Kickstarter Rewards Are All Shipped!
April 19th, 2013

We made it! All the Kicktarter rewards have been shipped and all I have to do now is finish the film!

I want to thank my wife for doing such an amazing job with the shipping and packaging, and for spending hours in line at the post office! I don't know what I would have done without her help. As for me, I'll keep plugging away on the film. There's a huge amount of work left to be done and I'm having a good time doing it. I originally estimated the delivery of the completed short by October, but hopefully, I'll be able to beat that deadline!

When we launched the Kickstarter campaign back in October 2012, we closed our webstore (redirected all the links to Amazon.com) in order to give us a chance to cater to all our Kickstarter backers. Now that we're done with that, we'll be reopening the store in the next couple of weeks (and maybe adding some new goodies). Stay tuned.


Eisner Award Nomination
April 17th, 2013

The Eisner Award nominations were announced yesterday and I was surprised and delighted to learn that one of my projects was among the nominees (Best Archival Project).

I spent five years compiling, restoring and editing a book called, Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics, and often questionned my sanity in doing so. When working on the book, I often felt a sense of guilt that I should be doing my own art instead of restoring someone else's. Still, I knew that the book was important to the history of comics and a worthwhile endeavor. Moreover, I was on a mission to demonstrate my vision of a properly handled restoration project.

The book was eventually published by Fantagraphics and released last year just in time for Valentine's Day. It's nice to see that my efforts to bring this project to life didn't go unnoticed. You can read more about the project here.


Rex Meets Aven Animated
April 14th, 2013

This week, I finally wrapped up the character animation for the scene where Rex and Aven meets for the first time. It was a challenging scene to animate and a crucial one in the film. To make it work I needed to get the acting just right—a mix of surprise, apprehension, playfulness, and intrigue. I posted the pencil test on The Saga of Rex Production Blog. If you have a subscription to the blog, you can view it here.

I'm mostly known within the animation industry for my effects animation, but I actually started my career as a character animator, working on pictures such as The Land Before Time (Original) and All Dogs Go To Heaven. In retrospect, having done work in several departments at various animation studios has given me the necessary skills to pull this film off single-handedly.

Doing the 4-minute film is also a good way for me to determine what type of crew I will need when I handle the longer version.

Speaking of... I've been getting a lot of emails from people wanting to help on the film. Thank you all very much for your interest. At this point, I'm saving all these emails in a folder for future reference, but I just don't have the time to look at portfolios or listen to music samples. My life is immersed into the production of the film and the little that's left over, I need to spend with my family. When I need help, I'll let everyone know, no worry.


Printing, Signing, Cutting, Bagging, Inbetweening and Onward
March 25th, 2013

The Saga of Rex is progressing very nicely. I've had some problems with my hand using my Cintiq, so I added an Intuos5 Wacom Tablet to my arsenal and everything is back in order. For those interested, I go into this in a lot more details on The Saga of Rex Production Blog.

While keeping an intense schedule working on the film, we are also keeping up with shipping rewards to our Kickstarter backers. We spent the weekend printing, signing, cutting and bagging prints. Those rewards will be going out this week. We're getting closer and closer to having all the rewards shipped (except for the delivery of the film, which is going to be in production until October), and it feels good to see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as that's concerned.

Now, back to work, I've got thousands of drawings to do in order to finish this film!

The Krah Khronicles
March 13th, 2013

Too bad "The Krah Khronicles" by Steve Rolston never materialized. This project, from 2005, was going to be a spin off of ZED featuring the foul mouth heavy metal band, Krah. Steve just unveiled the artwork on his blog. Check it out!

Trilobite Tattoo
March 8th, 2013

A few days ago, after reading a nasty comment about my work on the internet, I posted the following statement on my facebook: "When people hate my work, I feel like they hate me personally." I wasn't really depressed, I just wanted to voice an opinion that I'm sure many artists share.

The post prompted several people to leave comments including this one from Inkynebula Faye Retinioti: "haters gonna hate, and I love your work. I actually love it so much, I have it on me. For life. Keep up the good work."

Here's the picture of Faye's tattoo next to my original drawing.

For more, check out my Tattoos Inspired by Michel's Art gallery.


ECCC and Saga of Rex
March 4th, 2013

I had a good time last weekend signing at the Emerald City Comic-Con. Big thanks to Image Comics and Fantagraphics for providing me with time and space to sign.

Besides that, my life has pretty much been consumed by The Saga of Rex production. As I mentionned in an earlier post, I've been mostly updating the Saga of Rex Production Blog instead of this one. For day to day updates, make sure you check the Twitter feed on the right, and better yet, join me in the conversation! And if you feel like it, join The Saga of Rex Production Blog! Here's a little peek.

Reactions to ZED: A Cosmic Tale
February 17th, 2013

Whenever I have a new book coming out, I'm always nervous to see how the critics will react to it. I know I shouldn't care about that stuff, but it's just hard to ignore. Fortunately, the response from both fans and reviewers seems to be on the positive side. Here are the reviews that have been popping up through my Google alert:

"Those familiar with Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet will have been exposed to Michel Gagne’s work previously. His art style is clean, with soft shading and uniquely inventive worlds. The dialogue for the most part is snappy and well paced with nothing extraneous in the mix to bog it down. Panels are cleanly set, dialogue is well inked offering an easy read that taxes the readers sensibilities rather than have them struggle with cluttered layouts. The art is one of the most compelling factors to this series – it’s surreal at times but just so well made! Zed: A Cosmic Tale manages to do so much with it 280 pages. The book shifts from cutesy, to touching, to menacing to horrific scenes of extermination with such beautiful and effortless ease" Read full review.
- Game Fiends

"Zed is, for all intents and purposes, a comics storytelling masterpiece."
Read full review.
- Talking Comics

"ZED has that perfect mix of innocence and brutality that makes it feel substantial enough for kids and adults to fall in love with. This is how classics are made."
Read full review.
- The Daily Planet

"The action, suspense, and larger questions about the nature of life are very well done particularly when paired with the reworked art. I highly recommend ZED to anyone that likes their science fiction with tongue in cheek humor and action."
Read full review.
- Sharon the Lirairian

"This adorable sci-fi comic book wades into some pretty dark and menacing territory. And, that seems to be the most important detail of this comic. It is never just one thing. The most striking thing in Michel Gagné's Zed: A Cosmic Tale is the art. It is surreal, complex, and gorgeous. The art style, much like the book as a whole, bounces back and forth between cute and sinister. What is so impressive is not how effectively Gagné summons cuteness or menace (incredibly effectively), but how quickly he can shift from one to the other."
Read full review.
- Fanboy Comics

"Definitely give Zed a read, and thank me later. Just don't pass it on to the kids until they're a little older and can handle getting their tiny souls scarred for life a little better. It really is an uplifting and beautiful story when all is said and done."
Read full reviews.
- Shut up and read something.

"Zed really was amazing to experience. 5 out of 5"
Read full review.
- Thinks Books

"ZED: A Cosmic Tale is a fun science fiction story that combines adorable characters with heavy, depressing subject matter but in a feel good, entertaining way. And lets be honest, he’s just too cute to pass up!"
Read full review.
- Black Ink Books

And then, there's this one review which rates the book 0 out of 5!

"There is blood, gore, violence, treachery, and so much anguish that reading this would probably put a kid into therapy."
Read full review.
- The Armchair Librairian

ZED: A Cosmic tale is available on Amazon.com and comics and book retailers everywhere.