January 2005 Archives

Seems like we've got another remake on our hands. Australia is to play host to director Gary Winick for a live-action and computer generated animation remake of the film "Charlotte's Web." Julia Roberts, US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey and British comic John Cleese have been enticed into lending their voices.

Also lending their voices will be actors Steve Buscemi and Cedric The Entertainer, as well as Kathy Bates, "Sideways" star Thomas Haden Church, singer-actress Reba McEntire and Outkast hip-hop star Andre Benjamin.

Roberts will play the lead role of Charlotte A. Cavatica, the spider heroine of the book who goes out of her way to save Wilbur the pig's life by weaving miraculous words into her webs, according to Paramount Pictures.

Winfrey will be the voice of Gussy, the barn's maternal yet irreverent goose, while Cleese will take on Samuel the sheep and Buscemi will voice the barn's sardonic rat, Templeton.

It's all a bit too Babe for me.

Michael Jantze has been doing his the Norm strip for some time now. I recall reading it on the web some years ago and thinking it had huge potential to be a driving force behind the future of comic strips. Jantze had a brilliant website design and it all came together quite well. Unfortunately once he was published in print media he soon decided that it was no longer becoming financially viable to run the strip. He quit the strip in September 2004.

With support from his wife and the encouragement to continue the strip from fans, the decision was made to continue the strip if they could sell online subscriptions. This meant a goal of 4,000 with a minimum of $25 per year a starting point to subscribe. Before Christmas they reached around $60,000 in subs. Whilst a Syndicate wouldn't call this a 'Hit Strip', it shows exactly what I have been thinking all along. By targeting a small audience over the internet you can achieve a viable income and maintain your creativity. Macro Entertainment will become a way of the future and its a shame more artists are not willing to recognise it yet. Recognise or the fact they're too lazy to pursue something they don't understand.

So how many resolutions have been broken already? Hand up you smokers out there.

I'm in the stages of completing writing and roughing out some animation for the Tropfest short film festival here in Sydney. I haven't had the time to do any work recently as I have just moved to a new place in Balmain. I'll post some examples of the new work shortly.