"The Grim" - Animated Web Series Halloween Premiere

This is a Kickstarter project that was successfully funded and the completed premiere webisode was uploaded this evening.

Months after the wolf attacked, Red Riding Hood must relive the terrible events and rediscover herself in this ongoing series.

The Grim is an ongoing series project that takes the characters of Grimm's fairy tales and nursery rhymes and works to connect their stories. The story begins with Red Riding hood. It's been months after the wolf attacked and she has completely blocked the traumatizing incident from her mind. As she continues to walk into the forest to search for the grandmother she still believes is alive the truth of that day begins to come back to her. Along with this she comes to learn that the wolf is relentlessly searching for her for reasons she doesn't yet understand. What commences is a story that finds Red searching for the origins of the wolf, the reason it hunts her, and how to stop it. Along the way she'll encounter many other familiar fairytale characters who will all have a mysterious connection to her journey and the wolf. This is a story about a girl coming to age in a harsh and grim world that is very unforgiving with its life lessons. The Grim also aims to take fairy tale creatures like Gingerbread men and make them surprisingly human.

This project definitely has potential and, if they've kept it fresh from other familiar mash-ups we know, is likely to take some twists and turns we're not familiar with. I like the post-wolf attack and unreliable memory premise. It would make for a different coming of age story to the usual LRRH ones. The first episode, titled "Fox", has very specific jaws this girl is worried about are different than the norm and it seems an apt metaphor for the place she's in post-attack as well.

While on her way to her Grandmother's, Gertrude Byrnes finds herself trapped and the only help she can find may only give her more trouble.

"Wolf" - Hasani Walker

I have to say I am impressed with what I've seen so far. While computer animation tends to be off-putting to me much of the time, the production is impressive and uses a smart mix of miniatures, stop motion puppets and computer animation to good effect. The opening frames of the main character didn't convince me but a minute or two in to her story I was far more interested than I thought I would be. I'm not completely sold on all the design aspects but was surprised how quickly they grew on me.

The fox and wolf characters (wolf shown in drawing only so far) are very reminiscent of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke characters, something that I think works here. It's early yet and there are only two characters interacting so far so we'll see, but overall, this seems promising.

You can watch the first episode below:

If you enjoyed that and would like to keep up to date, subscribe to Hasani Walker's YouTube channel for updates and to be alerted for new episodes when they're uploaded, or follow on Tumblr which should do the same. Hasani Studios is also on Facebook and posting updates, behind-the-scenes and more from all the various projects.

Mr. Walker is currently continuing work on The Grim and submitting it to festivals.