Another sneak peek at my final interactive animation project featuring the notorious P.I.G. (Paul Ian Gregory) himself, aprés take away, sans culotte, JD neat, Scott on the decks and Vincent Price on the tely.
Just in case you didn’t know, Pauly often tweets off the bog to the uncaring stratosphere. You can be his friend/mocking observer or voyeuristic surveillance agent at twitter.com/gregorypig, or just catch up with the epic that is his life in the Montague Twits column to your right.
Not having posted anything for a while, I thought I should pull my finger out to reveal to the world, er, the dozen or so people who come across this site by complete accident, what I’ve been hard at work on in recent months. Not only have I been toiling on a graphic novel version of Montague Terrace, co-scripted with brother Gary (more on this soon), but I’ve been creating the interactive animations for my MA degree show highlighting the hidden lives of four selected characters from that very same series.
Despite a few thousand technical issues and an extremely steep learning curve using Flash properly for the first time, things are going well.
The plan involves an interactive, wired-up multiple entry system that triggers off a related animation, telling one of 4 stories. Films featured will be of the ex-60s pop grump, Paul Gregory, the not so sweet and innocent former SOE agent Babushka, the magical, mystical double act, Marty and Marvo the Magic Bunny, as well as everyone’s favourite Eastern European megalomaniac, The Puppeteer.
Meanwhile, I’ve also been writing my dissertation discussing the effects of digital and online technologies on the visual language of comics and graphic fiction and the potential repercussions for the medium’s future.
As well as all that, I’m restructuring my website at last and working on design ideas for the degree show. So, just in case anyone was wondering why there hasn’t been a post up for yonks, there you go.
Here’s a link to the new documentary The Act-i-vate Experience via the Newsarama site, featuring many of the key peeps involved in Act-i-vate’s crucial web comix community. Not me this time, unfortunately (hair appointment clash with filming), but don’t let that stop you checking out the words of wisdom and insight as to what makes these talented artists and writers “click”.
From Web to print, the new Act-i-vate Primer from the ultimate comix collective is out now via IDW, full of wondrous works (even though I’m not in this one!). There’s been a bus load of great reviews recently, but for all the latest, check out the Act-i-vate site.
If you happen to be in Brooklyn NY this Thursday, make your way to this event, hosted by Dean Haspiel and fellow Act-i-vators for an evening of readings and signings from the new book.
Also, news coming soon about a certain Montague Terrace.
Watch this space…