Help Comic Artist Neil Dvorak Fund His Animated Short

Comic artist and former Pencils.com Pencil Artist of the Week Neil Dvorak has launched a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of transforming his Easy Pieces comic series into an animated short. On the project’s Kickstarter page, Neil describes what caused him to want to make the jump from comics to animation:

“It’s been a great ride and I’ve seen a lot of success with the comic but there’s a long road ahead of me, as the comic itself is still in act 1. Last year while working on the comic, I was Director of Animation for a short film called Ouverture. The short has been well received, premiering at The NY Museum of Modern Art’s Film Festival and moving across the country in the some of the best film festivals out there. I want the same for Easy Pieces. I want to create an animated short that will move people, will get them interested in the comic, and hopefully explode a few brains. Fans of the comic will see some familiar faces and concepts in the animation (as well as things they’ve never seen before), and future fans will have a unique opportunity to enter the world of Easy Pieces! There is a magic to animation that this work begs to embrace. “

Examples from Easy Pieces, by Neil Dvorak

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I recently had the opportunity to speak with Neil about his comic and his Kickstarter project. What he shared revealed an artist that is not only talented and ambitious, but in tune with the mediums he works with.

An Interview with Comic Artist Neil Dvorak

Studio 602: When did you start drawing? Can you tell us a bit about your artistic background?

Neil: I started drawing as soon as I could pick up a pencil. It never occurred to me to even think about what I was doing. For better or worse it came completely naturally. I began by drawing maps around age 5. I love information and all the ways it can be represented. I also loved artifacts, I loved a drawing that could be picked up and run around with, a drawing that helped you out. I don’t think I’ve gone terribly far from those roots!

S: How did Easy Pieces begin?

N: Phew this is a big one. I’ve been writing ideas down, no matter how terrible or exciting, in my sketchbooks for years. They languished so that huge, alchemical mappings that took a year to create could be drawn instead. I don’t regret that, but while reading Love & Rockets I realized that comics was the medium I could use to export ideas in a way I never had before. I looked back on those writings in my sketchbook with the comics-medium in mind, and things blew up in a great way. I was suddenly able to produce works like “Jupiter Org. No. 304” in an illustrative format, as opposed to actually trying to physically knock the woe out of my head, or using a complicated performance piece to get the idea out.

S: Tell me about this new Easy Pieces project. How did it start? What’s it about? Why the shift to animation?

N: Sometimes when I finish an Easy Pieces I get this itch. It’s a feeling that something on the page should be moving around. It’s a feeling like: that character should be waving, or that building should be floating. So I’ve decided to do an Easy Pieces animated adaptation. There are some simple animations on the site now, but I’m really excited for this undertaking. It’s about duality. It’s about your heart at odds with your brain and how you end up feeling like you’re left alone in the middle. There’s an external, existential struggle too, where the main character is trying to rectify his reasons for being on Planet Earth. He tries a whole bunch of ridiculous things, trying to grasp at truth. Isn’t that life?

S: How do the comic and animation mediums complement each other? How do you think they differ?

N: I hope they compliment each other in that there are things that are so unique to both, and I hope I’m using the right ones at the right times. The comics medium allows for such meditation: it hits less often but deeper (depending on how you write). The animated medium has this incredible buzzing energy that I really want to temper with my (hopefully) heady, thought-provoking content. Comics are a still space that allows you to explore every nook and cranny…animation is a roller coaster ride where you’re stuck to a track but you can end up so twisted at the end that you need to watch again. That’s what I’m going for!

S: How can people contribute to your project?

N: If people would like, they can see the Kickstarter here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/neildvorak/easy-pieces-the-animation

Contributions of ANY kind are so very helpful, and are exactly what gets things like this off the ground. If you have a blog, link me! If you tweet or fb please pass the info along!

The comic itself can be seen here: easypiecescomic.com