Indie corner: The Perry Bible Fellowship + squirrels
The University of Bournemouth’s National Centre for Computer Animation produces a higher-than-average fraction of the UK’s cool student shorts at the best of times.
But recent alumnus Jahirul Amin has a secret weapon: his graduation short was written by Nicholas Gurewitch.
(There will now be a pause while the entire readership either scrambles to click the link above, or asks, ‘But who is Nicholas Gurewitch?’
If you’re in the latter camp, Gurewitch is the creator of offbeat syndicated strip The Perry Bible Fellowship, often described as the best thing to happen to cartooning since Gary Larson hung up his scalpel on The Far Side.
You can read the entire archive online here.)
According to Jahirul: “The story goes like this. I met a woman (who is now my wife) and found the inside of her kitchen cupboards plastered with PBF strips cut out of [UK daily newspaper] The Guardian. When it came to final project time in my MA a few years later, I mailed NG to ask his permission to produce a short of one of the strips. His response was to give me an original piece which he felt would lend itself far better to moving images.”
“Frankly, I couldn’t believe my luck – and even though I knew it would be pretty hard to do the idea justice in the 12 weeks available, I loved the narrative too much to let it go. I did have to doctor it a fair bit to fit in the time constraints, but I think I managed to keep the premise alive.”
“He was incredible throughout – very encouraging and keen to give me feedback about cuts and character development. I’d give a lot to work on more of his ideas.”
The result? ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Render the Bomb’:a Doctor Strangelove-inspired short about a squirrel pilot with an unusually ecological weapon of mass destruction. What else?