Coop's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tales of the Jeb]

Good stuff!

This is another nice sign of progress in the early days of your career - the animation seems to be improving and the background addition of the "school book-come doodle page" really seems to fit nicely with the concept.

I personally like the gags such as "My other only son" and "Yet another lazer sound", as it shows that you're thinking about the surroundings and the breaking of the fourth wall there really does give it some nice additions to the piece.

I think that breaking the resolve of Mini Castro would only make him run off to his friends, Tiny Mao, Small Gorbachev and Little Kim, which could lead to hilarity later one for this part of the series :P

Already, the characters appear to be moving better and with that in mind, this will undoubtedly translate to better, smoother animations that you can produce in later works. If you were producing this at the time of writing, I'd suggest that you zoom in and use a smaller tool, to improve the drawing style, to match the progress with the animation. Learning new tricks is difficult, but it seems that you were doing so here.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

This is one of my favorites out of my old cartoons. All my old cartoons are based on comics I wrote in the backs of my school notebooks, and as a result they really didn't look much different than this. I never noticed how off the drawings were though - there's Squigglevision, and then there's this mess.

If I were to do this cartoon now, I would probably use the same general style - that of sketches in a notebook. I would animate the characters more and probably use a transparent .jpeg of some crinkled paper to really get the feeling down.

I also stand by the Anti Communism Llama and will do so til I die.

[Jebby 2.0]

New and improved

Ah, some new, in depth animations and a much improved outlook on the whole animation that you've produced, really. This piece goes to show that you'd made use of the practice and experience that you've gone through for the first few pieces that you had made up until this point.

The writing is coming on, with the extremes and the way that you suggest scenarios that I would not necessarily have come to the natural conclusion of, such as ripping one's intestines out through the eye sockets, but it does portray a fantastic look to it all.

I trust that the new characters will be available in all good toy retailers, some bad ones and even the back street collectors shop that doesn't really ever get deliveries, but somehow the new stock just seems to breed there. Not just that, but could we expect to see these 'new' characters appearing though in later episodes of this progression.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

If you were to find a Jebediah, nonetheless a Jebby 2.0, it would almost definitely be in that Chinese part of town that sells "Sailing Moon" and "Robert Cop" action figures.

I don't really know my intent for this cartoon, since nobody really knew about Jebby at the time. Hell, they still don't.

[A very SRM birthday]

Socially Retarded Birthday!

Wow, when you said that Socially Retarded Man was completely off the wall, you weren't kidding. A decent little piece, that goes into just how bizarre SRM actually is. The idea of filling a spud with fruit juice, then frying it is completely off the wall, but topping it off by stealing some ice cream from a store just seems to add to it and I can't really explain how.

I'm not sure why the kids' arms fell off and why there was so much blood, but that might just be me. Perhaps have some better work with the splatter effects and let's see what sort of things this can produce as a result.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

This was when I was pretty heavy into the random/monkeycheese school of humor, which I don't exactly look back on fondly. I'm glad you still enjoyed his really out there behavior. Personally I'm glad he's grown up a bit, as you'll see in my more recent cartoons.

Kid's arms falling off and blood going everywhere is pretty rife for comedy. I would do something a bit more technical with the blood effects now, but it was pretty good for the time. Also, that audio crackling makes my ears bleed.

[Jeb City part 3]

Interesting, yet slightly confusing.

I liked this one, as it got us to the end of the serial, by looking through the way the original film was set out. A shame really, that it seemed rushed, without really taking the time to expose the plot of the whole piece, more with the idea of "let's just get to the final fight", which is something that lots of writers face at some point in their lives.

I think that you can certainly come around to a more engrossing part of the story were you to remake this today, but I won't labour that point, as there were so many things to look at there - the duck that manages to double up as an automatic weapon. Giving it the appearance of four legs seems strange, but I guess you were trying to get the wings and the feet there - surely, the feet would have been orange, like most other ducks? Still, your animating skills look to have progressed now. From reading previous reviews, you've upgraded your microphone, which is a great step forward, now it's just a case of getting it all together, with the quality, but again, something that probably comes with time.

I wonder what else you can give us over the rest of the 2006 season?

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

Oh dear lord I actually never noticed that the duck had an implied 4 feet. I guess it's a platypus then.

This really was just a way to end the story. Most noir stories (hamhanded or not) end with the hero and the villain squaring off, and one or both of them dying. I took that a little further by killing the love interest, if you can call Baby the llama that.

[We Are So England]

Soul Limbo would have been better

The backing tune you had was a remix of "Soul Limbo", which would have been a better tune in its own right. Not that I'm really complaining. My real gripe is with the English accent you used :P

Hmm, I can see that this piece is a very interesting take on the generic North American perception of your cousins over the pond here in UKville. We're not all that bad, though there are some of us like that, I will admit.

Still, this is a more advanced piece, where you're starting to experiment with movement, so the animation is coming on and I'm encouraged to see that you're at least trying to develop your skills, which as I'm sure I will see, pays dividends on your works in the future.

Now that you've got the basic shapes, I'd advise that you work on rounding odd the pieces, so that you produce a figure that looks like they are using legs, as opposed to stilts. It's a steep learning curve, I'm afraid.

And where did you come up with the sousaphone from?

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

I've had it told to me before that it sounds more like a posh American accent than an English accent, and it totally does. It's the same voice I use when I want to sound like a snooty country club owner. Funny thing is I've been to the UK twice, and as much as I enjoyed my time there, I didn't pick up on that accent for this cartoon.

This is back before I really had any sort of grasp on characters existing in 3 dimensional space. That weird dance thing he does is like the ugliest thing I've ever animated. It's hard for me to believe I went "Huh. That looks pretty good" after animating that.

That sousaphone music came from looking for "Tuba" on findsounds.com - I use that site for pretty much all my sound effects, and even did back when I made this cartoon.

[SRM and Wuggeh!]

Madcap

I think that this is a different flavour to your other pieces that I've seen, but you've got a witty way of making this all come together. When the door got kicked in, perhaps a little more details with splintering wood, perhaps the hinges would still have been attached to the door, or part of the door left behind to demonstrate the destructive quality of the kick that SRM had when he enters the fray.

You've made a decent piece and Socially Retarded Man clearly is nuts... I think I know a few people like him near where I work, which is kind of worrying. The cat seems very nonplussed by it all and understandably so. Why would you feed a cat a biscuit? SRM would, as he doesn't know exactly what a cat would eat, I guess.

The next thing is where do you go with a guy like this? Do you have him go shopping and then try to walk away only paying the pence amount for his bill, as he missed out the three hundred pounds that it came to. That's the real beauty of the piece - you can get away with more, as he has no real inhibitions, that would stop him.

Looking at the kitchen being dirty, did you just make it dirty as he said it was, or was it an afterthought? Perhaps throw a can of something at the wall, to make it more of a mess.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

SRM was originally intended to just walk into situations and make them really awkward for people, but I ended up making him more of a crazy character who just does unusual things for laughs. You'll see this more with cartoons of this era. These days he's a bit more of a balanced character, but he's still eccentric to say the least. I'd compare him to Strong Bad in still being a functioning member of whatever society he is, but having crazy schemes.

The kitchen was actually supposed to be immaculately clean - you may not be able to hear too well, but I make a sparkle sound effect and have little white sparkles pop up. Crudely conveyed, but it's there. It's just another bit to showcase who out of touch this guy is.

Glad you liked the toon!

[Jebby Tells a Story]

Horrible flaming lazer deaths

Well, it's not got the context of some of your other work, so it was a little disappointing, but don't let that get you down. The questions from the children are pretty much spot on with the sort of awkward questions they ask of you, when you're in mid flow.

Again the voices need some work, if just for the recording quality, as the volume keeps fading in and out with Jeb's narration. The accent is pretty standard and decent, but I'm sure that some people out there could make it so that you're covered on that front.

Basic animation, that needs just a little more to evoke more emotion - try having things like moving arms and legs, rather than shaking the whole image around and then things will seem a lot better. With the lazer deaths, perhaps shoot one beam and then have the targets burst into flames?

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

Oh man if I made this cartoon now.

There's a pretty minimal amount of character animation here, just a lot of bouncing. I didn't know motion tweens yet, so at least it's a little better than that. Also no characters have eyelids or eyebrows so there's no emotion being conveyed. Yeah.

This cartoon was still when I was into the whole "random" humor aspect with no real context. When I do that sort of humor now there's usually something setting it up rather than just diving head first into weirdness. The voicework was done with a crappy battery powered microphone a friend got from a Radio Shack in like 1995. It was later peed on by one of my cats. Thank god I have a good mic now.

[Jeb City part 2]

Will we ever see part 3?

Do the part with the whores next!

*ahem*, now that I've regained control, it seem that you've made some steps of improvement to this, compared with the first part of your tale. I would say that there need to be more time spent upon the animation, but given that it was made in 2006, I'll assume that you're better now, since you're still animating.

The voices could use some work, but the Audio Portal and Forums can find you some talented voice actors, that can do your bidding for very reasonable fees (peanuts, porn, 5% of advert revenues), as it did sound a little mumbled and rushed. The analogies were straight out of right field, but did contain enough fun in there that I could smile at what was being done here.

With the blood at the end, I was glad that it was done in the "traditional" white, just like the movie, but the splatter could use a little more work, as I'm not sure that would be how it would look. Spray, perhaps coating the walls in a fine mist, but no long, thick streaks - these happen if the body hits the wall and drags down it, for example.

I look forward to seeing what else you are capable of.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

At the time, hoowee was I proud of that blood effect. I thought it was the coolest damn thing. Glad you caught on that I did the white blood effect too. If I did it now you can bet there'd be some cool frame by frame splatter.

I've always liked noir dialogue and I'd love to take a semi-serious, Max Payne style stab at it. My voice acting has gotten better since this cartoon, although I'm by no means a great voice actor. I have voices that I develop for my characters and I don't really see me changing them though. These come in more in my newer cartoons.

Thanks for watching this cartoon, and I hope you enjoy Part 3 (which came out like 6 months-a year later) even more!

[Jeb City part 1]

Good interpretation

Well, despite the fact that we're swimming back through the mists of time here, this still rings true with the film "Sin City" and, while you've thrown in some obscure references, such as the quadriplegic llama. I think that this can get a little distracting, though it is quite funny in a sense.

The animation and the sound, I have no doubt has improved over the years, so I'll see that over the next few flash I watch of yours. I would have suggested that you spent more time getting the animation sorted, as it looked a little disjointed, when you had the bad guy run with baby, before he threw her off a cliff.

The sparing use of colour is brilliant, though I think you could have used more white in the background of these pieces, to set the scene a little closer to Miller's comics.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

I thought for a while of remaking these cartoons with the techniques you'll see in my later animations, but that's nothing on my priority list.

I do wish I did a bit more with the whites, as the balance is all black. I would also love to have the really angular art style that Miller used in some of Sin City, and the cool camera angles. If I had enough time, there's about a million different ways I'd love to tell this silly story. Glad you enjoyed the cartoon for what it is though.