Reflecting futures in fantastic media: who do we think we can become?
Reflecting futures in fantastic media: who do we think we can become?

Children are frequently asked who or what they want to be when they grow up, and the possibilities can seem pretty endless. Racecar drivers and dolphin trainers, chefs, presidents, sometimes out and out supervillains – but also doctors and teachers, writers and artists. After my experience as a postdoctoral researcher with the European Research Council-funded research project Constructing Age for Young Readers (CAFYR) at the University of Antwerp, I have spent a lot of time wondering what we might hear if we were asked those same questions again while in our thirties, or even our forties. Who would we want to become? Who are we shown as inspiration for who we might be able to become?

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EDITORIALMichelle Anya AnjirbagLITERATURE, CHILDHOOD, GENDERComment
Vonnworld: The Animated Series
Vonnworld: The Animated Series

On the evening of February 28th 2015 in an East Oakland neighborhood in northern California, Davon Malik Ellis was walking with a couple of his friends to the store from his football coach's home when he was stopped by a random stranger and shot to death. He was only 14 years old with a promising future in football. It was this random violent act that birthed the idea of the animated project Vonnworld: The Animated Series

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EDITORIALBruce BowersTELEVISION, RACE, AMERICA, STORYTELLINGComment
Review: Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro, 2022)
Review: Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro, 2022)

“Try your best, because that’s the best anyone can do,” says Sebastian J. Cricket, one of Pinocchio’s mentors in the film. This quote aptly encapsulates the moral of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022) (Fig. 1).  An adaptation of the 1883 tale, Pinocchio transports the story to 1930s fascist Italy, firmly under the thumb of dictator Benito Mussolini.

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FILM REVIEWJackson WrightADAPTATION, STOP-MOTION, FANTASYComment
Review: Matthew Oliver, Magic Words, Magic Worlds: Form and Style in Epic Fantasy (2022)
Review: Matthew Oliver, Magic Words, Magic Worlds: Form and Style in Epic Fantasy (2022)

The overall argument of Matthew Oliver’s Magic Words, Magic Worlds (2022) is that the style of epic fantasy shapes readers’ experiences in what he broadly calls “political ways” (26). Politics here includes the identity positions that authors, readers and characters can take, and empathy is discussed as one of the prime mechanisms facilitating such political involvement.

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BOOK REVIEWMarinette GrimbeekLITERATURE, FANTASY, MAGIC, SCIENCE-FICTION, PARATEXTS Comments
Spirit of Invention: The Fantasy Films of Robert Zemeckis, Part 2
Spirit of Invention: The Fantasy Films of Robert Zemeckis, Part 2

At the beginning of 2022, the film industry news reported that writer-director Robert Zemeckis was already preparing a follow up to his then-upcoming Pinocchio (2022) with another fantasy movie, albeit one that might be described as a little more ‘sombre’ in tone, being an adaptation of the graphic novel Here by Richard McGuire.

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EDITORIALJames ClarkeHOLLYWOOD, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, ADAPTATION, NARRATIVEComment
Review: The Factual Animation Film Festival (FAFF) 2022
Review: The Factual Animation Film Festival (FAFF) 2022

The Fall of 2022 marked the 9th year of running of The Factual Animation Film Festival (FAFF). Following the success of 2021, this time the festival maintained its hybrid format offering both in-person and online events. Those who found themselves in Berlin on September 24th, could attend a screening at local Z-inema moderated by Marina Belikova, one the festival’s producers.

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EVENT REVIEWAnastasiia GushchinaREPRESENTATION, GENDER, DOCUMENTARY, FANTASY, IDENTITYComment
Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Animated Horror Mini-Event
Review: BAFTSS Animation SIG Animated Horror Mini-Event

The first event of the new BAFTSS Animated SIG was a very spooky one. Threading the often-unexplored relationship between animation and horror and organized by Dr. Sam Summers (Middlesex University), “Animated Horror: An Online Mini-Event” (Fig. 1) took place online on October 19, 2022. Even though it was a short one, the seminar offered a great deal of varied richness on issues of liminality, transformations, and the overlapping of horrific and seemingly innocent content, within animated horror.

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EVENT REVIEWJuliana VarelaHORROR, ANIMATION, DISNEY, HOLLYWOODComment
Review: Sotiris Petridis, Anatomy of the Slasher Film: A Theoretical Analysis (2019)
Review: Sotiris Petridis, Anatomy of the Slasher Film: A Theoretical Analysis (2019)

Systematic genre criticism has gone out of fashion and Sotiris Petridis’s Anatomy of the Slasher Film: A Theoretical Analysis (2019) is an attempt to respond to this pressing need in genre studies. Anatomy of the Slasher Film (Fig. 1) consists of an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion, two appendices (“Films Referenced” and “Semantic Elements”), endnotes, a filmography, a bibliography, and an index.

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BOOK REVIEWJoshua TuttleHORROR, GENRE, HOLLYWOOD, HISTORYComment
Review: Noel Brown, Contemporary Hollywood Animation: Style, Storytelling, Culture and Ideology Since the 1990s (2020)
Review: Noel Brown, Contemporary Hollywood Animation: Style, Storytelling, Culture and Ideology Since the 1990s (2020)

Noel Brown provides an engaging and well-researched account of contemporary Hollywood feature animation, here defined as from the 1990s onwards. Noting the recent significance of animation to both the Hollywood studios, their parent conglomerates, and popular culture more broadly, he aims to outline the “form and poetics of the mainstream animated feature” (Brown 2020, 2), with chapters devoted to their narrative and thematic focus on family and friendship, aesthetic shifts, and changes around their representations of identity.

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BOOK REVIEWJason ScottHOLLYWOOD, ANIMATION, STYLE, GENRE, POPULAR CINEMA, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMComment
Redefining Gender Representation in Dua Lipa’s “Hallucinate” (2020) Music Video
Redefining Gender Representation in Dua Lipa’s “Hallucinate” (2020) Music Video

Dua Lipa’s animated music video “Hallucinate” was released during the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The song is taken from Lipa’s second album, Future Nostalgia, and was influenced by the studio 54 aesthetic (Daly, 2020). Dua Lipa's animated character in the music video has been compared with the features of Betty Boop, a figure who epitomized the hedonistic nature in America in the 1920s.

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISDemikel EvansMUSIC VIDEO, REPRESENTATION, GENDER, SEXUALITY, QUEER IDENTITYComment
Healing Latin-American generational trauma in Encanto (2021)
Healing Latin-American generational trauma in Encanto (2021)

Encanto (Byron Howard & Jared Bush, 2021), Disney’s 60th animated film inspired by Latin-American culture tells the story of a magical family, the family Madrigal. The narrative follows the dynamics of the Madrigal family tree across generations in the town of Encanto, ultimately spearheaded by 15-year-old Mirabel, the only member of the family without magical powers.

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EDITORIALMariana Pintado ZuritaCOMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, DISNEY, MUSICAL, LATIN AMERICA, MAGIC, REALISMComment
‘Take Me Back’- The Fantasy of Childhood in Modern Pixar Films
‘Take Me Back’- The Fantasy of Childhood in Modern Pixar Films

For a long time, the work of Pixar Animation Studios was routinely presented as something of a gold standard for animation. A critical darling and box office juggernaut, Pixar’s run of early films from Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) to Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019) were mostly unquestioned hits delivering nuanced meditations on everything from emotion to connection to self-actualisation.

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EDITORIALMarkus BeekenPIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, CHILDHOOD, CHILDREN, FANTASY, HOLLYWOOD, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMComment
Review: Adam Daniel, Affective Intensities and Evolving Horror Forms: From Found Footage to Virtual Reality (2020)
Review: Adam Daniel, Affective Intensities and Evolving Horror Forms: From Found Footage to Virtual Reality (2020)

We live in haunted times. Haunted by the memories of a pre-pandemic existence, we continue to persevere through variant viral outbreaks. Haunted by the two-dimensional digital avatars cast on our devices (at least for those of us fortunate enough to have this luxury), we are increasingly alienated from our three-dimensional biological selves.

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BOOK REVIEWBen EldridgeHORROR, AFFECT, ADAPTATION, FOUND FOOTAGE, PHILOSOPHYComment
Political oppression and resistance in Jiří Trnka’s Ruka/The Hand (1965)
Political oppression and resistance in Jiří Trnka’s Ruka/The Hand (1965)

In 1965, the Czech draughtsman, book illustrator, puppet and toy designer, painter, animated film-maker and sculptor Jiří Trnka released his last short animation film Ruka/The Hand (1965). The silent 18 minute animation delivers a powerful and chilling dynamic; allegorically and metaphorically representing the influence of the communist political regime on the freedom of people through the framing of Trnka as the main character (a harlequin) and the accompanying image of the hand, which overpowers harlequin’s agency.

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISRenée-Marie PizzardiCZECH, POLITICAL, ALLEGORY, STOP-MOTION, SYMBOLISM, METAPHORComment
Review: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Dean Fleischer-Camp, 2021)
Review: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Dean Fleischer-Camp, 2021)

The extraordinary life of Marcel, a one-inch tall talking shell, first began with three Youtube shorts in the early 2010s. He took the Internet by a storm: Jenny Slate’s crackling timbre, coupled with Dean Fleischer-Camp’s comically awkward script, drew over 31 million views. Now, after more than a decade of slumber, the shorts finally resurfaced, though this time in feature form.

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FILM REVIEWGrace HanFANTASY, STOP-MOTION, GENDERComment