The Four Color Media Monitor

News Center Maine says another comic by natives of the far-up point of New England is being adapted, to animation. But it's part of a genre that's becoming all too common:

While the coronavirus pandemic shut down production and recording studios all around the world, it had little to no impact on animation. In fact, as we all struggled to learn new ways of communicating and getting work done online, artists have been using technology for years.

Which makes it easy to live and work in Maine and produce an animation in California, which is what Rich Woodall and Joseph Schmalke are working on this year, with the help of Starburns Industries – the production company that brought to life the hit series, Rick and Morty and Moral Orel.

Electric Black is a comic that Schmalke and Woodall created. "It was supposed to be a horror anthology - which is a bunch of standalone stories with one overlying tale that was actually more important than all these other side stories. A cursed antique shop lends itself to that because you have all these objects in there that can have different storylines to them," says Schmalke. "Then we developed our crypt keeper who is named Julius Black, and he is the proprietor of this shop."

The storyline, with some edits, got picked up by Scout Comics. With a big footprint in Hollywood, Scout gained Electric Black even more traction.

I think cartoons can have a lot advantages, but adapting a horror genre book is still pretty cheap, compared to all the more optimistic - and even comedic - ideas you could adapt to the art form. This is decidedly just another politically correct choice of the press for something to highlight.

Labels: animation, indie publishers, msm propaganda