Pettersson (Sweden)
Run Cycle by Matt Abbiss (UK)
Pictoplasma will stage the fourth US edition of their character design conference this weekend in New York City. The two-day conference (Nov. 2-3) will include artist talks, animation screenings and a roundtable discussion focused around the use of character design in contemporary culture. The full conference schedule can be found on the Pictoplasma website.
Speakers will include the standard mix of artists from the animation, illustration and design communities. The artists who will speak at this edition are Buff Monster, Gemma Correll, Jason Freeny, Mark Gmehling, Anna Hrachovec, David OReilly, Ryan Quincy, Julia Pott, Andy Rementer, Adrian Sonni, Olimpia Zagnoli, Steven Guarnaccia, Taylor McKimens and Mark Newgarden.
Online registration is $190 HERE. The conference will take place at the Parsons’s Tishman Auditorium (66 W. 12th Street, NY, NY).
Transparency in the crowdfunding community is highly valued, and animators tend to be most successful when they are upfront about the length of the animation they plan to produce with the monies raised. The unintended result of this openness is that the opaque world of animation budgets has begun to fade away.
When Cartoon Brew published a crowdfunding report last month, we cataloged the per-minute costs of various high-profile animation projects on Kickstarter. The costs ranged from $3,333 to 13,750 per minute of completed animation.
Now, we look at two more recent Kickstarter projects that have recently achieved their goals: Michel Gagné’s short The Saga of Rex and Masaaki Yuasa’s short Kick-Heart. At first glance, the two projects could not be more different: Gagné is a former feature film animator who works largely by himself from a home studio, while Yuasa is producing his short using a full crew and traditional production pipeline at Tokyo-based Production I.G..
However, both films share one thing in common: they have budgeted their animation at $15,000 per minute. Gagné set his goal at $15,000 to produce one-minute of film, with each additional minute produced at a $15K increment. Yuasa asked for $150,000 to produce a 10-minute short. This is not a particularly high per-minute production rate for the type of animation that they’re creating, but it is on the upper end of rates for Kickstarter animation campaigns.
The takeaway: not only are more projects being successfully crowdfunded nowadays, but the per-minute rate for A-list animators is growing alongside it. Even with the aid of digitial technology, animation like the kind that Gagné and Yuasa produce remains a laborious, hand-crafted process. It’s encouraging that the backers of their campaigns recognize this since a decent per-minute production rate is essential for crowdfunding to make a sizable impact in the world of animation production.
UPDATE: Michael Gagné has written an insightful blog post on Kickstarter explaining the complex production process for full animation. He also explains that though he’s asking for $15,000 per minute, after Kickstarter/Amazon fees and rewards, he only gets to apply about half of that amount to animation production:
When I worked at Don Bluth Studios, we were expected to create roughly 3.5 seconds (5 feet of 35mm film) of rough character animation a week. And that was only the rough keys. Some of the star animators produced up to 10 seconds a week. To be completed, the animation still had to pass through several hands. No wonder feature quality traditional animation typically cost between $80,000 and $1,000,000 per minute to produce within the studio system.
Although the goals on my Kickstarter project are set at $15K per minute, this won’t be the amount I’ll be getting for the production. Kickstarter and its partner, Amazon.com, keep 10% of the proceeds. Then, around 40% of the budget is applied towards the rewards and shipping cost. So roughly, I am left with around $7.5k per minute.
Now, to produce the film with the quality I want to achieve, I estimate that I will be working roughly 50 hours a week over a 10-week period, for each minute I create. Add to this, 7 weeks building and designing the campaign (that includes doing the animation test), running the campaign (which is turning out to be nearly a full time job), and a full month of work, fulfilling the rewards (packaging, printing, shipping, drawing, etc)—an estimate based on talking with several people who are dealing with their own successful campaigns—and you will see why I’m calling this a labor of love.
Ready…set…pre-order Tod Polson’s book about legendary Warner Bros. layout man Maurice Noble. The book is called The Noble Approach: Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design
There’s a strong wave of indie animators emerging from Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, and China. The latter country’s indie scene is the focus of the documentary The Beginning directed by Jess Zou of NeochaEDGE. The film, which debuts in NY next week at the China Institute (125 East 65th Street, NY, NY 10065), features profiles of twenty Chinese animators and studios who are pursuing a more independent approach in their work. The 100-minute film is in Mandarin with English subtitles. Tickets are $8 and pre-registration is required on the Institute’s website.
Artists and studios featured in The Beginning include: Ray Lei (Beijing), Sun Haipeng (Shenzhen), Liu Jian (Nanjing), Mao Qichao (Magic Animation Studio, Chengdu), Pi San (Beijing), Anytime (aka: ANI7IME) Animation Studio (Zhang Chunli, Pu Junhan, Li Weikun, Su Jingxin: Guangzhou), Seen Studio (Zhang Naowen, Aspirin, Zeng Xun: Beijing), Song Siqi (Henan)/Wang Qing (Suzhou), Li Dongzhen (Beijing), and Beijing Film Academy student animation group (Sun Yiran, Wang Xingchen, Chen Xi, Zhang Yi, and Zhang Xiadian).
Bummer news out of England. British animator Run Wrake died on
Sunday morning from cancer at the age of 47. He is survived by his …
This Tuesday, October 23, there will be a public memorial for the great East Coast animator Tissa David, who passed away last August at the age of 91. The memorial will begin at 7pm at the Academy’s Lighthouse Theater (111 E. 59th St
New York, NY 10022). Artists who knew and worked with Tissa will speak about her work, and a selection of her work will be screened from the Hubley Studio, Raggedy Ann & Andy, The Ink Tank and Michael Sporn Animation. Admission is FREE.
Killer Mike’s song “Reagan” offers a much-needed corrective to the partisan politics of American election season. The lyrics, which boldly declare all American Presidents as puppets who tell “lies on teleprompters”, are accompanied by striking visuals by Harry Teitelman and Daniel Garcia, who use a red-white-and-blue color palette in the most ironic way possible.
The commentary I posted a couple days ago about The Goon Kickstarter project generated a lot of heated debate, both on Cartoon Brew and elsewhere.
A couple nights ago, I had a lengthy phone conversation with Tim Miller, who is the creative director and co-owner of Blur Studio, the studio that will produce The Goon. It was an intense but respectful discussion.
I like Blur and sincerely hope they’re able to make The Goon, but the core issue of whether it’s appropriate to use Kickstarter to fund pre-production for a feature film that has no guarantee of completion is problematic. On that issue, we weren’t able to come to any conclusion. However, I offered Tim the opportunity to respond in any way that he sees fit. You can read his side of the argument below—uncut and unedited.
Many of the animators here at Blur are regular readers of Cartoon Brew and we were all disturbed to see this post. We really care what the animation community thinks and we care about our reputation so I felt the need to respond. I love a healthy debate and some of his issues are worthy of discussion but what I DIDN’T love was the tone of the article and the implication that Blur and David Fincher were somehow being deceptive and that we’d broken the rules of Kickstarter.
I called Amid and we discussed some of his issues and—though I didn’t change his mind—he did offer me a forum for rebuttal—so here I am rebutting! Let’s start with this one:
“Kickstarter launched with the promise of helping independent artists raise funding for projects that otherwise couldn’t easily be financed.”
At 110 fulltime artists and production folk and NO studio or corporate backing, Blur is—by any industry definition I know—an independent studio. Blur is owned by 2 artists and a programmer (I’m one of the artists)–not wealthy corporate CEO types. Amid’s statement here describes our studio and our Goon project perfectly; we’re an independent studio that couldn’t get our project easily financed.
“….those projects have been drowned out by the established creators who are grabbing much of the attention nowadays.”
He may have a point there but that’s not really a reason to put down our project. And for a positive spin it could be looked at another way; if a big named “established creator” brings attention to Kickstarter it CAN draw eyeballs and traffic to the site that otherwise might not show up there. More traffic means more attention; more light that can shine on ALL Kickstarter projects. I’m not painting our Goon project as some sort of altruistic endeavor or even a big draw—I’m just positing the more attention Kickstarter gets the better it COULD be for everyone.
“Curiously, the story reel that will be produced won’t be made available to the backers of the campaign.”
Not true, it will be available to SOME—though—granted only at insanely high donation levels. The reason for this is simply we have to keep story under wraps and can’t have copies floating around. A fair number of people have complained and we agree it’s not optimal so we’re working on ideas to show the final product to more people. Ideas that simply didn’t occur to us before as we (naively) didn’t think it was such a big deal; live and learn.
“Should the film be made by a corporate film studio, that company just saved themselves half a million dollars on the backs of dedicated animation fans who believe they’re funding an indie project, when in reality they’re funding a mainstream Hollywood feature.”
Let me first reiterate that we aren’t some big film corporation and any money “saved” will be put right back into the film, not our pocket. But let’s look at a current Kickstarter project to invent and prototype a new type of light bulb. Let’s say the inventor reaches his funding goal and it pays for the R&D and prototype development of a new energy saving bulb, which he then takes to, say… G.E., who buys the design, makes the bulbs and distributes them around the world. Is that evil or wrong? Does that violate “the spirit” of Kickstarter? I don’t think so—I think it’s great that something got made that’s good for the world that otherwise might not have.
“There is nothing “indie” about the way Fincher and Blur are setting up the film, and they have a responsibility to be upfront about the reality of what they’re creating.”
This implies that we are somehow being deceptive about our goals when we say clearly, in bold and all caps several times on the Kickstarter’s front page that we are creating a STORYREEL. Implying we’re deliberately attempting to fool people is not only insulting but completely false. Neither Blur nor David Fincher have ever or WOULD ever try to “cheat” fans or anyone else—this is the comment that bothered us most and made me call Amid to defend our honor, something we take very seriously here at Blur.
“A number of backers have expressed their concerns on the campaign’s comments page:”
True, a few backers have issues, but one look at the comments page will show you 20 positive and excited fans for every doubter.
“The problem with The Goon Kickstarter boils down to this: They’re not producing a story reel that will be made available to the project’s backers. That means it’s an open-ended project, and if that’s the case, then it’s a clear violation of Kickstarter’s policies.”
First of all, this is a false statement. We are producing a product: The Goon Storyreel. Secondly, this project was thoroughly vetted and approved by the Kickstarter folks who have been EXTREMELY helpful and supportive and done their best to give advice and encouragement. So my question is this: Who is a better judge of the Kickstarter policies and philosophy–the people that created and operate the site or Mr. Amidi?
What really bothers me here boils down to this: Blur is trying to make an animated film that is outside the box of the usual animated films and in so doing bring joy to our artists, bring Eric Powell’s great characters to life and maybe—if we’re lucky—make enough money to keep the aforementioned joyful artists employed on future films. We’re not greedy and we’re no shills for some mega-corp—we’re just creators who want to make something different. We’ve tried the traditional routes to get this film made and they haven’t worked—so we’re trying something new that MAY help move the needle and get our project made.
And one last thing on the “David Fincher” of it all. Believe me when I say this guy has many, many, many project opportunities he could spend his time and money on. Opportunities that I’m sure have a greater profit potential if that’s what he was interested in. But truth is I know David well and I know he’s involved because he loves the project and loves animation, NOT because he needs to trick any Goon fans out of their 10 bucks.
Thanks for posting this Amid, we may not agree but appreciate you giving us our day in court.
I’ve received a slew of messages in the past week from people who pre-ordered Full Steam Ahead!
According to my editor at Chronicle Books, the earliest possible date that Ward’s biography will be available is June 2013. The book was wrapped up a long time ago, and was submitted for approval to the Walt Disney Company last January. The Disney company hasn’t approved the book yet. I am hopeful that we will resolve all the corporate issues soon and get this book released so we can talk about what’s really important: Ward’s creative accomplishments.
In the meantime, you can show your support by visiting the Ward Kimball Tumblr (updated DAILY), and please, keep on pre-ordering the book
(Note: The cover design above is not final.)
Fox debuted a political animated short yesterday called Robama. They’re making shorts as part of their cheekily named ADHD property, which stands for Animation Domination High-Def. It’s a multi-platform property with content appearing online and, beginning next year, on late-Saturday night Fox TV broadcasts.
It’s an extension of their Animation Domination label, which is how Fox markets their Sunday night cartoon block with The Simpsons and Family Guy.
ADHD is headed up by Nick Weidenfeld, who has worked as an Adult Swim exec. There are few details on what will air on ADHD; Axe Cop is the only announced series so far. Fox is soft-launching ADHD this month with a website and some random shorts like Robama and a series called Hamsters on Rollerskates:
(Thanks, @TheOtherHillary)
Kickstarter launched with the promise of helping independent artists raise funding for projects that otherwise couldn’t easily be financed. As I wrote last month, the site’s animation category has more recently transformed into a place where established creators are raising six-figure dollar amounts from their fanbases. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of independent projects on Kickstarter too, but those projects have been drowned out by the established creators who are grabbing much of the attention nowadays.
While Cartoon Brew has a longstanding policy to not promote active crowdfunding campaigns, the prominence of crowdfunding demands that we report on key campaigns that have news value to the community. The project discussed within has already received plenty of media attention, but it also has broader relevance to the animation crowdfunding discussion.
Last week, a Kickstarter was launched to fund an animated adaptation of Eric Powell’s Dark Horse-published comic The Goon. The project has a lot of high-profile names attached to it including live-action director David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en), vfx/animation outfit Blur Studio, and actors Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown.
The idea has been around for a while—a proof-of-concept trailer for The Goon was produced in 2010—but the project hasn’t moved beyond that stage. Now, Fincher, Blur, et al., are asking for the largest amount yet for a Kickstarter animated project—$400,000. What’s especially noteworthy—and troublesome—about their campaign is that not a single frame of animation will be produced for that amount of money.
Why?
Because they are asking for $400,000 to create a story reel for the feature film. Curiously, the story reel that will be produced won’t be made available to the backers of the campaign. While plenty of other rewards are being offered, The Goon represents a first for an animated project on Kickstarter—asking people to donate money to something they can’t see.
So what, you might ask? You’ll be able to see the finished animated feature. Well, maybe. If these guys require nearly half a million to create a story reel, that means they’re budgeting it as a traditional mid-sized studio feature, which will run in the range of $40-70 million (give or take ten million). There’s no guarantee the film will be made unless they can get that funding from a major studio, something that they haven’t been able to do thus far.
Should the film be made by a corporate film studio, that company just saved themselves half a million dollars on the backs of dedicated animation fans who believe they’re funding an indie project, when in reality they’re funding a mainstream Hollywood feature. There is nothing “indie” about the way Fincher and Blur are setting up the film, and they have a responsibility to be upfront about the reality of what they’re creating.
A number of backers have expressed their concerns on the campaign’s comments page:
The problem with The Goon Kickstarter boils down to this: They’re not producing a story reel that will be made available to the project’s backers. That means it’s an open-ended project, and if that’s the case, then it’s a clear violation of Kickstarter’s policies.
Further, while I’m sure Fincher and Blur Studios are well intentioned in their desire to make an animated feature, their approach of mixing their fans’ money with those of media corporations, the latter of whom will receive all the profit from a Goon feature, leads to an uncomfortable situation that is contrary to the entire spirit of Kickstarter. Artists should use the generosity of backers in crowdfunding campaigns to fulfill a creative vision, not to help corporations make money, as The Goon Kickstarter is currently set up to do.
[UPDATE]: Blur Studio’s Tim Miller just posted a comment on the Goon‘s comments page in which he said he wouldn’t share the story reel with the overwhelming majority of backers because, “[W]e believe having the whole film online would cause serious issues with any studio who wants to back the project.” This confirms my thoughts above that this project wouldn’t be possible without a major studio’s support. It also turns the Kickstarter campaign (in its current form) into an open-ended project with no complete project delivered to backers and no funding in place to take it further. This, as I mentioned above, is a violation of Kickstarter’s policies.
[UPDATE #2]: Read the response of Blur Studio’s Tim Miller to this commentary.
Over the past decade,the husband-and-wife team Andy and Carolyn London have produced one of the most eclectic bodies of indie animated shorts in New York City. Working under the banner of London Squared, their films—Subway Salvation (2003), The Back Brace (2004), A Letter to Colleen (2007), The Lost Tribes of New York City (2009)—have a distinctive personal voice that is refreshingly unburdened by animation storytelling cliches. Their visual style has an earthy urban tone, and is a playground for stylistic exploration. They jump from style to style, and technique to technique, having made use of hand-drawn, stop-motion, pixilation, rotoscope, and After Effects.
I recently conducted an email interview with Andy and Carolyn. We talked about their history, their earlier short films, and the major new project that they’re developing: Eager to Please, an idea based on Andy’s family life that has already generated a graphic novel, interactive on-line comics, mini-shorts, as well as an offshoot TV series currently in development called Our Crappy Town.
Cartoon Brew: Your films are among the most stylistically diverse of any New York animators. Do you consciously attempt a different style with every film?
Carolyn and Andy London: We don’t consciously set out to do a different style, but in order to stay inspired and true to the story we want to tell, we almost always change mediums. A big part of what makes us happy as filmmakers is experimentation and being playful, but we usually let the story dictate the medium we work in. When we became obsessed with voices and the hilarious people you saw every day in the city, it led to our clay animated film Subway Salvation in 2003. When we were attempting to adapt an autobiographical “memory” story, it led us to create a ghostly, rotoscoped technique for A Letter To Colleen. When we need to tell the story of Andy and his scoliosis in a really demented comic way, it led to the cut-out physical object style of bagels, tuna cans and toilet paper tubes of The Backbrace. So who knows where it takes you.
Cartoon Brew: Do you think the constant experimentation has hurt you in any way or prevented you from broader recognition?
Carolyn and Andy: Sure, we’re confident that having a singular style is useful to getting the attention of a commercial rep or production company, but I guess we’ve been really undisciplined about that. It’s always been more interesting to us to keep growing, experimenting and developing our story telling skills. But oddly enough, two things have happened just by making films for the last 14 years.
1. We’ve gotten really good at storytelling and have started to create a world and recurring characters that are showing up in TV shows we’re developing and other series ideas.
2. The second thing that’s happened is we’re finally settling on a “signature look.” We’re starting to call it “THE MAGIC EYE.” Do you know those 2D image books where your eyes have to de-focus, and suddenly the 3D images come into the foreground? That’s the heart of what we do. Whether we’re finding faces in inanimate objects OR taking inanimate objects and abstracting them into characters, we’re using a Magic Eye technique and showing you characters that you didn’t know were there. It’s a kind of alchemy that we find endlessly entertaining and seems to be lending itself to a rich world. You can see examples of what we’re talking about in examples for the latest TED TALK we made and also the style frames for a series we’re developing called Our Crappy Town. This is the total example of ‘magic eye’.
Cartoon Brew: I think part of what makes your work so refreshing is that neither of you come from a traditional animation background. You had a lifetime of experiences before you made your first film. Tell me a little more about your backgrounds prior to becoming filmmakers. What attracted you to animation and made you choose it as an expressive outlet?
Andy: I majored in painting at Pratt in the Eighties. I worked as a guard at the Met and sold my work—mostly kinetic sex-related sculptures—at auctions at an East Village gallery called the Emerging Collector. Then I moved to Prague and wrote a graphic novel called Jeremy Pickle Goes to Prague that got published by Fantagraphics. It was there I learned to teach English as a Second Language, my trade for the next fifteen years. When I returned to New York with my future wife and collaborator Carolyn, I continued to teach ESL. First in illegal immigrant schools, then in tourist programs, then privately. Mostly Japanese bankers’ wives. Carolyn and I got a commission to do a music video in the late-Nineties and it was an excuse to dive into animation, which turned out to be a great fit.
Carolyn: I studied theater and playwriting at Brandeis University. I wasn’t exposed to a formal animation or film program, but I was exposed to set design, costume design, directing. A very early influence was growing up in Chicago. In the 80’s, they used to run the “Spike and Mike Animation Festival” at the Music Box Theater across the street from where my father lived. That was my early introduction to underground animation. And it was also the same time of Liquid Television on MTV. But all of the stuff I was watching on TV, my interest in writing and direction, plus my predilection for punk rock and new wave music shaped my sensibility. When I met Andy in the Czech Republic and he was doing comic books and graphic novels…it felt like a natural fit to bring our aesthetics and points of view together. It’s doing whatever you need to do to be in service of the story. And animation is a great way to make something. You can control all aspects of the product and use a wide range of elements to be infinitely expressive.
Cartoon Brew: One of your new projects, Eager to Please, is a step in a different direction yet again—it’s a graphic novel, an interactive on-line experience and a series of brief animated shorts called Made You Cringe. How do these all fit together, and what do you hope to accomplish with this expansive approach to narrative as opposed to the self-contained shorts you’ve produced in the past?
Carolyn and Andy: We want to create a world this time. A world that is the source material for a TV series. So a couple years ago, [Andy] decided to bite the bullet and write a graphic novel with a whole TV season’s worth of content. Then it came time to find a publisher and get it out there in the world. We soon quickly learned that there is limited interest in publishing graphic novels in the U.S. So this lead to rethinking the whole project. We put together a website called Eager-To-Please.com and began to explore various ideas. First was an interactive comic based on one of the stories from the book that did cool shit when you click and roll over things. Then we added an animated section called Made You Cringe based exclusively on the characters from the book. Those shorts gave us a chance to explore what an animated Eager To Please TV show would look like.
AND then we went to LA last year and started to work with a manager to help sell this idea. The funny (or not so funny part ) of this story is that we spent the last 8 months developing the look for the TV pitch, we have a 23-minute pilot episode, we created an animation test, bringing in graphics and packaging….and after all that work it seems like this series idea may be more successful as a live action idea. GOOD TIMES! But I guess this is normal in the development process. SO now we’re looking for the right producers to partner with and networks to pitch to. But in the meantime, we’d love to share our animation test online so everyone can see the development process.
Cartoon Brew: Eager to Please is intensely personal. In fact, one of the “stars” is Andy’s handicapped sister, which some readers might be uncomfortable with as a source of humor. It doesn’t seem that there’s anything in your personal life that you consider off-limits. Granted, Andy wrote it under a pen name, but do you ever feel you’ve gone too far afterward?
Andy: I don’t set out to humiliate my family. I love them. But there are stories that are crazy and poignant and funny and deep and I need to get them out in the world. Some of them are just straight up batshit. Some are heartbreaking. And I want to share this craziness with everybody because it’s so great. What parent do you know that makes twelve-foot tall barbecue pits out of Belgian blocks? Does anybody else have a 39-year-old sister whose spiritual guide is Mr. T? Maybe I shouldn’t write about how my parents had my sister arrested for sport but then I wouldn’t be doing the story justice or true to myself as a writer. My family is very unique, and think the world will appreciate every nutty detail.
Cartoon Brew: The first of the interactive Eager to Please shorts—”The Elephant Dollar”—is now on-line. Do you consider this more of an animated graphic novel or an interactive film? What do you think it’s possible to communicate with interactivity that you couldn’t through a traditional passive viewing experience?
Carolyn and Andy: It’s more of an animated graphic novel than an interactive film at this point. We want to go further with this idea. Perhaps with Andy’s follow up graphic novel entitled “I Give Up.” With iPad and smart phone technology, the possibilities are endless. We love printed books, however at the same time, we’re excited about all the new possibilities with web browsers, apps and e-readers. Film is beautiful but it’s not exactly interactive. And it seems like there should be a way to have a narrative experience that embraces the interactive technology of gaming– but still has the intimacy and pleasure of a graphic novel. We don’t know what this experience is just yet….it’s not a book and it’s not a game and it’s not a film…it’s something else and we’re challenging ourselves to figure out what that next thing is and how we can make it a cool, entertaining experience.
Cartoon Brew: Last year, one of your earlier films The Lost Tribes of New York City was featured in the high-concept “Talk to Me” exhibition at MoMA. How’d you manage to get your work into such a prestigious museum?
Carolyn and Andy: They found us! We had Lost Tribes running in various film festivals and online for approximately three years. Apparently they did a search and found our film and it fit into the theme of the show. It was pretty cool to be part of a show on technology, communication and design and see Lost Tribes in the context of other art projects other than film. It was also exciting to be part of a bigger dialogue about communication and technology and to get to contribute to this pool of ideas. We’ve always felt very inspired by established and contemporary art.
To learn more about their work, visit LondonSquared.net
I can’t praise enough Google’s use of their homepage to give credit to animation and comic pioneers. Their front-page Google Doodle for Monday, October 15, is a tribute to Winsor McCay and his comic strip Little Nemo.
The interative, animated HTML5 comic is entitled Little Nemo in Google-land and was created by Jennifer Hom and Corrie Scalisi. It’s being released on the 107th anniversary of McCay’s comic. If you can’t wait until tomorrow to see it, it’s already live on Google sites in other parts of the world.
