New blog post! This week, Xixin Sun reflects on their animated short film, Born (2024), a work that “visualizes the abstract concept of female reproductive trauma and attempts to explain women's anxiety and uneasiness about reproduction.” #animation #film fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/…

New blog post! Hazel Jamieson discusses Dissociative Identity Disorder and how “aggressive alternate personalities appear across a diverse range of animation in both heroic and villainous roles, but few name what it is or give the topic proper weight.“ fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/…

To coincide with Pixar's Elio (2025), Christopher Holliday and Alex Sergeant take listeners back to their episode on Inside Out (2015), originally recorded at the 33rd Animation Studies conference at Teesside University and featuring special guest Dr. Eric Herhuth! fantasy-animation.org/all-episodes/a…

New blog post! Part 1 of Sona d’Ébène's analysis of music as narrative in Arcane (2021-) looks at “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” from Belgian musician and songwriter Stromae - a song that drives the construction of Arcane's emotionally complex characterisations. fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/…

New blog post! The second of Sona d’Ébène's two-part analysis that examines sound of Arcane (2021-), this time looking closely at French musician Pomme’s verse within “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” as a representation of Jinx’s inner guilt. fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/…

Fantasy/Animation go all the way back to January 2020 and their discussion of Ralph Bakshi's high fantasy animated epic Wizards (1977), an episode originally recorded in front of a live audience at the The Cinema Museum in Kennington, London. #fantasy #bakshi fantasy-animation.org/all-episodes/a…

Listen to our chat about Wizards as a counter-cultural marvel of the 1970s; the politics and propaganda of the film’s adult themes, including its discourses of socio-realism and gender politics; technology versus magic; and Bakshi's feature as a masterpiece of U.S. animation!

New blog post! This week, Brynn Straley and Saira Umar discuss Tea Leaves Last, a 2D animatic pilot made by Asians in Animation featuring Mya, a “young woman from a small farming nation as she ventures out to bring back forgotten Tea magic to the world.” fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/…

New blog post! Here is the last blog before we break for the summer - and it's a corker! Big thanks to Anahita Fazaeli for this thorough rundown of the 36th annual Animation Studies conference, this year hosted by the London College of Communication! #animation fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/…

"This year’s conference [...] was inspired by UAL’s key values of climate, social and racial justice, and equality, diversity, and inclusion [and] brought together scholars, animators, students, practitioners, researchers, publishers, and academics from around the world."

For the final archive episode, Christopher Holliday and Alex Sergeant swing back into the superhero world of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), revisiting their discussion of Sony's computer-animated film with film critic and culture writer Simran Hans! fantasy-animation.org/all-episodes/a…

The Fantasy/Animation podcast returns for a brand new season with another trip into the magic of Disney’s animated features, this time to remember the pleasures of the pride lands and the circle of life in the animated musical The Lion King (1994)! fantasy-animation.org/all-episodes/e…

Listen as we chat about the film's place in Disney’s broader corporate history; distinctions between typical and Classic Disney; digital VFX and self-referentiality; anthropomorphic agency and instincts of animated animality; and Fascist imagery, race, and the environment!

New blog post! This week's Fantasy/Animation blog is Part 1 of 3 by James Clarke and Shaun Magher that draws on first-hand accounts of Magher's work on the animated music video for U2's “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” that featured in Batman Forever! fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/…

"Most musicians portray themselves when performing and reflect this in their music videos. [...] How, then, can the persona or personae of these artists be reimagined, intensified and even challenged through an animated music video presentation?" #animation #music #u2 #batman

The first Footnote podcast of the new season kicks off with a discussion of 'enviro-toons', a sub-genre of animation that engages the complex relationship between the representations of (and labour processes behind) the animated medium and the environment. fantasy-animation.org/footnote-episo…

Topics include how 'green' cartoons might engage ecological concerns; anthropomorphism as a way to convey urban sprawl; the sustainability of animation production (reuse of cels, repurposing of stop-motion sets); and what CGI and AI means for animation’s cost to the environment.

The Fantasy/Animation podcast Halloween special is here with this deep dive into Casper (1995) featuring a conversation with the film’s lead animator Mark Austin, who as part of the team at ILM brought the supernatural spectacle of the lonely ghost to life! fantasy-animation.org/all-episodes/e…

Thrilled to be joined by Mark Austin to discuss his role in crafting Casper’s many digital VFX sequences, the technologies involved in building the character's virtual performance, and the eponymous ghost as an often forgotten turning point in Hollywood’s effects history. #spooky

New blog post! Read the third and final post from Shaun Magher and James Clarke that reflects on Shaun's work across several animated music videos - this week it's his collaboration with Fluke for the track “Atom Bomb” featured in the PS game Wipeout 2097! fantasy-animation.org/current-posts/…