“I studied Art at school and have always had a passion for drawing. My uncle is a graphic designer, and a family friend, Matt, does the famous cartoons in the Telegraph, so I have always been amongst artistic people.”
Grand Challenges Image credit: Ellie Taylor-Roberts
“Last year I frequently illustrated for Exeposé, to go alongside articles, and I find drawing a very relaxing thing to do.”
Spotted in the forum Image credit: Ellie Taylor-Roberts
“In the future, I would possibly like to go into advertising, and having recently done work experience at Leo Burnett in London, I found that my love for art came in useful when generating advertising storyboards.”
Quotes from Ellie Taylor-Roberts
To see Ellie Taylor-Roberts’ collages in Exehibition click here.
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No, you didn’t read that wrong. No, the proofreaders haven’t taken a day off. Yes, that does say Baman Piderman.
It’s quite hard to describe what this web series is without it reflecting badly on me a little, but here goes: I have spent the last few weeks wetting myself with laughter because of a show about what can only be described as “what would happen if Batman and Spider-Man were mentally impaired housemates that lived with an anthropomorphic pumpkin”. Now, if that doesn’t sell it, nothing will.
Animated and written by a husband-wife duo and hosted by MondoMedia (Dick Figures, Happy Tree Friends), Baman Piderman is taking the rather niche world of online animation shorts by storm. It doesn’t really have much of a concept… or plot… and it doesn’t really make a great deal of sense a lot of the time, but if you’ve ever appreciated slightly off-kilter,
surreal humour, then you really must give Baman Piderman a chance.
A few defining moments include Baman’s propensity to forward-roll almost everywhere he goes, usually culminating in all his limbs spontaneously exploding; Piderman’s adorable obesity leading him to drag himself by web-slinging himself everywhere; or the oddly gripping love story between the aforementioned anthropomorphic pumpkin and a sort of green squid thing. Believe me, by the time you’ve got to the end of the second series, you’ll be rooting for the odd couple like they were Romeo and Juliet for the Internet age, only instead of gang warfare, their obstacles are the fact that one is a pumpkin, the other is a mass of tentacles and they are both of indeterminate gender. O, cruel fate!
Image credit: MondoMedia
Each episode ranges from a few seconds to a few minutes long, and the second series is infinitely more plot-driven than the first (if you can call it a plot, considering that it mostly revolves around cake, evil basement clones and the relationship between a tuba and her father) so I advise sticking with it, since it can seem a little hard to follow at first.
Don’t expect there to be a whole lot of comic book references, either. The title may imply a bit of gentle ribbing in the direction of our favourite superheroes, but in reality, their identification with the Dark Knight and the ‘Weedy Radioactive SpiderNerd’ has little bearing on the actual action. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; just consider it as a standalone series that happens to involve some oddballs dressed as superheroes and you’ll be well on your way to understanding at least some of what this insane series is all about.
Overall, this show is just a little bit weird, with a dash of creepy humour, a large pinch of ridiculous animation and a sprinkling of surrealism. While you may not think this is the most sparkling review ever made, I’d definitely recommend a cursory glance at Baman Piderman, even if it’s just to kill some time… or to work out what the hell I’ve been rambling on about for this whole article.
OH. MY. GLOB. We are entering a golden age of television, my friends. An age of peace, acceptance and tolerance, an age where a man or a woman can admit to watching 4 hours of cartoons on a Saturday night and not be judged.
With that in mind, I’m here to tell you about one of the most amazing shows on television now: Adventure Time. I could tell you the premise behind it, but to be honest, saying that you really have to watch this show about a boy and his magical dog/brother who go on adventures across the Land of Ooo doesn’t really even begin to sell it…
I hope that most of you are of the right age to remember the best days of Cartoon Network, when The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter’s Lab really redefined animation as an acceptable medium for great TV. Cartoon Network is now going through what I would identify as a second great era. It’s had a lot of hit-and-miss, forgettable stuff over the past decade, but with the introduction of its new flagship shows, including Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and (bear with me) My Little Pony, we are seeing the advent of some bloody fantastic animation.
Never mind that it seems a little twee at first sight; there are some comedy gems within Adventure Time‘s slightly bizarre scriptwriting, and I will unashamedly say that I love what Pendleton Ward, the series creator, has done. Adventure Time may not have as many big-name animators, but that doesn’t impact on the show in the slightest – each episode is as quirky and incredible as ever.
The show has gained somewhat of a cult following, including Father Ted and Black Books writer, Graham Linehan, who aptly describes Adventure Time as “golden-age Simpsons amazing”. It’s really not too much of a leap to say that Adventure Time has helped reinvent animation. It has brought it to the masses rather than just appealing to snot-nosed children high on e-numbers on a Saturday morning, much in the same way as Pixar made seeing an animated film acceptable for the parents as much as the kids. Take the overarching plot of Adventure Time as an example: you could take it at face value, and admire the brightly coloured Candy Kingdom and its sugary-sweet citizens, or you could dig a little deeper and find out that the entire thing is based on post-apocalyptic Earth after a nuclear holocaust. How fantastic is that?
If I haven’t managed to convince you with my hipster animation rant, then let me leave you with a few simpler reasons to watch Adventure Time: the voice acting includes the guys behind Bender from Futurama and Spongebob Squarepants; one of the characters is a flying rainbow unicorn that can only speak in Korean; and it has recently been voted as one of the 25 best animated TV series of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
For whatever the reason, you must watch Adventure Time as soon as possible, though particularly so you can find out why everyone who’s ever watched it read this entire article in the voice of Lumpy Space Princess.
exeposedev 