I didn’t know deviantART had embeddable videos. I may have to look around there some more in the future. I was made aware of this edition thanks to Comics Alliance, and although I’ve only read the Free Comic Book Day stories I can appreciate the quality of the work. David Petersen‘s comic book series Mouse Guard (published by Archaia Comics) has non-human anthropomorphic mice fighting to survive in what I assume is a medieval or Middle Ages setting. It also appears to be an anthology and according from the official site “a fantasy adventure world of cloaked, sword wielding mice who protect the common mouse against threats of predator, weather, & wilderness”.
A group of fans decided to make a fan film (as fans do) based on Petersen’s series and although it’s only a minute+ long, I feel it’s worth showcasing.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Created by British animation student (that means a student in Britain, not someone who studies only British art) “Pspynett” (insert Terminator reference here) and her friends “Apocalypsebunny” and “Jinxhellbent” (the internet makes it difficult to use real names…said the guy who calls himself ShadowWing Tronix 😛 ), it’s a simple story of a mouse fighting an owl, only with a huge blade. It’s not as exciting as other shorts I’ve posted in the Showcase but I do like to point out good fan work.
Fan films are the result of loving a fiction world or characters, which also hold true for fan art and cosplay. These are (usually, I could point to negative examples, but if you part of a fandom message board you’ve probably already seen more than your share) positive displays of and appreciation for someone’s work and can themselves be a work of art. I hope something I create get that kind of fan love.
Overall, Petersen should be not only proud of his work (I have seen it and it’s well done, but not along my usual interests) but fans like this who show their love and get nothing out of it but praise (since they can’t legally make money off of someone else’s intellectual property). I’m going to have to add devinatART to my scouting for Showcase features. Comics posted to that site are hard to show off in the SNS format, and one piece of fan art doesn’t fit the format, either, but something like this I can easily and happily promote.
Related articles
- Preview – Mouse Guard: The Black Axe #2 (graphicpolicy.com)
- Free Comic Book Day 2011: Reviewing The Finds (wegotcomicissues.wordpress.com)
- The Weekly Wrap-Up> Free Comic Book Day 2011 (bwmedia.wordpress.com)
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