Little Prince Trailer is Beautiful, Surprising in the Best Possible Way

Le Petit Prince (or as it's better known in the anglosphere The Little Prince) is one of the most long-enduring and celebrated works of children's literature of all-time. The first trailer for the latest adaptation of this classic novella has been released, and it's beautiful and surprising in the best possible way.

Written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and published in 1943, The Little Prince follows a young boy as he falls to Earth from a comet, stranded in a desert as he searches for safety and peace of mind in a harsh, alien world.

I never read the book as a child, but I did read it to my 5 year-old godson once and I can honestly say that we were both transformed for the experience. The decision to add a "real-world"story as a framing device in this film is an intriguing one. I'm looking forward to seeing how that culminates alongside the original. The Little Prince comes out October 7th of next year. I can't wait til this one makes it stateside!

The Art Of Guillaume Singelin

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Guillaume Singelin has been at it for a while on Tumblr, curating his 'Black Junk Gallery' as an outlet of his more personal work. The bande-desinee artist has been publishing various comics with French publisher Ankama since 2009 or so, including works like Doggy Bag and The Grocery. Singelin's work reminds me of the same level of stylization present in the likes of Zac Gorman and Bryan O' Malley (Of Scott Pilgrim fame), who both developed a style with inspiration like Akira Toriyama and Otomo lingering in their creative subconscious.

Within his portfolio of personal pieces it's easy to see ideas for future projects taking shape, including the one eyed femme mercenary that's been present in a lot of his recent illustrations. Check out more ork by Guillaume after the break, and keep an eye out on his Tumblr for a healthy stream of regular updates.

Skip The Use - "Nameless World"

Directed and animated by Arthur De Pins for the electro funk outfit known as Skip The Use, Nameless World is a colorful romp into a very strange world inhabited by just about every supernatural entity in the book. Mummies, witches, vampires, zombies and pretty much everything in between.

The music video also serves as a promo for Zombiellenium, a comic centered around a theme park run by monsters only. Similar to Fables in the way that they took classic fantasy characters from literature and put them all under the same roof, it's absolutely worth a read. Arthur De Pins did an awesome job translating his designs into 3D, as well as offering some backstory as to how these cast members made their transition into a more undead state. Loved it.

Triplets Of Belleville Director Takes A Stab At The Simpsons Couch Gag

Triplets of Belleville director Sylvain Chomet just recently jumped onto the Simpsons couch gag bandwagon, delivering his own very uniquely French take on the classic opening. A blackout serves as a gateway into a world of stereotypically French tropes: An escargot eating Homer, Bart toying around with a slightly disturbing do it yourself foie gras kit and a shrill Marge yelling 'Ou est Maggie' (Where's Maggie?) over and over again, leading to another gag. Of all the couch gags in this aging show, this probably ranks up there with the bizarre John K (Ren & Stimpy) styled opening.

The Art Of NexusRoku

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Paris based artist/illustrator/Awesomerobo reader and all around geek NexusRoku (Aka Laurie Greasley) recently dropped us a line to share some of his work, and we absolutely loved it. With a graphic style that resembles a mixture of bande desinee as well as elements of Geoff Darrow's chaotic cityscapes in comics like Hard Boiled, there's a lot to love here.

As well as fanart of series like Ironman, Laurie also has some really compelling personal pieces that showed off a love of storytelling. Two pieces in particular seem to be centered around a traditional eastern style painter practicing his craft amidst a chaotic cyberpunk city, and they offer a really cool thematic contrast and tell a story of past meets present, tradition meets tomorrow.

Pieces like that, which focus on the everyday man and the story he has to tell are truly compelling and really absorb you into the world they live in. Having watched the remake of Bladerunner recently, I really wanted to know more about the way people lived their everyday lives in their dystopian version of Earth. Laurie's work kind of taps into that curiosity, and we're honestly just left wanting more. Follow him on Tumblr and check out more of his awesome pieces after the break!

Wakfu - Ankama's Awesome Animated Series Making The Jump To English

Woohoo! If you've been following this blog for a while, you've probably heard me lament a few hundred times about the lack of France's Ankama animation never making the jump overseas. Wakfu in particular impressed me with it's fantastic animation quality, stylization (Courtesy of Ankama's Xaxaxa, among others) and popularity in it's home country which we noted during a trip to Paris. That was in 2011.

Fast forward a few years and it seems like Ankama launched a Kickstarter about a month back (Something we missed), which with less than 15 hours to go has blasted through all it's goals, achieving 500% funding (About $360,000). Among the rewards are some amazing art books, Blurays of the first season and more. I'd highly recommend checking it out if you get a chance. Here's to hoping other overseas studios take a similar approach with their franchises.

Baïdir - A Stunning Animated Motion Comic From Ankama

Looks like we have a stunning animated comic incoming sometime this year, produced by the amazing folks Ankama and sprung from the minds of Aniss Slimane, Thierry River and Charles Lefebvre. Baïdir has been in the works for years now, with my earliest memories of the project dating back to sometime in 2009. This latest trailer shows the fruits of their labor, and it's nothing short of visually stunning. While the project was initially rumored to be an animated series, it seems like they've shifted the Baïdir project into some incredibly high end animated comic that will be released on iOS and Android platforms sometime this year. I'll be there, day one- More details on the official Baïdir Facebook page.

Paris, 2025. Global warming has reached it's climax. Nayah plays hide and see in her room her big brother Baidir. Suddenly, the room is devastated and Nayah is nowhere to be found. This event puts into motion an epic quest for Baidir, who has to defeat supernatural creatures in a fantastic world, as well as important people on his native earth.

The Colorful Art Of Gobi

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Gobi (Baptiste Gaubert) is an incredibly talented artist originally hailing from Nimes in France, where he was raised on a healthy diet of Japanese and American animated cartoons growing up. Having that inspiration mixed with his mother teaching him about sculpting and volume thanks to her ceramics background lead him down a creative path, coupled with videogames, 80's movies and other sources of creative empowerment.

Fast forward to now and Gobi is part of the Catfish Deluxe collective, comprised of a bunch of friends with similar tastes dedicating their time to developing original comics, television series and more under a collective roof. Gobi's work really reminds me of the good old days of Capcom with it's colorful, line art driven style and the distinctly stylized treatment he creates his characters and environments with. His work is bold, confident and lends itself very well to animation. Along with his friends he's developed series including Tequila, Tcho!, Apocalypse Joe and most recently Goligo. If anything I'm left wishing these series would make the jump overseas, because they're pretty damn beautiful..Either that or it's time to fast track those French classes. Check out more of his awesome work after the break!

Gerald Parel's Amazing Masters Of The Universe Fanart

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He-Man, She-Ra and the Masters Of The Universe stand as one of those 80's franchises that simply failed to reboot, despite having been one of the most successful franchises of that era, born out of a rather convoluted, costly series of screw ups by Mattel. These mistakes included passing up on the chance to have the rights to produce the first line of Star Wars toys in the late 70's (Ouch) and back pedaling on a series of movie tie in toys for Arnold Schwarzenegger's classic 1982 brawndo endeavor, Conan The Barbarian, with rumor pointing to those prototypes ultimately becoming the basis for the Masters Of The Universe line. The guy pictured above? The artists modern take on Wun-Dar, the figure that set the groundwork for the entire franchise.

I mean, it's not that hard to glean why a loin cloth yielding barbarian called Prince Adam would be a hard sell these days, but one artist truly surprised me with his incredible take on the franchise, AldgerRelpa (An anagram for Gerald Parel), a French artist who's shared his many different experiments at combining the classic characters from the series with popular modern styles, including Ashley Wood's popular 3A style or Street Fighter IV's 'ink' look, or even a straight up gritty interpretation, showcasing Parel's incredible versatility and fantastic grip on lighting. If I were in charge of tasking someone with doing a take two with the franchise, I'd contact him in a heartbeat, as this style remixing is the perfect way to come up with all new combinations.

The Comic Art Of Joël Jurion

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Joël Jurion is a French illustrator and freelancer with a knack for pinup work, fanart and plenty of bande desinee (Franco-Belgian comics) experience under his belt, with his first comic, Klaw just getting released recently as a hardback edition.

It's a shame that the hundreds of band desinee comics never made the jump overseas, as France enjoys a comic culture very similar to Japan, encouraging independence with the creators retaining the rights to their works. What's not to love about this system? Check out more of Joel's colorful comic book work after the break!

Birdy Nam Nam - "Defiant Order"

The French electro collective known as Birdy Nam Nam definitely took a departure from their typical sound and visuals with Defiant Order, featuring a crew of braggadocious, wheelie popping motorheads encountering an aspiring female counterpart. The crunchy, bassy sound sound of the single definitely makes for one heck of an amazing driving track, so get the EP for a measly $5 on Amazon and drive off into the sunset. Directed by Nicolas Davenel.

The Exquisite Corpse Series By Ankama

Created as a fun team building exercise by the staff of Ankama, the French animation studio responsible for the excellent looking Wakfu animation series (Yet to make the leap overseas), Exquisite Corpse is the result of an exercise involving 17 animators. Each artist was tasked with animating a small sequence (266 frames) that would tie in to the next one with no thematic limitations, creating a seamless animated sequence showcasing a small piece of each animator's style and personality.

Check out part two after the beak! The animators names, in no particular order: Naoki Araiza, Tokumasu, Floriane Grivillers, Julien Maret, Thomas Fourniret, Büb, David Besnier, Vincent Legarrec, Valerie Ménard, Sophie Dupont, David Decobert, Jean-Philippe Florin, Simon Coroller, Remi Juillet, Kosal Sok, Claudia Delahaye, Benoit Somville, Lucie Mayjonade and Carlo Toselli.

The Art Of Mathieu Lauffray

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Matthieu Laufray has been around for years now as a freelancer, having had a chance to try his skills at just about every field in the industry. Starting off as an illustrator for Dark Horse comic book covers in the mid 90's, Matthieu went on to branch into film, comics, videogames and more, accruing over 17 years of experience as a well rounded visual designer.

Among some of his more notable projects, The Brotherhood Of The Wolf, Star Wars graphic novels, 10,000 BC, and the Alone In The Dark series. His art style could best be described as painterly, with an emphasis on lighting and mood rather than detail. This type of work is great for establishing the general atmosphere for a world for say, a director trying to find the look of his movie or videogame. Check out more of his work after the break!

Red River Bay By Jeremy Pires

Originally created as an opening for 2010's Annecy awards, Jeremy Pires' Red River Bay is an underlooked gem, a morsel of delicious eye candy that leaves you wanting more. The angular style of his characters and colored pencil look of Red River truly drew me in.

We're no strangers to his work, having featured his insanely NSFW, yet amazing animated music videos for DYE - Fantasy, and Caravan Palace's Rock It For Me, as well as a slew of other animated shorts. Check out his demo reel after the break!

The Art Of Pascal Blanche

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Pascal Blanche is a French 3D artist that has spent a good chunk of his life and career over at Ubisoft, moving up from a character designer 2001 all the way to Senior Art Director, a role he just recently took up in July. Pascal has also worked prominently as a freelancer, with clients including Autodesk and Wizards Of The Coast.

His personal work has garnered a lot of acclaim, for the fact that he's utilized 3D art effectively as a tool for executing his stylized illustrations. which mix the best of 3D and 2D worlds. Drawing inspiration from Frank Frazetta, Moebius, Simon Bisley, Brom and a slew of other illustrators, his bright, graphic pieces showcase a successful amalgam of combined influences. Check out more Mr. Blanche's work after the break!

Arcane By Bastian Belveaux

Bastian Belveaux's dystopian short was created as a graduation short from the French animation school EMCA ( Ecole Des Metiers Du Cinema D'Animation). The colorful, hyper angular short centers around a man on the run with a distinct mark on his face, tormented by bizarre shape shifting creatures. Eventually, he finally figures out how to face his difference and turn the tables in a refreshingly understated matter. Really liked the art direction and animation style on this one.

Merci Satan - Jérémie Périn's Madness

Jérémie Périn is the French director and animator who unleashed one of my favorite, and most incredibly NSFW music videos of last year called NYE - Fantasy (Do not watch this at work), which was a breakout hit online with it's bizarre premise and Lovecraftian themes. Since then Mr. Périn has been working with Mondo on a series of odd little shorts with insane themes. His latest short, Mystery Boy could be straight out of a bad 80's straight to VHS premise, featuring a 2 headed, psychokinetic baby that's half werewolf and half robot. It's as awesome as it sounds, presented in a semi-anime style that brings back memories of Katsuhiro Otomo.

You can also check out his 'pilot,' starring Mr. Bob, an unfortunate looking tennis player with a very strange gift after the break! And if you want even more from Périn, check out Detective God, a short we featured back in July.

Je M'Appelle Nathan

Benoit Berthe sent us this amazing first 3D short that he created at the French visual arts school Supinfocom called 'My Name Is Nathan.' The protagonist finds himself dealing with the troublesome voices in his head, with a visual style and story treatment that would probably put a smile on David Lynch's face. I kind of liked the subtlety of it, with Benoit choosing to focus on the protagonists interactions with the origami bird rather than his environment.

Check out the making of, and the poster for the short after the break!

Ad Lucem

In this visually stunning animated short, a vampire wanders outside in the night and comes across a beautiful flower. Enchanted by it, he decides to stay outside a little longer than a vampire should.  The title, Ad Lucem, is latin for "to the light", if that gives you a better idea. While the story is fairly simple, it's the theme and art of the light that is so captivating.  Created by French animator Ghislain Avrillon.

Juveniles - THrought THe Night

This amazing new music video from the French duo Juveniles is straight from their debut EP, Juveniles which was recently released on iTunes. The music video is specially amazing in its own way, emphasizing an experience most people have dealt with at some point or the other: Dealing with that coach trying to push you farther than you ever thought possible. I kind of loved the subtlety of it, the lack of a happy ending and its grounding in reality, and appreciated the nod about keeping your chin up during 'those' days. Just fight it, and look forward to a better tomorrow.