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Welcome! This is the new Thursday issue Animation Obsessive bulletin. This time, we’re looking at Karen Aqua, a freelance animator from the East Coast.
Today, not everyone knows the name of Aqua. But in his scene, he was cute. Michael Spurr He adored his films. His peer Joanna Priestley called him “one of the truly great beings”; Directed by Wendy Tilby (when the day ends) remembered him as an “inspiration,” a “joy,” and a “true friend.”
Even now, people respond to his stuff. “Maybe the best thing I’ve ever seen,” one person wrote on social media this week, commenting on a clip of his animation.
Aqua’s work is usually immediately appealing. Although he did not often use narration, he always tried to communicate. “I was drawn to animation because accessibility is very important to me… (F)ilm is a medium meant to be shown to other people,” Aqua once said.
He often made this connection on a visceral level: many of his films are based on rhythm. Take his 1989 It’s a cockroach (watch it), a manic brief about modern city life and ancient societies. Aqua worked on jazz music that was “almost too fast for dancing, but not too fast for animation,” he said. the result feels likes to dance; He gets into you.
Millions of people have gotten that feeling from Aqua’s movies, whether they recognize her name or not. Finally, inside Sesame StreetIn its heyday, it was a staple on the show.
