Yet another one of these. I have a reason for reviews being on a mild pause, but nonetheless I want to try and get into the groove of actually posting content. So I’ve decided to do another showcase of sorts, this time on the long haired Australian madman, Felix Colgrave. Much like Kol Belov, I discovered Colgrave on Newgrounds back in the aughties, in particular my introduction to him was Last Resort.
It may not necessarily be well animated, nor even particularly well drawn, but Last Resort is an entertaining little flick. It’s best described as a short episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog on a certain degree of psychotropic drugs; Felix himself claims the film was based on a dream he had, and it shows. As said, the shapes and images may not be well defined – but there’s no denying they capture the weird and unpredictable nature of dreams and nightmares perfectly, and while the film has little logic to it… it serves perfectly as a demented dark comedy.
Colgrave would do little shorts from time to time since then, but Felix truly hit his stride in 2010 with The Pigpen. The Pigpen is an absolutely superb short film without question, and embodies the true nature of satire: A vision that serves the artist that holds meaning to the masses. While Felix claims that the film was mostly ad-libbed, even he doesn’t disagree that the film has something of an anti-drug message; ironically using yet more demented and deranged images to show the life of a bunch of pigs so hopelessly addicted to a certain “object” (You’ll see for yourself) that they are willing to sell their own flesh and blood to obtain it. Much like Last Resort, it isn’t necessarily a well drawn short, but Colgrave improved the smoothness of his animation and proved that the sketchy, low-def characters were intentional and they do fit the abstract and strange nature of these films. I simply adore this short.
Colgrave has continued to make extremely strange and dark comedies while honing his art style, and in some ways actually developing multiple art styles as he went along. A lot of progress in his talent can be seen from the time between The Pigpen and, say, Tainted Goods – a dark and gruesome short once again tinged with just enough pitch black and rather esoteric humour that drives a smile onto ones face.
More or less could be the same about Man Spaghetti, I’ll admit I have no idea what the hell this short is about… but it makes me chuckle, and I’ve grown to love the sketchy style Colgrave has carved out for himself, and the actual animation side of things has become very smooth and impressive.
But the biggest leap in his talent, and arguably his best short since The Pigpen has to be The Elephant’s Garden. It isn’t as dark as some of his other shorts, far from it, in fact the visuals are very heavily inspired by both exaggurated cartoon features and old Hippy Fantasy art and there’s an air of psychadelia throughout this short. It’s a beautifully animated and drawn short that shows small snippets of a strange land with a surprising sense of scale.
His latest film, ((SOURCE)) is actually a music video for an alternative-acid rock band called Fever the Ghost, and it has a style very similar to The Elephant’s Garden, and is a fun music video for a fun song.
Honk and For Everyone to See are also very, very brief shorts (less than a minute) of his from his career that nonetheless still put a smile on my face.
Best of luck to you, my magnificently locked Aussie friend! Keep making great shorts!
And don’t you get rid of those wonderful locks (I could care less about the beard, but at least it isn’t super shaggy.). You would look great in a Metal band.
Kay's Horrortorium 
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