A link to some short animations from Serge Bloch. He is also an illustrator, one of my favorite illustrators, and you can see his work here. Beautiful line work, funny, inspirational. His style reminds me of another of my all time favorites Javier Mariscal.
This collection of animation uses his style. I’m not sure if he did the animation himself, or if they were produced with him as an art director for commercial reasons. Either way, a fun place to spend a few minutes.
I really love the animated short called “Great Peas”. It makes me think about how particular countries and races and nationalities see reflected in themselves the things most important in the universe. And how silly that kind of fulfillment is. The commander Pea says, “Our roundness bares testament to our superiority.” It’s a little bit dark, and a little bit funny and quietly achieves it’s aims. And he does this with peas with faces drawn on them and a musical score. I can think of a many, many films that cost millions and took hundreds of thousands of man hours and said not a quarter of what he accomplishes with this.
It’s wonderful to see the line work and energy in his drawings. I am so tired of overly rendered work. As if the best illustrations are those with the most shadows, or greatest number of lines/brush strokes ETC. A long list of my favorites illustrators (for picture books or other things) would include artists who utilized line – Dr. Seuss, Charles Addams, Arnold Roth, William Steig and Saul Steinberg to name a few.
Of course we can get into semantics, and ask: Are they cartoonist or illustrator? Illustrators or animators? Writers or cartoonists? I find the discussion worthless, outside of a purely academic undertaking. No matter the technique or media, it is the ability of an artist (narrative artist) to convey a clear vision/tell a story that makes a work successful. The technical issues are used to further define and refine a project for mass consumption. But Serge’s simple animated stories are as entertaining as any work created by a Hollywood studio, costing a hundred million dollars and employing 200 artists for 6 years. Look at the work and enjoy!
