Juanjo Guarnido’s ‘Freak of the Week’ is A Traditionally-Animated Stunner

Though best known as the award-winning artist of the French comic series Blacksad, Juanjo Guarnido is also a former Disney animator who worked on films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan and Atlantis. Earlier this year, he raised over $140,000 on Kickstarter to produce “Freak of the Week,” a music video for the Swedish rock band Freak Kitchen. The video premiered online today and it just might be the most classically animated teeth-gnashing and hair-flipping metal you’ve seen in your lifetime.

The video, which was produced at Paris-based Fortiche Production, has animated segments hand-drawn in TV Paint by Guarnido and a small team of traditional animators with Disney feature credentials.

“2D! Traditional animation!” Guarnido exclaimed while Cartoon Brew watched the work-in-progress with him earlier this month at New York Comic Con. “I love CG animation. I’m totally happy that movies like The Incredibles and Tangled exist, but traditional animation is something different; it’s another art.”

As a companion piece to the video, Guarnido and his team are in the process of completing an art-of book titled Freaky Project. Written by Micael Beausang-O’Griafa with a foreword by Eric Goldberg, it will be made available in time for CTN Expo next month as well as online at BigWowArt.com.

“I don’t know,” Guarnido says. “Maybe in a tiny little way I contributed so people can become interested in hand-drawn animation again. I hope so.”

Guarnido also drew the cover for the band’s latest album Cooking with Pagans, which includes the “Freak Of The Week” song:

“FREAK OF THE WEEK” CREDITS
Director: Juanjo Guarnido
Producers: Juanjo Guarnido and Pascal Charrue
Art Director: Julien Rossire
Storyboard & Supervising Animator: Juanjo Guarnido
Animators: Georges Abolin, Julien Bizat, Maël Gourmelen
Produced at Fortiche Production.