Kid Acne animates Zebra Face for Channel 4 series

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 | By Tom Banks

The character was first drawn in the mid-’90s in fanzines created by Kid Acne and The Supreme Vagabond Craftsmen.

Zebra Face and his sidekick Durable Mouthorgan Diabetic are unlikely superheroes muddling their way through a cartoonish and surreal world.

Now they will make their way to the terrestrial screen as part of Channel 4’s Random Acts series.

Last year Kid Acne re-released a special edition book, charting the adventures of his ‘rubbish superhero.’

This coincided with a retrospective of Kid Acne’s work – he’s also a recording artist – opening at the Museum of Sheffield, ‘which prompted me to get the animation underway’ says Kid Acne.

He put a team together which saw Paul Reardon of consultancy Peter and Paul direct the series, which is animated by Chris Sayer and Jason Arber, while Kid Acne himself is co-director, creative director, artist and the voice of Zebra Face.

Other voices come from a cohort of hip-hop stars who make up the Chilliant Brainwaves, while Rosamund Hanson, who plays Snell in This is England, is the voice of Messy Dinosaur, and Jarvis Cocker is the narrator and voice of the omnipotent Sun.

Kid Acne says, ‘I’d like to continue doing it. They’re three minutes each long but we can do more.

‘I’m used to working in 2D, where most of the frames are taken up with speech bubbles, but now I’m able to design scenery, and create environments, sounds and voices.’

The next episode of Zebra Face, entitled Rumbles in The Tumbles, airs on 2 August, Channel 4, at 12.05am

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