It still surprises me at how few people have seen Freak of the Week, and I love sharing it with friends because of the inevitable, “How the hell have I never seen this?” look of awe drawn out on their face.
And man, it really is gorgeous.
Directed by Juanjo Guarnido, it took the team about a year of hard work to hammer out this bloody masterpiece (which you can learn about in his video here) using a combination of 3D animation with the power of college interns skill of a team of artists to painstakingly re-draw the 3D elements they wanted in 2D frame-by-frame, not to mention the post processing and… everything else.
Even though it came out in 2014, it doesn’t seem to have ever garnered the attention it truly deserves.
I really wanna drive this point home, so to give you an idea, Ghost by Mystery Skulls, animated by MysteryBen27 has 18,147,263 views. Freak of the Week has only 2,271,121 views at the time I’m writing this. That’s fucking depressing for something so … phenomenal. I want more of this, and hell, maybe you do too. But we’re not going to see anymore simply because the right people haven’t seen it. In fact, it failed to reach a respectable level of Internet Popularity®, Juanjo himself even described it in the comments section as having ruined him because of how little attention it got.
So if you’re reading this and you’ve got some connections with a TV network or something, consider pulling some strings to get this video spoon-fed to the masses, because people ought to see this. I’m sure Juanjo would be all too happy to oblige. And hell, if you wanna buy the art book, you can get the link here for about $50.
Now, maybe you recognize the former Disney animator Juanjo Guarnido for his other work: Blacksad.
Which is a comic set in the late 1950′s about a hardboiled private investigator published originally by Dark Horse Comics that does… y’know, the …
… noir investigator …
… aloof ladies man…
… badass …
… detective story thing.
That I haven’t yet read but I TOTALLY NEED TO.
Look,
I guess I’m bringing up Freak of the Week because I was reading the comment section and, man, it kinda got me down.
Some of the best things things out there just haven’t been seen by the right people, I guess. But I suppose it’s also a depressing statement on the culture of the internet that the video makes.
I’ve shared the video before, but I’m gonna give this another tumbl for the added info and commentary.
I never miss an opportunity to share Freak of the Week.
I’m sharing this mostly out of love for traditional 2D style animation. That, and I’m enamored by the characters themselves. Check it out!
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