Lottie Kingslake is an animator and creative director based in Bristol, UK. She specifically makes mostly commercial work for clients, informational + narrative animation and more experimental animations. Her work tends to be colorful and layered, almost looking like a collage. Lots of textures and patterns and little moving pieces.
In general, lots of her work actually does relate to climate, the environment and nature. her work has a very tactile feel to it, even with it being entirely flat. I think this is mostly because of the textures in the brushes she uses and the patterns in some of the cutouts. In her film “the blood of a bear” this is most pronounced, as the characters appear to be made of paper cutouts, with detailed patterns on each separate color and piece. However, out of all of the films of hers that I have seen, my favorites are still “Singularity- The universe in verse” (Due to the narration, mostly) and “Dear Friend”, as it has very charming animation and I liked the rhythm of the animation as well.
The significance of both of these films is to bring light and attention to not only the earth and the climate but also how special it is to be alive and how unique we are as humans to make a difference.
Sherlock Hound is an animated adaptation of the hip and cool and super awesome Detective stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring Detective Sherlock Holmes and his homo-erotic platonic roommate and ‘intimate friend and companion’, John Watson. This is one of the several adaptations where Sherlock is featured as an animal other than a human, my favorite of which being Great Mouse Detective (which is an Adaptation of an Adaptation, Basil of Baker Street), where he is featured as a mouse, or a more recent adaptation, Catlock, which pretty much no one besides me and maybe 4 other people might have seen because it was shared ‘exclusively’ to us and made me want to tear my eyes out.
The point being, Sherlock Holmes is a famous character, so the audience is already Built-in for the show’s creators. (which if you recognize this production, you will know it was made by Studio Ghibli.) Though the series is overall fun and visually beautiful like most of their works, it didn’t have a long run period, airing only from November 1984 to May 1985.
Though it was Sherlock and Watson adapted from the original stories (as well as everyone’s favorite, Ms Hudson, and the later-to-be-twinkified by the woke mob; Professor Moriarty)- the episodes and stories were unique. No longer was Sherlock mainly solving murder, but now he was mostly solving robberies. However, this separation didn’t seem to deter audiences, and the series is held to a pretty high regard. Especially amongst hardcorde Anime-Holmes fans and Holmes enthusiasts who kinda like sherlock no matter what he is in. (especially some of those people who love that version of sherlock called Herlock Sholmes, who I admit I find insufferable)
Personally, I haven’t seen enough of the series to form a solid opinion on if I like it or not. It just doesn’t appeal to me in the way that other Holmes media does. And for the people it does appeal to- it works really well! The series actually was never officially canceled, but rather was suspended from production after Miyazaki moved on to other projects and licensing for the Sherlock Holmes character was getting dicey with production. (Don’t worry guys, if you are thinking ‘oh no! how will I ever create a gay romance adaptation on twitter dot com about these characters if they are copyrighted!’ then don’t worry any more! Sherlock Holmes is proudly in the public domain.)
But if you were thinking “Oh no! Romie! But where can I watch Clips of this show! Preferably out of context and in a manner where I really don’t know what is going on!” then don’t worry because now I got you covered.
SHABAM!
But when it comes to adaptations, I am a sucker for Sherlock adaptations. When writing this, I was specifically thinking of writing about an animated Sherlock adaptation. Some of my favorite adaptations of all time are Sherlock adaptations! But I will admit, some of my least favorite are also Sherlock adaptations.
The Breadwinner (2017) and Persepolis (2007) are both animated films that focus on young female protagonists navigating war-torn and politically oppressive environments. Both of the films follow these protagonists (Parvana in TheBreadwinner, and Marjane in Persepolis) as they navigate their lives through the oppression, war and societal restrictions (Afghanistan under Taliban rule in The Breadwinner and Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution in Persepolis).
Parvana disguises herself as a boy to support her family under Taliban rule, while Marjane questions and rebels against the restrictions placed on her in post-revolutionary Iran. The Breadwinner uses a mix of hand-drawn animation and stylized storybook sequences, emphasizing folklore and resilience. This is most evident in the scenes where Parvana is telling stories, where a very flat picture-book style is used, and a very similar scene is used in Persepolis, where Marjane’s father is telling a story to her.
The stories stylistically look similar, almost looking like cut-out paper puppets, however where The Breadwinner uses this frame narrative to tell a fictional story, Persepolis uses this frame narrative to tell a true historical story. (about the father of the Shah and how the current government came to be.) Besides the fact that one is in black and white and the other is in color, it is also true that the puppet like characters seemed to be more endearing in The Breadwinner as opposed to Persepolis, partly because in the first mentioned film, you are supposed to be rooting for the character rather than angry at them. However, both are still seen from the child’s point of view.
Sadly, I couldn’t find an Image for the scene that I am talking about in Persepolis- but I found it for The Breadwinner!
Both films tell powerful stories of young girls coming of age in oppressive environments, but The Breadwinner leans more into the struggle for survival and resilience, while Persepolis provides a more reflective and autobiographical take on rebellion, and identity. Their different animation styles and tones serve their narratives well, making them compelling yet distinct in their impact.
Jan Svěrak is a Czech director and filmmaker who is award winning and nominated (Academy award, Golden Globes Award, Crystal Globe, Tokio Grand Prix etc.) for several of his films. Born 1965 in Czechia, Svěrák studied film specifically for Documentary at the FAMU. (Filmová a televizní fakulta Akademie múzických umění v Praze/Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague). He found his go to style in sci-fi ecology, and fictional documentary. His first feature film, Elementary School (1991) won an Academy Award for best foreign language film.
Admittedly, almost all the sources I found on him were in Czech- and some of them translated rather awkwardly.
Fredrick “Tex” Avery was born in Texas in 1908. He started making comic strips in highschool and wanted to be an animator/cartoonist from a young age. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago for a summer. After which he moved to California and got a job at Warner Brothers as a storyboarder in the early 1930s, creating/working on Porky Pig, Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. A disagreement with Leon Schlesinger led Tex to quit Warner in early 1941. He passed away in 1980, at the age of 72.
Tex was less focused on creating lasting characters and rather was more interested in creating gags and slapstick jokes and creating humorous animations. Of all of his original characters, Droopy is the most popular of them. (The character recently got a small resurgence in popularity with the term ‘Sigma’, and he was referred to as ‘The Most Sigma Dog’, but quickly got taken over by the ‘My New Character’ nonchalant dog. )
After leaving Warner Brothers, he went to MGM, but left there right as they stopped making theatrical releases. He then went to Walter Lantz and made the Chilly Willy penguin character before eventually switching to TV commercial animations rather than episodic cartoons.
His style is distinctly slapstick and over the top. He likes visual gags and doing a slight subversion of what the audience expects, and then plays into it some more. He doesn’t focus as much on character as he does on situation, as opposed to some of the other directors at Warner Bros, who were itching to have more distinct characters and iconic characters to rival the likes of Disney. Another thing I noticed is that he tends to like to play on the humor of the everyday exaggerated rather than crazy sci-fi situations, like space adventures, big over the top science projects and what-not.
However, while watching his work, I came across an almost unproportional amount of Racist themes. Nearly every other cartoon of his that I saw with a person in it had some kind of stereotype, and even the ones without people still had them. I understand this was more common in that era, but this seemed like a lot even for the time. There were literal dogs in blackface, racist depictions of Hindu people and Romani people, incredibly offensive depictions of Native Americans, and more. Again, this was more common in the past, but it was absolutely abhorrent to watch.
Beyond the racist themes and such, I will admit overall I do not much care for the vast majority of the cartoons of his that I saw. They all seemed to be gag after gag after gag with no payoff, no emotional resonance, no reason to keep watching. It felt like early form of Brainrot, really. As a general rule I do not much care for Loony Tunes cartoons because of this, as a lot of the characters seem lifeless and just pawns for visual gags, and I admit that this was even more so with Tex Avery’s work.
His cartoon “The House of Tomorrow from Yesterday” was somewhat fun to watch, and really shows the statement of ‘Flying Cars they said’ to be forever relevant. However, if anything else, there are some themes that he loves to play on, Racism, Sexism, Hating your Mother in Law and Gags.
I won’t lie, this is America as Cartoon Media. I think that this perfectly represents what we are as a country, in many ways. And I don’t mean this in some philosophical or beautiful way, I just mean it plain and straight up. Messy, chaotic, loud, over the top, however still mundane, historically and still presently racist, casually racist, casually sexist, dreaming big of the future and heavily nostalgic about the past.
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