The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Michel Gagne, author, artist and maker of beautiful, uplifting, inspiring books and comics, has now added animation to his repertoire. Sensology is 6 minutes of wonderful work, 4 years in the making, an absolute must watch.

It’s in far better quality HD over at Gagne’s website and I debated over embedding it here or just linking it – because it’s really something that needs to be seen as large as possible. But in the end it was simply too good to resist:

Gagne says of the work:

“Sensology is a short animated film that visualizes in abstract form, an improvised musical session by two leaders of the avant-guarde jazz movement, Paul Plimley (piano) and Barry Guy (bass). .. Sensology was handdrawn (painted) with a Wacon tablet at first, and later, a Cintiq, using Adobe Photoshop. The drawings and frames were then composited and manipulated in a 2D software called Animo. There is no vector animation at any point in the film. The animation was done stream of consciousness, one frame at a time at a rate of 30 frames per second.”

“A 9-second teaser of Sensology was posted on line in the Fall of 2006 and resulted in Pixar contacting me to do the abstract taste visualization for the film Ratatouille.”

I’ve covered Gagne’s work before here on the FPI blog and I’m delighted to discover that his “Saga Of Rex” story, previously serialised in the “Flight” series is collected together in one volume, due out from Image at the very end of October:

The Saga Of Rex is full of everything that makes Gagne’s work so beautiful and entrancing; initially it feels whimsical and light with smooth, lush and colourful artwork. But the stories are deeper and far more affecting than they seem at first, full of innocent wonder at the world, as Gagne’s characters explore often complicated ideas, complex and difficult emotions and require far more thought than initial impressions would have you believe.

Gagne’s work is perfect for any age, equally enjoyable for reading to oneself or aloud to younger children (just as I did with Molly when she was younger). In many ways, Gagne’s comics sit very well next to the prose of Richard Bach, particularly something as sublime as Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. They both share an innocence and wonder at the beauty of the world, a poetic style and both leave you amazed at their conclusion.

For more on Gagne and many wonderful examples of his work, including preview pages from The Saga Of Rex can be found on his website.

(Via Drawn)