If I was on a game show, right now, facing the challenge of determining whether this WALKING DEAD TV show opener was real or fake, I’d most certainly lose the Foreman grill and all-expenses-paid trip to Club Med -- because I’d definitely answer wrong! See, most times a “fan-made” video pops up online, it’s either a fake trailer cobbled together from a lot of obvious stock footage or it’s an original with easy-to-spot low production values. But this… this looks legit, and that’s because it’s by a legit animator, Daniel M. Kanemoto, who’s done some groovy animated spots for clients like Nickelodeon, the Travel Channel and the Discovery Channel. He’s even done opening credits for another comics-related projects, HULK-writer Greg Pak’s indy movie ROBOT STORIES. Go on -- check out the website for his studio, Ex Mortis, and see the cool cartoons he’s made.
Anyway, enough preamble… check out this hypothetical opener for the WALKING DEAD that animates Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard’s art to the groove of the Eels’ “Fresh Blood.” == TEASER ==
A stylin’ piece of music, motion, magic and the macabre, no?
You know, we all can get so deep into the internet's overwhelming media sphere that it’s easy to lose sight of how significantly so many things of changes. For fans films, in particular, I remember it being such a novelty to get the chance to watch Kevin Rubio’s COPS-themed STAR WARS parody TROOPS in heavily-compressed video on a fan site. I’d heard about the movie for a few years prior to that, of course, because it was featured in some fan magazines but, without access to conventions, I really had no means to watch. Now, all you've got to do is push a button and wait a minute to watch some amazingly well-produced fan films like GRAYSON and BATMAN: DEAD END. I can only imagine how much stuff came out back then that I never got to see on account of the contemporary tech.
Actually, just for the hell of it, why don’t you check out this high-end adaptation of the LOBO PARAMILITARY CHRISTMAS SPECIAL? It's a student film that was made at the American Film Institue and it's got to be one of the most morbidly-funny comics-based movies I've ever seen.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE . Order them on Amazon here & here .