Throughout this weekend’s Toronto Animation Trade Convention, Invincible firm Skybound Entertainment revealed it’s acquired the rights to Spike & Mike’s Pageant of Animation.
Older followers could bear in mind the occasion—named after Craig “Spike” Decker and the late Mike Gribble—as a showcase for animated shorts outlined as “leading edge, daring, and sometimes hilarious.” Beginning with the 1977 Pageant of Animation and increasing with the respective Sick & Twisted and New Gen festivals of the Nineties and 2000s, they featured works by those that would ultimately develop into recognized names in animation as we speak—Pete Docter (Soul), Matt Stone & Trey Parker (South Park), and Mike Choose (King of the Hill), to call just a few. For individuals who weren’t alive (or conscious of) Spike & Mike’s again then, the closest equal can be the anthology collection What a Cartoon! from Cartoon Network (or Oh Yeah! Cartoons from Nickelodeon), each of which led to beloved 90s cartoons like Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Women, and My Life as a Teenage Robotic.
With a brand new revival of Spike & Mike’s underway, Skybound goals to spotlight present and up-and-coming expertise within the animation area. Submitted shorts can be made out there digitally, and the corporate is engaged on securing improvement alternatives, mission stipends, and acquisitions as potential awards. At time of writing, submissions are open to the US, Canada, and the UK, and will be will be put into considered one of three classes: the aforementioned Pageant of Animation (for basic audiences) and Sick & Twisted (something “positively NSFW”), and the model new class of Arty Farty (mainly the animated equal of Oscar bait).
“I’m extremely appreciative of Skybound’s respect and understanding of what the Spike & Mike model has completed,” wrote Decker, “and what we will proceed to supply. I’m excited to see what they’re in a position to do for current Spike & Mike work and look ahead to creating a brand new chapter with them.”
“Spike & Mike has been a seminal platform for inventive voices in animation,” continued Skybound Leisure studio head Marge Dean. “There can be no place for exhibits like Invincible to exist with out their efforts to develop a protected area for creators to precise each the uplifting and introspective or ‘sick and twisted’ in an extremely progressive, complicated, and boundless artwork kind.”
The total listing of guidelines and necessities to undergo the brand new Spike & Mike’s pageant, together with a basic FAQ, will be learn here.
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