Flooby Nooby

November 25, 2011

Life In The Analog Age: There Once Was - Review

I've showcased his animated shorts here before, and now I'm proud to present an advanced review and sneak peak of Gabe Swarr's new book; Life In The Analog Age Volume 1: There Once Was

This graphic novel of Gabe's collected comics is truly amazing and will be especially appealing to those born in the late 70s and early 80s as he takes a nostalgic look back at his childhood and tells his stories in this fantastic cartoon comic book format.

With his dark pale purple lines and orange palette of colors, Gabe transports you back to the simpler time of your childhood. For me, reading this book became surprisingly touching, and greatly inspiring.

Toys, comics, cartoons, music, and school life -- all those things that encompass the very existence of every child growing up in the 80s. The sights, sounds and smells of the changing seasons and the holidays were some of my favorite moments in the book. Often, he even labels and composes his shots in ways that remind me of typical animation storyboards (which is the author's background).

It covers lots of things - Watching Back to The Future, running outside, and playing Nintendo, he even mentions where he grew up happened to be 45 min. away from the closest movie theater... it was the same way for me, you had to chose wisely which movie you were going to watch, because going to the theater was a rare event.

I smiled from ear to ear when Gabe illustrated his memory of seeing his first live WWF event, then a week later saw the same match on television. The exact same thing happened to me when I was 12.

It's obvious to say that I felt a connection with this little collection of comic strips, because I feel like Gabe reached into my own treasured childhood memories, extracted moments and situations and displayed them on this orange paper. I can't wait to see more of this stuff!

I can't say enough about this book, and I dare not say more and risk spoiling the fun for all of you. I highly recommend it to say the least! This book makes me want to start drawing that comic I've been putting off for years now.

"These projects are another part of my life, they are my time, they are what I pour my actual life and heart into, and it feels great to add this other dimension to my artistic expression". -Gabe Swarr

Buy this book!
it's complete with awesome bonus materials like behind-the-scenes images,
his work process, and plenty of extras.

104 page, full color, 5.25" x 7.5".

It will be released on November 29th 2011,
and it will be available for digital download ($4.99) and in its traditional book format ($11.99) at the Life In The Analog store.
See more here: lifeintheanalogage.com and dummcomics.com

Check out Gabe Swarr's blog here.
See the animated versions of this comic here.

"Killer Toys" by Dongjie Zhu

From Onanimation

Peter, Bjorn & John - Up Against The Wall

Mister Coo in - "Ça Ça Mirlaquerr"

The song is 'Ça Ça Mirlaquerr' from their album 'Giant Catarzêe'. Directed and animated in Flash by Nacho Rodríguez, and featuring Mister Coo for the first time in a music video.
mistercoo.com

"The Old Man and The Sea" by Alexander Petrov

This is a paint-on-glass-animated short film directed by Aleksandr Petrov, based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. The film won many awards, including the Academy Award for Animated Short Film. Work on the film took place in Montreal over a period of two and a half years and was funded by an assortment of Canadian, Russian and Japanese companies.

Work on the film began on March 1997. It took Aleksandr Petrov and his son Dmitri until April 1999 to paint each of the 29,000+ frames. The following 5 months was dedicated to the sound effects, music and mastering of the film. The technique used was pastel oil paintings on glass, it has only been mastered by a handful of animators in the world. Petrov used his fingertips in addition to various paintbrushes to paint on different glass sheets positioned on multiple levels, each covered with slow-drying oil paints.

After photographing each frame painted on the glass sheets, which was four times larger than the usual A4-sized canvas, he had to slightly modify the painting frame by frame as he shot the images. For the shooting of the frames a special adapted motion-control camera system was built, probably the most precise computerized animation stand ever made. On this an IMAX camera was mounted, and a video-assist camera was then attached to the IMAX camera. French and English-language soundtracks to the film were released concurrently. It was the first animated film ever to be released in IMAX.