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In 1960, a small film crew followed John F. Kennedy through hotel corridors and union halls during the Wisconsin Democratic primary. Primary (1960) might not appear to be pushing technological boundaries to modern viewers but, at the time, its apparatus of handheld cameras, synchronised sound, and, crucially, minimal narration over intimate scenes was a small revolution. The filmmakers (Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysles) took advantage of these advancements to claim that what their cameras could now do bordered on the metaphysical. They could "be part of the woodwork." They could capture reality "as it really happens."
Hey raiders, if you've ever chased that perfect pull or celebrated a world-first kill, you know raids are World of Warcraft's ultimate proving ground. These huge PvE fights have been endgame since the very beginning, with a combination of lore, strategy, and pure grit that have made the nights to be memorable. Whether you are a veteran of vanilla or a fresh recruit to the newest tier, one thing stays the same: raid nights are where strangers become guildmates, and guildmates become something closer. We will begin with how they have influenced WoW in the last twenty years, and then highlight the new Season 1 lineup of Midnight, with Void shadows and Light colliding in a manner that will redefine the grind. Buckle up; now it is time to unpuzzle the past and ready the future.
I am pleased and proud to announce the publication this month of Animation and the Ancient World, a collection of sixteen essays edited by myself and C.W. Marshall and published by Oxford University Press. This volume surveys how the myths, histories, and philosophies of ancient Greece and Rome have been remixed and revitalized in all sorts of wonderful ways by modern-day animators. At first glance, it may seem surprising that there is a whole volume to fill on this topic. We are all familiar with Disney’s Hercules (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1997), and some of us who are anime fans are likely aware of the mythological themes that underlie Sailor Moon (Naoko Takeuchi, 1992-) or the adventures of the time-traveling Roman bath architect in Thermae Romae (Mari Yamazaki, 2024-) but beyond that how much is there to discuss? As it turns out there is an abundance of animated material from all over the globe that takes its direct inspiration from classical antiquity, or draws on themes, images, and narratives that were originally developed by ancient authors and artists.
Cristina Kovacs is a passionate creator of digital art with a focus on character design and visual development. Her dream is to make a difference by connecting and inspiring people of all walks of life through creativity and zeal in the field of animation. Her senior capstone, The Mermaid of Venice, is a visual development pitch deck for a proposed 5-7 animated short film. Its story begins in 17th century Venice, when masquerade balls are at the height of their historical popularity—and humans are not the only guests in attendance.
A book sits quietly on a shelf. Then, years later, it breathes fire on a cinema screen. This transformation — from static words to vivid animation — is one of the most complex creative journeys in modern entertainment. It is not simply a copy-paste process. Everything changes: pace, tone, visual language, even the emotional core of the story itself. Fantasy, above all genres, demands the most from animators. Why? Because fantasy worlds exist only in the reader's imagination until someone decides to build them for real.
As a young artist growing up in NYC in the 1990s and early 2000s, anime and sci-fi/fantasy were my life. Robotech/Macross, Rurouni Kenshin, Gundam, Star Wars, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. These adventures (and many more like them) spirited me away from reality. Yet at the same time, these stories also helped me understand reality too as they featured gripping characters who often carried the fate of the entire cosmos on their backs.
But it dawned on me pretty quickly as a Korean American that there was a gap in the types of stories I was consuming. The Chinese had their fantasy epics which blew my mind with their scale and heroism. The Japanese had incredible anime and samurai stories. And of course the Western world gave us space operas and superheroes. My own homeland Korea though? I couldn’t point to any large-scale epic adventure that had its origin in Korean culture.
Thinking about Clarence Boddicker’s glasses from the film RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987) while sitting on the bench outside of the library at around quarter past two in the afternoon, Sebastian sits next to me.
I ask the following: “If Hazbin Hotel became novelised, each book dedicated to a character, when it hits Valentino, who would you want to write him?’”
“George Saunders. He’d get into his head.”
Sebastian’s answer rang a fresh thought across my mind that lingered in my brain for a while until, feverishly, I started noting the bones of this down.
When arthouse streaming service, MUBI, acquired one of the year’s surprisingly successful films, 6x Oscar-nominated The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024), it was originally being distributed by Universal for barely $18M. However, French writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s refusal to cut certain scenes eventually allowed her to shop the film elsewhere. With Fargeat now satisfied and Universal likely banging their heads against the wall, The Substance has become an absolute hit, going on to make $70M+ at the global box office (D’Alessandro, 2024).
In this week’s blog, Fantasy/Animation sat down with Mikkel Mainz of SKJALD Animation studio, a full-pipeline creative house and animation studio located in Denmark, to discuss its experience working on successful web series and feature films, the interpretation of music through animated style, and SKJALD’s future animated projects.
Under the sea, monsters lurk. Despite The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1989)’s Sebastian singing about under the sea being better, audiences have long held a fear of the ocean and what lies beneath. It is an understandable fear, linked to the fear of the unknown; after all, it is estimated that 80% of our oceans remain unexplored.
To celebrate the summer, Chris and Alex take another trawl through the Fantasy/Animation archive to pick out some of their favourite past instalments of the podcast. For this first archive episode for 2026, they turn to their discussion of The Prince of Egypt (Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner & Simon Wells, 1998) that took place way back in March 2021 that featured the insights of biblical scholar and broadcaster Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter.
The final episode of the current series of the podcast addresses the phenomenon of KPop Demon Hunters (Maggie Kang & Chris Appelhans, 2025), the most watched original animated film of all time on Netflix whose global reach, critical and commercial success, and intensified fandom has positioned it as central to the contemporary ‘Korean Wave’ marked by the international visibility and popularity of cultural exports produced by South Korea.
For Episode 173, Chris and Alex introduce the films of Michel Ocelot with this close look at the filmmaker’s successful animated adventure film - loosely based on a West African folktale - Kirikou and the Sorceress (Michel Ocelot, 1998). The discussion into the film’s articulation of magical realism, power, and struggle features special guest Lewis C. Seifert, who is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Brown University. Lewis’ research interests encompass early Modern France, gender and sexuality studies, folk narratives, and the environmental humanities, and he is the author of Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender in France, 1690-1715: Nostalgic Utopias (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Manning the Margins: Masculinity and Writing in Seventeenth-Century France (University of Michigan Press, 2009).
The Fantasy/Animation podcast welcomes as its special guest for Episode 172 Professor Karen Redrobe, who is Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Professor and Undergraduate Chair in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work traverses film theory, animation, and feminism, and she is the author of Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism (2003) and the new book Undead: (Inter)(in)animation, Feminisms, and the Art of War (2025), as well as editor of Animating Film Theory (2014) and Deep Mediations: Thinking Space in Cinema and Digital Cultures (2021, with Jeff Scheible). In this instalment, Karen introduces Chris and Alex to the life and career of the artist and filmmaker Helen Hill, who died in 2007 aged only 36, but whose ebullient imagination on display across her experimental shorts pushed at the boundaries of direct animation, stop-motion, and do-it-yourself methods of animated filmmaking.
The Fantasy/Animation podcast has a new theme tune! Click here to read about its origins and influences from composer Francisca Araujo.
Building off the recent podcast on KPop Demon Hunters (Maggie Kang & Chris Appelhans, 2025), Footnote #80 examines Netflix as a popular digital platform via both the context (and illusion) of choice and the algorithmic processes that create, tailor, and appeal to our audiovisual desires, but equally Netflix’s contribution to the contemporary landscape of media production and consumption.
For Footnote #79, Chris and Alex engage the seminal work of Edward Said and his coining and development of Orientalism as a critical framework for mapping the acceptance of the presence of a distinction between East and West, and the terms under which such a geographical and, crucially, conceptual division has been understood.
Footnote #78 of the podcast focuses on the imagination as Alex takes Chris through the world of generative cognition and the many philosophical reflections that discuss our mental forces, which in turn allow us to conjure ideas, thoughts, concepts, and images that do not exist in the material world.
What might it mean for animation to ‘expand’? Footnote 77 confronts the performances and technologies of expanded animation, a term that speaks to both the broadening out of animation and its many sites of production, exhibition, and consumption, as well as those intermedial or multimedia live works that involve different kinds of animated images.
Fantasy/Animation gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Society for Animation Studies (SAS).
Fantasy/Animation gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the ASIFA-Hollywood’s Animation Educators Forum 2021 Faculty Grant
In Part 1, I introduced Digital Vérité — a framing of documentary image-making practices that assert their truth claims specifically through the use and application of digital tools. I argued that this rhymes with cinema vérité's earlier technological truth claim, and that the same scepticism should be attached to it. This second part works through that scepticism via a case study.