March 16, 2007

Saturday Morning Double Feature

While Kory is still in limbo (we think he made it to the states, but the witness protection program won't let him contact us), I picked out my favorite Fictional Universe column to share with you once again. -M

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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY

This week we have two videos for you, a limited animation cartoon featuring "Captain Obvious" and a live action (if you can call it that) show about living hot peppers in outer space.

These videos are representative of the house style that Fictional Universe is moving toward, both intended as retro television homages. Limited animation cartoons are familiar to most people. The other style could be called "Animotion" after its roots in "Claymotion" that is similar in feel, but focused more on clay characters specifically.


CAPTAIN OBVIOUS

2 minutes, 23 seconds

We've intended to do something with Captain Obvious for a while. To belabor the obvious, the character has his origin in the idiom, "Thanks, Captain Obvious."

The main thing that I, if not the average viewer, consider noteworthy about this cartoon is the evolution in our technique for making them. The production level speaks for itself, but what isn't so obvious is the time involved in making it -- approximately three hours.

Strategies that we've come up with to speed production include use of chroma keying (blue/greenscreen effects) and more careful regard for character design that facilitates limited animation techniques. The method used to animate the children's mouths makes its first appearance in this video. I'm rather happy with it.

SPACE PIRATES

1 minute. 43 seconds

This is the video that I mentioned last week was apparently destroyed by an accident with a cup of coffee and my laptop. As it turns out only the touchpad was rendered permanently inoperative in the accident and I was able to access this file using a USB mouse.

I call this style "Animotion" because the most conspicuous thing in my mind about it is that the characters are objects, photo cut-outs, etc animated mostly by moving them around during filming or digitally afterwards. This is our first use of chroma keying, which is painfully evident.

Everything in this video is a photo, except Mr. Roboto's mouth when he speaks and the disintegration beam. Even the Rat space ship is not a drawing, although it mysteriously looks like one.

We did most of the mouth animations with a program called "Crazy Talk." A bit of public domain stock footage also appears in this video.

Kory was once known as Captain Not So Obvious

Previous Issues

March 2, 2007

The Cybernetic Woman

cyberwoman.jpg
The original Cybernetic Woman had a complex regime of occupational therapy. The main problem she faced was that her newly augmented body no longer had proportional strength. The powerful Kung Fu grip in her left hand, for example, could crush a diamond. Meanwhile, her right hand still had only normal human strength. One of the greatest challenges was running. Just imagine what happens when every time your right foot hits the ground you're propelled up into the air in dramatic slow motion, but when your left foot hits the ground it just acts like a normal foot
.

Cybernetics are one of the greatest mysteries of the modern age.

In the year 1974 when a woman was horribly maimed, losing both her left arm and right leg, the government could rebuild her. Back then they had that technology. They had the capability to build the world's first cybernetic chick... better, stronger, and faster than a normal human
being.

...All for less than $6 million (1974 dollars, which roughly equates to $1 Kajillion today).

However, in the 30 years since then developments in the cybernetics field have been virtually cybernetic-woman-anim.gifnonexistent. In fact, it seems that cybernetics has actually regressed quite a bit.

Nowadays when you get horribly maimed the government can't make you better, stronger, and faster. Instead you just get a hook that can open and close, giving you the special power of picking something up... and that's with high end prosthetics.

The reason...?

Well, maybe if you got maimed and had $6 million to spend, it'd be no big deal. Maybe all the rich people are secretly cyborgs who have cool adventures each week and laugh about how boring your life is, but they keep this on the down low to avoid a mass revolt of disgruntled armless and legless peasants who have to get by with Captain Hook hand-me-downs.

Or maybe inferior cybernetic body parts are all now manufactured in sweat shops in third world countries by the uber dextrous tiny little hands of underage starving children.

Like I said, cybernetics are a mystery.

Archives

February 23, 2007

Robot Breasts Bring Pain!

Kory is still on vacation this week. Or moving. Or going into the witness protection program. Either way, he left us some nifty stuff about robots.

The Giant Warrior Robots, known as "Tetsujin Lobo Force" in Japan, were a royal family that in the remote past protected the Planet Eris against evil Giant Monsters. They were a family of three, with the Blue Pilot as the father, the Red Pilot as the mother, and the Gold Pilot as the Son.

Actually, they were somewhat misnamed as their battlesuits weren't really "robots" capable of autonomous action, but instead vehicles that required pilots. The suits themselves were based on Green Knight technology from earlier generations.


Each member of the team wore a different color uniform so that the audience could tell
them apart.

Their series lasted for 36 episodes, each of which essentially had the same story.

They went like this:

On Evil Planet, the evil Blue Skinned King called on his witch to create a horrible giant monster to attack Planet Eris. She created a giant monster and the King sent it to attack.

Blue-Pilot-Running.gif Yellow-Pilot-Running.gif


Meanwhile on Planet Eris, some quirk of fate made it so that the Robot Pilots didn't have access to their Robots. For example, they accidentally locked the keys inside them. So the Giant Monster would rampage across the planet destroying things until finally a locksmith showed up, jimmied open the Robots' cockpits, and then presented the Royal Family with an exorbitant bill. Then the Pilots climbed into their Robots and we saw stock footage of them emerging from the water to kick monster ass.

Next the Robots battled the monster, who had the upper hand at first, until the Robots used one of their special attacks that always destroyed monsters easily. Why the Robots didn't just use this 100% effective attack at the beginning of the fight is one of life's eternal mysteries.

Each member of the team wore a different color uniform so that the audience could tell them apart. The Blue Robot and Gold Robot had different heads for the same reason.

blue-robo_copy.gif

The Many Ways That A Robot's Breasts Can Bring Pain

For me, the highlight of the show was always when the Red Robot got to deliver the coup de grace attack against the Giant Monster, because her technique almost always involved using her breasts as offensive weapons.

Here are some of the attacks that she used throughout the series. Unfortunately the names of the attacks were usually censored in the American release of the series.

Boobie Blast!
Boobie Beat-Down!
Bazonga Barrage!
Rack Smack!
Tittie Twister!
Tornado Tatas!
Tit for Tat!
Mammary Missiles!
The Melon Massacre
The Knocker Shocker
The Funbag Drag
The Jug Slug
The Lovely Little Lump Thump
Udder Destruction

Archives

February 16, 2007

Those Damn Monkeys

Dr-Zeus-Throws.gifDr. Zeus is the smartest monkey who ever lived, with an IQ of well over 200. That's really something when you think about how culturally biased our IQ tests are against monkeys. Still, Dr. Zeus is a monkey at heart and not above amusing himself by flinging his own feces at the audience as they listen to his lecture on hyperstring theory.






normal-monkey.gifMonkeys are the ultimate paradox. On the
one hand they're quite cute, but on the other
hand you never know when they're going to
flip out and conquer humanity.

In the past Monkeys achieved many great
things. A million of them, typing on a million
typewriters, for a million years, produced the
complete works of Shakespeare.
Shakespeare found these works and
published them in Elizabethan England,
leading him to live a life of ease and luxury.

Monkey astronauts also existed before
humans did... in the modern age, anyway.
Let's not consider here issues of what may
have happened long ago in galaxies far far
away.

The first monkey in space was Albert the
Rhesus Monkey who mysteriously
disappeared during the flight.

Monkeys were able to achieve these and
other great things due largely to their
relationship with a mysterious talking rock
named "The Megalith." This bizarre object
taught the monkeys many things... including,
unfortunately, how to take over the world.

So it should come as no surprise that in the
future, monkeys take over the world and
grind humanity underneath their cruel
barefooted heels. And yet, they remain
monkeys... not above such simple pleasures
eating bananas and flinging their own fecal
matter at random passersby.




newman-bw.gif
If there's one thing that monkeys really find amusing, it's enslaving human beings. The premise of the show "Newman the Human" is that some monkeys have a human for sale, but nobody ever wants to buy him. Occasionally people will buy poor Newman to have him work on a chain gang or something and hilarious hijinx ensue. Ultimately, Newman always somehow ends up back in the hands of his original cruel owners.

Kory is on vacation this week, and left some monkeys in his place

Archives

February 9, 2007

The End of Everything

Kory is in the process of packing up and moving from Germany to the states.

That's right. THE STATES. I know, it's kind of arrogant. But we're Americans. It's what we do.

Anyhow, we're going to run some stuff from Kory's amazing website The Mystery Walk while he's getting his papers in order and packing up as much German contraband as he can hide in his kid's suitcase.





Kory will not reveal what he means by "German contraband"

Archives

February 2, 2007

Practical Advice for Aspiring Bums



This video introduces Ricky Rat, who pulls back the veil to reveal some never before revealed secrets of the mysterious bum community. In only two minutes and 30 seconds, you will learn how to get FREE MONEY, FREE FOOD, and even FREE WATER! Don't miss this opportunity of a lifetime.

Also, I'd like to inform you all that during February I'll be moving -- so the next handful of Fictional Universes are likely to be, um, filler. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Kory just assumes we are an understanding bunch........

Archives

January 26, 2007

Frankenstein Monologues

Hello again, gang. This time Frankenstein continues his discussion of interrogation and briefly points out human murderability while drunk.

Frankenstein: Interrogation 2 (Intelligence Interrogation)

frankinter.jpg


In this video, Frankenstein returns to the topic of interrogation, looking at it from an intelligence perspective. In case you missed the first discussion, Frankenstein focused on interrogation from a law enforcement point of view and it's available in last week's archive.

Frankenstein's "We All Have An Off Switch" Public Service Announcement

frankshawn.jpg


This video is a response to a YouTube user named D4Shawn who suggested that thinking of yourself as "better than human" might help in dealing with people who annoy you. It's quite brief and Frankenstein pretty much just drunkenly points out that we can all be killed rather easily. The implication was supposed to be that on some level we're all equal, but perhaps Frankenstein had one too many drinks to effectively be able to make that point.

Thanks for joining me again this week and take care!

Kory thinks death is the great equalizer.

Archives

January 19, 2007

Frankenstein Returns

Hi gang! I have three more videos for you this week...

Zombie: Michael Moore Interview

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click for video

Zombie is interviewed by Michael Moore, who shows some clips from a documentary he's making called "The Detainee." The fictitious documentary features Mr. C and references two old TV shows called "The Prisoner." There's a typo in the credits... sorry about that.

Frankenstein: Interrogation 1 (Police Interrogation)

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click for video

Frankenstein gets drunk again and this time tells you all about cop interrogation tactics.

Frankenstein Rant About God and Religions

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click for video

Without even the excuse of intoxication, Frankenstein says things about metaphysics calculated to offend both the pious and atheists alike. This video is not recommended viewing for anyone easily offended by controversial statements about religion.

See you next week!

Kory never needs the excuse of intoxication to offend the masses.

January 12, 2007

Previously on "Frankenstein!" (again)

Frankenstein conquered the quasi-real representation of the web site youtube.com known as "YouTubia." He taught you to recognize propaganda tactics and then promptly used them in two videos promoting his army. This week the story continues to continue:

Frankenstein Announces Primatization
iamsorry.jpg

Last week Frankenstein announced victory in the war against his enemies and was immediately rebuked by Che Guevara. In this video he demonstrates what a leader should do when he mistakenly announces that the mission is accomplished, but it actually hasn't been yet. Just my opinion...

Zombie
zombiemf.jpg

One of Frankenstein's associates steps forward to offer a solution to the problem of spam. The zombie character will be familiar to those of you who viewed the Fictional Universe feature here during October.

Frankenstein: Live Free or Die
frankcr.jpg

Frankenstein momentarily sets aside his war against spammers to address you, the viewer, directly. This is his second alcohol sponsored video... this time brought to you by Crown Royal at the suggestion of a viewer.

Tune in next week when we show you what Che Guevara looks like clad in an orange jumpsuit...

Kory has a post-modern, ironic tatto of Che on the back of his left thigh.

Archives

January 5, 2007

Previously on “Frankenstein!”

Frankenstein’s monster declared himself dictator of YouTubia, a quasi-real representation of the YouTube web site. His Army of Frankenstein killed some people. And he taught you about brainwashing. This week the story continues:

Frankenstein tells you about Koans and Propaganda

In which Uncle Frankenstein drinks too much Jack Daniels and then spends almost ten minutes drunkenly ranting at you about the nature of propaganda.

frankdrunk.jpg
click image for video


Army of Frankenstein: War on SPAM

In which the Army of Frankenstein takes the fight to the enemy and in which the audio is annoyingly way too loud.

armyfrank.jpg
click image for video

Army of Frankenstein: WHY WE FIGHT HATERS
In which the Army of Frankenstein takes the fight to the enemy some more.

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Frankenstein: Mission Accomplished
In which Frankenstein prematurely declares victory and receives his comeuppance from Che Guevara. Heh. Comeuppance. I always wanted to use that word.


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Bonus Video:
“Drawing Mysterywalker’s Frankenstein” (fan-made video)


drawing.jpg
click image for video

Notes:
There’s some progress in audio quality this time around. I apologize to anyone who feels put off by the YouTube-oriented nature of this storyline. As I mentioned last week, it was largely conceived as a way to take a break from intensive production work over the holidays. Frankenstein seems to have developed a small following on YouTube and hopefully some of those people will visit FTTW.

Kory was not under the influence of Jack Daniels when he made these videos. Maybe.

Archives

December 29, 2006

The Army of Frankenstein is Coming

The three Frankenstein videos that appear this week are a precursor to a series called “The Army of Frankenstein,” which will incorporate 3D animation and footage from old public domain movies. The concept for the series evolved from my attempts to create a few videos with very low production values over the holidays to give myself a break.

frankenstein.jpgThis is an intellectual version of Frankenstein, not a brute, although all the things you think happened to Frankenstein probably did happen at some point in his past. Thematic elements that appear in his videos come from a variety of sources. To name a few:

1. Old monster movies, obviously
2. Edutainment of the 50s and 60s, which got quite disturbing at times
3. The opening credits of James Bond movies
4. Jim Steranko’s psychedelic art in Nick Fury comics of the sixties
5. Max Headroom
6. 1984, the TV series the Prisoner, and other similar works
7. Political cartoons

Frankenstein addresses the viewer directly in his videos. In case you’re unfamiliar with the video hosting web site YouTube, I should tell you that many people these days are referring to it as a nation and calling it “YouTubia.” Frankenstein takes this at face value and in his videos you’ll see that whether YouTubia is a web site, an actual nation, or both is rather ambiguous.

I apologize for the poor sound quality in these videos – I’m working on it, I swear. Please let me know what you think of this concept by leaving a comment below.

- Kory

These are the three videos:

Frankenstein Teaches You About Brainwashing

Frankenstein Assumes Control of YouTube


Frankenstein Announces Operation YouTubia Liberation (OYL)

Kory has never engaged in brainwashing. Kory rules. Kory is god. Kory is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Archives

December 22, 2006

Space Pirates: Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto


Episode Summary:
Captain Pepper’s sense of entitlement comes into direct conflict with an entire planet of talking primates and he deals with them in the usual Space Pirate manner.

Commentary:
There are a lot of things in this episode you’ve never seen before, such as the Space Pirates facing enemies who have a fighting chance. With this installment of the series, I feel like we’re finally getting a grasp on how to make the limitations of limited animation work for us. You may not realize it as you view the video, but what you’re watching is a cartoon – with the exception of Mr. Duck, who is a puppet, and one scene where Mr. Roboto wields alight saber. Everything else is animation.

Like our other videos, there are many noticeable flaws in the final product. I mentioned in a previous column that that was deliberate. Let me take a moment here to explain why. By the way, it may seem that the character Hep Cat is my vehicle to say things like this, but he really isn’t. His pseudo-intellectual comments don’t actually mirror my own views so much as they’re efforts to appeal to an audience.

Anyway, with the technical means available these days, anyone at all could invest time and money into producing a great cartoon. After some outrageous length of time – let’s say a year – produce a grand and flawless five-minute video. A lack of animation talent wouldn’t even matter, because the creator could simply trace over live action footage and swipe animation cycles from public domain material and reference books.

But my vision of where internet entertainment is heading strongly leads me to believe that a rapid production cycle is critical to having any shot at success. Homestar Runner and the Ask a Ninja ninja stand as two recent examples of successful precursors to the revolution I believe is entering its early stages. Their success hinged primarily on two things – frequent release of new content and concepts so outrageous and over the top that the viewers are drawn in and overlook primitive (read “easy to make”) visuals. Content came first, obviously, but to sustain it both creators followed up with successful models for commercializing without alienating their viewers.

There are many people who refer to YouTube (the site that hosts our videos) as a “community,” these days. I have nothing against those people, but I don’t tend to agree with them. I see it more as a night club you play at until someone notices you.

Where I think this is all leading is to a point where “video production studios” (three or four people with a mix of talents and a working relationship with a few musicians) create content along the same lines as garage bands create music. The very best of those studios will develop followings, get offers from sponsors, and sell merchandised products to their audience. The concept of “getting discovered” is shifting toward more of a direct democratic process than a matter of being noticed by a major corporation.

Something else I’d ask any skeptics out there to consider is what computer users will be capable of five years from now, given likely advancements in video making software, computational power, bandwidth limits stretched by the introduction of IPV6, and other similar types of progress. I’m arguing less about where we are than where we will be in the not too distant future.

That’s just my take on it, albeit with the possibly of clouding my mind with delusions of grandeur. Of course, I wouldn’t categorize us as “the very best” yet, but we’re working on it. Even if it doesn’t work out as I envision, it’s fun to play with toys and make videos about it and I still have a day job.

Kory is not a robot without emotions

Archives

December 15, 2006

Space Pirates: Old Enemies


Space Pirates: "Old Enemies"
(4:03 minutes)

This week Captain Pepper and Mr. Roboto return in the first full-fledged episode of their series. Their first appearance was a pilot episode. Accordingly, I've made a few changes and refinements.

Techniques used to make this video include chroma keying, minor flash animations and animated gifs, and the programs Crazy Talk and iClone.

The Reptoid character is my first ever attempt at CGI/machinima. His face was inspired by the Sleestaks from the old Land of the Lost show.

I hope you enjoy the video and please leave feedback below if you have the time.

Kory never met a Sleestak he didn't like.

Archives

December 8, 2006

What's New CENSORED Cat Episode Two



Director's Commentary


This week we present the second episode of the Hep Cat series, in which Hep Cat discusses the most important six second drum beat in modern history as it pertains to achieving world peace and other subjects.

The concept for this series is that a cartoon cat has a dialogue with his viewers in the form of video responses on YouTube. When you see references to "subscribing" in the video, Hep Cat is referring to the YouTube channel he appears on.

The vision behind this series is to bring to bear every possible limited animation shortcut in order to produce watchable cartoons at a very rapid pace. It's a sort of low brow experiment. Therefore, the technical mistakes you may spot in the video are deliberate to some extent. I can't say that I actually intended moments where Hep Cat's collar inexplicably flickers or his body is partially transparent. But I can say that the production process is deliberately so quick and dirty that I begin from a standpoint of accepting and even embracing those kinds of quirks. The major technical innovation this week was the introduction of animation achieved by moving fields of distortion applied to solitary images.

Story wise, a formula for this series is developing pretty quickly. Hep Cat presents a pseudo intellectual argument to his viewers, punctuated by frequent use of pun-based innuendos. We've developed the habit of calling them "penis jokes," even though they don't all specifically relate to penises.

I should also take a moment and apologize for ignoring some of the people who responded to the first episode, particularly Cullen, who posted some very good feedback here last week. No one was ignored deliberately. What happens is my son and I script about 250% of what we actually need to produce a single episode and have to cut out a lot of it in order to maintain the rapid fire pace we're trying for. The intent is still to answer everyone who responds eventually; especially video responses... so break out those video cameras, gang! :P

I always welcome constructive criticism, but in this case even more so than usual. If you have anything to say to Hep Cat, any suggestions for improving the show, or even if you simply want to insult the video, please leave a comment below.

Thanks for watching!

Kory sometimes has a hard time distinguishing betweeen himself and Hep Cat.

Archives

December 1, 2006

What's New (CENSORED) Cat?

anFUlogo-416x76.jpg



"What's New (CENSORED) Cat?"
Okay guys -- this week we have a video absolutely guaranteed to take up eight
minutes and 45 seconds of your life should you choose to watch it. This is a
"video response talk show," the premise of which is that the characters respond
directly to the text comments and video responses they get from viewers. The
content of the show includes a ludicrous amount of pun-based juvenile "adult"
humor. It's safe for work if you happen to have a lenient boss/permissive work
environment.

Toward the end there are a few minor technical glitches, including one brief
moment where a character's mouth remains closed while he speaks. The
reason I haven't pulled the video and re-edited it further is that my goal with
Fictional Universe is to never let perfection become the enemy of "good enough."

Whether you enjoy this or not, please leave a comment here on FTTW or on
YouTube. Video responses are especially appreciated. Hep Cat or one of his
friends will acknowledge all feedback in aperiodic future installments of the show.

Kory is really Hep Cat's alter ego. And all this time you thought he was people.

Archives

November 17, 2006

Friday Double Feature!

fu1161.gif


DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY

This week we have two videos for you, a limited animation cartoon featuring "Captain Obvious" and a live action (if you can call it that) show about living hot peppers in outer space.

These videos are representative of the house style that Fictional Universe is moving toward, both intended as retro television homages. Limited animation cartoons are familiar to most people. The other style could be called "Animotion" after its roots in "Claymotion" that is similar in feel, but focused more on clay characters specifically.


CAPTAIN OBVIOUS

2 minutes, 23 seconds

We've intended to do something with Captain Obvious for a while. To belabor the obvious, the character has his origin in the idiom, "Thanks, Captain Obvious."

The main thing that I, if not the average viewer, consider noteworthy about this cartoon is the evolution in our technique for making them. The production level speaks for itself, but what isn't so obvious is the time involved in making it -- approximately three hours.

Strategies that we've come up with to speed production include use of chroma keying (blue/greenscreen effects) and more careful regard for character design that facilitates limited animation techniques. The method used to animate the children's mouths makes its first appearance in this video. I'm rather happy with it.

SPACE PIRATES

1 minute. 43 seconds

This is the video that I mentioned last week was apparently destroyed by an accident with a cup of coffee and my laptop. As it turns out only the touchpad was rendered permanently inoperative in the accident and I was able to access this file using a USB mouse.

I call this style "Animotion" because the most conspicuous thing in my mind about it is that the characters are objects, photo cut-outs, etc animated mostly by moving them around during filming or digitally afterwards. This is our first use of chroma keying, which is painfully evident.

Everything in this video is a photo, except Mr. Roboto's mouth when he speaks and the disintegration beam. Even the Rat space ship is not a drawing, although it mysteriously looks like one.

We did most of the mouth animations with a program called "Crazy Talk." A bit of public domain stock footage also appears in this video.

Kory was once known as Captain Not So Obvious

Previous Issues

November 7, 2006

Director's Commentary

This week the Fictional Universe feature at FTTW shifts from being exclusively an online comic to a broader multi-media format. That means that in the future sometimes you’ll see comics here, sometimes videos, sometimes illustrated stories, and maybe even a few audio dramas.

This week I have a video for you (at the end of this column), which calls for a little bit of an explanation and also for a few sordid confessions on my part.

Let’s start with the explanations:

THE FICTIONAL EXPLANATION

In the Fictional Universe the Internet stretches beyond the confines of the Planet Earth and many fictional and real life characters have more conspicuous online personas than is the case in our universe. This video is one example.

THE FACTUAL EXPLANATION

The video (below) is an animated message from “Skeletubby Land” addressed specifically to a YouTube user named John Reagan. YouTube, in case you didn’t know, is a web site that hosts user-created videos. It’s become very popular recently and I’ll even go out on a limb and predict that YouTube is the future of television (if you can still call it “television” once the social evolution cycle gets far enough along). Anyway, John Reagan, under the guise of a character named “The Unidentified Man,” is the host of a video review show that’s gradually gaining a following. reagan.jpg
His show is called “Good YouTuber/bad YouTuber.” In it he wears a censor bar to cover his eyes.

Now for the sordid confessions:

DAMN YOU COFFEE

The Skeletubby video wasn’t originally intended for publication on FTTW. Actually, it was just intended in exactly the same way as any other YouTube user response, except that I experimented with some limited animation techniques (notably a Skeletor-style mouth) and made it a cartoon rather than just a stereotypical web cam type monologue. I originally intended to kick off this “Director’s Commentary” feature with a B-Movie FX intense live-action Star Trek parody that features talking hot peppers and to conspicuously include a credit to FTTW in the video.
I still will do that, but the original material I spent all of this last Saturday creating was destroyed in one moment when a massive cup of coffee was spilled (not by me) all over my laptop. I’m hoping that the files on that computer are recoverable, as it looks like perhaps they will be.

STOLEN FROM HANNA BARBERA’S PLAYBOOK

While the animation in the Skeletubby video isn’t (in my opinion), too hard on the eyes, it’s laden with cheap limited animation tricks that made it pretty easy to make. I developed a formula for these animated video responses, which is pretty easy to make out if you browse further into our YouTube account and view the other one. Basically I introduce the setting, have the weird character enter the frame so that you see he has a body, then gradually close in on his face. Animation is kept to a bare minimum, consisting mostly of eye blinks and a single mouth movement cycle that repeats when the character speaks. Any remaining sense of movement comes from use of constant sound and frequent cuts, pans, and zooms.

I HAVE NO SHAME

The fact that the YouTube user I responded to with this video is the host of an online show that reviews YouTube videos didn’t completely escape me.

That’s about it for this week. I promise you that next month’s installment will knock both of your socks off. That’s in comparison to this installment, which probably only knocked off one of your socks. Also, if you’re into YouTube, then check out John’s videos. If ever there was a guy who put pulse on the finger of YouTube, it’s John! And if you’re not into YouTube – get into it now!

Kory lives in Germany. We're pretty sure that's an explanation for something....

Archives

October 30, 2006

Stardust the Super Wizard


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Kory writes Fictional Universe with his son, who has amazing superhero powers that Kory never lets him use.

Archives

October 23, 2006

Mad Monster Party!








Kory writes and draws The Fictional Universe while dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein

Archives

October 16, 2006

Sunman and Amy the Monster Hunter - Together At Last





Kory may or may not be a generic superhero in his spare time.

Archive

October 9, 2006

Amy the Monster Hunter

"







Kory's The Fictional Universe is a place where dinosaurs, monkeys and Gary Coleman all exist at once.

Archives

October 3, 2006

Fictional Universe - It's Shocktober!


Welcome to the fast-paced and exciting world of the Fictional Universe, where ALL of the characters from fiction coexist with each another and share a common history For more info, please visit the very amusing FAQ here.

Click the image to go to the full strip.

September 26, 2006

Fictional Universe Week 2


Welcome to the fast-paced and exciting world of the Fictional Universe, where ALL of the characters from fiction coexist with each another and share a common history For more info, please visit the very amusing FAQ here.

Click the image to go to the full strip.

September 19, 2006

The Fictional Universe: Week 1


Today brings you another new feature at FTTW: The Fictional Universe.

Welcome to the fast-paced and exciting world of the Fictional Universe, where
ALL of the characters from fiction coexist with each another and share a
common history
For more info, please visit the very amusing FAQ here.

fuvweek1.jpg

Click the image to go to the full strip.

full archives