FOREWORD

OK so it’s May. Spring is rumbling in the jungle and your hormones (or something) are giving you emotional rollercoaster rides. All these women just makes you wan-na... wanna... ARGH!Cockroaches are crawling under your skin! Your facial

hair is growing fast and moving around like a storm in a cornfield. You might dig a hole in the ground and fill it with water and then put your head in it, just to cool off your brain. You wake up at 2:30 in the morning coz you know there’s meat in the fridge but it’s not the kind you need. You might feel like climbing up into a giant tree and start breaking off branches and eat away of the inside of the trunk. Or maybe you should just go and talk to that girl that you’re so into these weeks.If she declines there’s

always NBA Playoffs on DK4 every Sunday! Enjoy whichever works

for you!

- Christyan

Blazing Squids #03Created and edited by Christyan Lundblad and Igor Noronha

400 copies

Thank you, contribu-tors: Carmen Hanni-bal, Karina Posborg, Esben Sloth, John Mal-let, Rikke Skovgaard, Steffen Hansson, Stine Frandsen, Andreas Mon-ty Freddie, Eduardo Medeiros.Contact:blazingsquids@gmail.com

Financially supported by the Open Workshop.This magazine is freed from any political or commercial interests.

Hey, guys! Visit blazingsquids.blogspot.com to read

the magazine and send it to your friends. To receive

the freshest news, become a fan in Facebook (press

“like” on the Blazing Squids page at facebook.com/

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you think!

-Igor PS: Franz Frazetta R.I.P.

Steffen Hansson, KAU07

Esben Jacob Sloth , CGA07

Steffen Hansson, KAU07

John Mallett, CGA07

Rikke Skovgaard, KAU07

Benny, KAU 09

Stine Frandsen, CGA09

Carmen Hannibal, KAU09

Karina Posborg, CGA07

Esben JacobSloth, CGA 07

Igor NoronhaTlob Studios

What are you working on these months If anything?

I am busy with several things lately. We are plan-ning an ANIMATIONS FESTIVAL in RIBE for November 2010 to celebrate BØRGE RING and RIBE’s 1300 aniversary.It was my idea, and we

want to use the occasion to show local people that animation is more than what they see on TV. It will not be a com-petitive festival. We hope for support from VIBORG. I have designed a poster for the festival, and I am now doing an animated ver-sion. I have been

teaching at Sheridan since I came back from

Denmark last November.I have a collection of antic toy trains and

together with our teacher

KAJ PINDALOne of the oldest

guys still kickin’ it!

The Blazing Squids team has the honor to present an inter-view with one of the most famous Danish animators. If you don’t know his work (where were you for the past 50 years?) you can learn more about him at kajpindal.blogspot.com.

Chris Walsh of stop-frame animation, we plan to illus-trate H.C. Lumbye’s ‘JEFIN-BANE DAMP GALLOP‘ by using stop frame technique.

Have you got 5 top short films that you think every-body should watch ?

There is a wealth of top short animated films, and they keep coming. I find it difficult to pick 5, because I change my mind all the time. It is the animator’s abil-ity to surprise and amaze we want to show the good people in Ribe.

Have you got kids and if so, do they do art/anima-tion?We have three children,

total age 136.They all took animation

at Sheridan back in the 80’s, but only one, Jens, is still animating. He’s a hot shot.

What are your future plans?I’ll spend my next 20

years trying to chew what I have bitten off.

Is there anything that pisses you off?Yes. The trend to render

our hands obsolete.I’m proud of my hands.

Are you a collector type of person? Do you have thou-sands of jazz records or short films?I collect inspiring films

(my favorites are “Neigh-bours”, “Logdrivers Walz”, “Why Me?”, “Every Child”, “The Cat Came Back”, “Crack”, “The Street”, “Ryan”) and antic toy trains as a real animator should.

What’s your relation with comics? Do you read them, have you ever tried making any?

In 1949 I did a daily strip for the paper ‘Køben-havn’. It was inspired by

‘FERD’NAND’, and it lasted only 3 months. ( The paper folded ).

I use to be a fan of com-ics from my earliest child-hood.

I don’t follow comics any more. I find most of them too wordy.

I know of graphic nov-els, and applaude their success.

Once you told me that you would love to have had the structure TAW gives the students here. How did you learn animation since there

were no animation schools?

I think The Animation Work-shop inspires everybody. If it was not for my old age I would move to Viborg and be inspired every day.As a young teacherless

animator I had done all the mistakes, made all the wrong assumptions and failed to grasp the obvious logic to the whole process, until BØRGE RING came to my res-cue. That is my degree.

About the National Film Board of Canada, tell us a bit about the time you were there and how it is differ-ent today. Can anyone apply for a place there? How does it work?Derek Lamb sent

me this note some years ago:

“I treasure a copy of a note to former min-ister Trudeau from legendary Disney animator Ward Kim-ball, who wrote in 1979:‘After the machines and

computers have swallowed the world of hand-made objects, it will long be fondly remembered the NA-TIONAL FILM BOARD of CAN-ADA was historically the

most important spawning ground of creativity in the art of animated film. If it were not for my old age, I would drop to my knees to pay homage to this

Mecca of Montreal where the soar-ing imagination of artists from all over the world have kept me smiling with delight for many years.’

Who can argue with that? Amen.”And that’s the way it

was. Today the NFB has been cut back and reduced in the spirit of privatisation.But the private film in-

dustry has never made qual-ity films here in Canada.

“If it was not for

my old age I would move to Viborg and be inspired ev-ery day.”

In your shorts for NFBC, I notice a critical tone towards society. Who do you think best achieves this ob-jective today - in and out-side the animation field?When I grew up in Den-

mark, I was very inspired by the incredible editorial cartoonist in the press. I even got a chance to edito-rialize myself in ’FRIT DAN-MARKS NYHEDSTJENESTE’, an

Stills from the production “Gefion”, still to be funded. Gefion’s legend is

worth looking up, folks!

illegal anti-german weekly newsletter published during the war. So to me the pen was a weapon, and should be used as such - with humour. I knew television was com-ing, and I speculated on what role cartoonists could play. I imagined that their role in the press could di-rectly be transferred to this new medium.It never happened.

But at the NFB, where we animators thought the medi-um belonged to us (who else ) I had the oppotunity to use my pen as a spear from time to time. That’s what I always should have done. That’s what every animator should do all the time. We should encourage students to editorialize.I am a Danish cartoonist.

What is the best legacy you think you’ve left to the world so far ?Animation has the power

of persuasion when applied well. I have enjoyed deal-ing with important issues and wrapped them in humour. A former student who works for George Lucas watched our films for the street-

Message to our (Sheri-dan) students on gradua-tion 2010.“We taught you not only

technology, which is fleeting.We have taught you to

communicate ideas with humour and emotion.That experience will be

valid as long as there are humans at the receiv-ing end of our medium.”

- Kaj Pindal

“Animation starts where live action films give up.”

kids about Aids and drugs. He said: “That’s what I re-ally want to do, rather than making a rich man richer.”

-Nothing new-By Andreas

Monty Freddie

Approximately 32.000 years ago, in what today

is referred to as the up-per Palaeolithic period, or “stone age”, dating back to between 40.000 and 10.000 years ago, the Aurignacians started drawing on the walls of the Chauret caves in Al-déne in the south of France. Images of bison, aurochs, horses and women, the sun, moon, mountains and rivers. Not realistic, but true.There have been many theo-

ries of why; some explain it as hunting magic, some say it’s the result of adoles-cent fantasies. James David Lewis-Williams has studied contemporary hunter-gather-er societies, and explains the pre-historic drawings as the work of Cro-Magnon shamans, retreating into caves, where they would en-ter a state of trance, and then paint the images of their vision.Most of the drawings we

know of today, are located

in caves deep below the sur-face of the earth, in remote and almost inaccessible ar-eas of complete darkness. What where we up to?I doubt, that whoever did

these drawings, ever felt uninspired, standing there, in the flickering light of the fire, charcoal in his hesitant hand, starring at that big blank piece of rock, trying to come up with something original that would impress the rest of the tribe. Or at least fulfill the need to express himself.I say; 32.000 years ago,

man drew on that rock, in the name of co-existence.

For a few hours a day, Between hunting, eat-ing, and making love. Rejoicing in the name of all-there-is, was, and will be. The Universe ex-pressing itself. These drawings on rock Of Deer and Owl Mountains and Rivers Oak, and Larch Pictures of relatives.

I like to think of these people, distant relatives of ours, as the poets of their time.Reminding their fel-

low man to live in this world, reminding them to stay together, come one come all. Let’s remember our

brave ancestors, and spend less time in front of desks, and instead, go outside, and get to know each other.

Cristyan’s Note:Yeah, we’re sure between all the sacri-

fices, the rapes, the accidental murders, the wars of the different tribes that male chau-vinism, the children who froze to death and the exclusion of tribe members they had a real smashing time with lots of life-confirming art discussions :)

However, I did read that instead of having individual egos they had this group mentality that made them put the tribe before anything else, which must have meant great teamwork and a dedication for a thriving survival.

Freedom

I wanna write some-thing about free-dom. To me freedom is one of my important basic human needs. Especially when it comes to being free as an artist.I am free to go any-

where in the world, and do whatever I feel like as long as it is within the borders of the law. Which is fine by me.In my apartment which

I’m renting, I don’t own a lot of stuff. In fact I can carry most of my things alone except for my bed and my drawer. I’ve got wheels under my lock-er. This means I can move anywhere I want to relatively fast as long as I know some-one with a car who I could pay for helping me.I do own more re-

cords, clothes and shoes than I actual-ly have room for, but

all of these things I could give away to the salvation army if I really wanted to in less than an hour. So it’s not really a bur-den for me. I don’t have a bank loan. I cut my own hair and I make my own rock t-shirts with a black textile marker.I don’t own big

things like a car, a house or a boat which would be things that I would have to spend a lot of money on to preserve and main-tain and I would need a bank loan to own things like these. With a car I would have to pay gas and find parking spaces. Without it I can go by train or bus or plane and have to give one thought to the vehi-cle as soon as I’m out of it at the arrival. I’ve got some money saved up in the bank, this means that if I had a job, I would be able to take some ar-

selves with my sperm and her eggs?I would be trapped!

I would hate that. I would be artistically imprisoned! NO FUN!I am today as free

as a wolverine in the Ancient woods, I am very grateful for that. I can paint, play and say what I want and I don’t have to think about no stupid target audi-ences. And I think I will prefer this for a long time.Anyways, this is how

I feel about right now in these years. I’m not an idealist because I think that it turns you into half a person. Like a vegetarian standing in front of a stake house. I might change when I’m 44, like all those hippies now wearing suits and driving Mercedes Ben-zes. If I ever real-ize the benefits of it.

- Christyan

tistic risks and not having to fear get-ting fired, because if they fired me I could take care of myself for at least a couple of months.I don’t have a wife,

children nor a pet, which means I don’t have a responsibility towards other living beings than myself. With a family, I would have to have a full time job to give them housing, transporta-tion and food. I would have to get up early and go to work every day, a job I might not like so much because at work they produce mediocre, half witty rainbow cartoons but I might just keep up working because how else would I be sup-posed to pay for all these heavy things we own at home and how else would I supposed to keep these crea-tures alive that my wife and I acciden-tally created our-

Beat Happening - Black CandyK Records 1989

Beat Happening was a band from Olympia, Washing-

ton (about an hour away from Seattle). The city has been known for growing its own music scene since the 70s, with strong punk and lo-fi aesthetics. With lyr-ics about innocence, coy-ness and teenage romance.Everybody would play in

each other’s bands and help each other out and they would release their record-

ings on K Records, an in-die label founded by Best Happening’s frontman Calvin Johnson. If a band would not have a venue to perform at they would play in back al-leys or empty buildings and draw maps on the posters so people would have a chance to find the place.At one point they even

built their own all-ages venue in an abandoned butch-er store (if I remember it correctly) because there wasn’t a place like that in the area in the 80’s.Beat Happening formed in

1982 at Evergreen State. Part of their ideology was to re-hearse as little as possible and to swap instruments a

lot. What I like about this band (and the early Son-ics and so many other punk bands) is that their music lies somewhere between be-ing good and being shitty, and most of the Beat Hap-pening material is to me on the wrong side of this bor-der. The album Black Candy from 1989 happens to be on the good side. The guitar is not quite in tune, the rhythm is a bit off but the songs work. They are sim-ple and they make you wanna sing along.

It’s sometimes sixties-pop-inspired, sometimes perverse slowbeat creeping songs, with minimalist use of instruments, with memo-rable and repetitive drum patterns.Of good songs from other

albums they did, I can men-tion “Indian Summer”, “our Secret”,, “Don’t Mix the Colors” and “Youth”.Enjoy.

- Christyan

JAM 7th May 2010 I arrived at 9:05. Tue

(KAU07) was already on stage, playing the blues with some older folks. I went up there to play the drums in one of their songs. My band: Tue, Husballe (KAU07) and Sara K (TDA) had planned a 3-song set to fire off when the time was right for it. So far, there weren’t so many people, so this blues thing that went on on the stage was quite right for the mo-ment. It was also nice that Tue changed his bass riff every 4 minutes. It gave a good variation for the au-dience.One hour later, the blues

had gone dull and tired,

and people kind of stopped playing. A lot of people from our school arrived at this point. When the stage had been left empty for 5 minutes, I went up and played the drums, slowly and fiercely, just to warn people about what was com-ing :) I called up my band and we did our 3-song set, a power stoner song to set it off (which made the old-er people leave), a slower pop stoner thing and a slip-pery cover of The Admiral, by Shellac. I threw myself to the ground and was all over the place. Yet again we had hit a climax of the evening.After us, some people

started a slow, gentle sound/jam that was perfect to put on right after us. Nice and smooth. It went on for some time. Later, Denis Chapon (OW) went on stage with his ukulele and gave their jam a reggae/world kind of feel-ing. Good stuff.20 minutes later, Saman-

tha Torres (KAU09) went on stage and did Freakazoid on piano, yet again a great little change.I really appreciate these

little changes as a listen-er, because most people just go up there to play some cover of Sweet Home Chica-go for 15 minutes, and it’s so tiring for the audience, just because it’s a jam, doesn’t mean people can’t be creative, or inventive. Have the audience in mind, musicians!Anyways, some music school

people went on and played some of this and some of that. People got excited and started dancing, with both

me and Husballe on drums at the same time. More than 80% of the crowd was dancing in a tight space, and every-one was like: “Wow, this is great! I wish I had gone to other Jams before!”. It was really wild, and I’d say it was one of the most suc-cessful Jams at Paletten so far.It ended with Ida Maria

(CGA09) and I singing an Eagle Eye Cherry cover, and that was it. Ther had been an 80’s party next door, so people from there were to-tally happy as well. Most of us went to Dickens and had a fun time.

A great night outside of the Animation Workshop.

Info: I talked to the bar-tender, and apparently they have enough money to do an-other Jam in June, so don’t miss out on it, people!

Kika Club

The once so famous and well-used Kika Club fo-rum closed down around 6 months ago. But it will now be restored by former students and en-thusiasts Tore Pouls-en (KAU03) and Kennet Haunstrup (KAU 04).The forum is a discus-sion board where you can upload your work and get propper cri-tique from fellow stu-dents and people from the industry. It’s also just a fun place to hang out, discuss ani-mation and chit-chat.If it sounds interest-ing and you want to be-come a member, go to www. kikaclub.dk.

See you there!

attention:

Eduardo Medeiros is a Brazilian comic book artist and illustrator that lives in Porto Alegre, extreme south of Brazil. I found his work through a Danish friend - how unusual! - and I thought maybe you guys would like to see a bit of his work.

He is a part of a collective called Mondo Urbano, together with Matheus Santolouco and Rafael Albu-querque, two other great artist that would be worth your attention.

Enjoy!

-Igor