Ekublai
From Anipedia
| General Information | |
| Age: | |
|---|---|
| Years active: | 2003-Present |
| Alternative Handle: | |
| Links | |
| Newgrounds | |
| Cartoons | |
Ekublai is an Adobe Flash and stopmotion animator, logo artist, and screenwriter on Newgrounds. He started visiting the flash community website in 2003 as a fan of Legendary Frog and his cartoon One Ring to Rule Them All 2. His status as a simple consumer would not last long however. Intrigued with the multi-faceted capabilities of flash he had witnessed, Ekublai (then known as Mfprod) would create his Newgrounds account in December of 2003. Since then Ekublai has experienced average success on Newgrounds as a developing flash artist. While neither exceedingly popular nor the most lauded of flash artists, Ekublai's annual submissions have increased dramatically over the last year; They include messages from the artist of truly great things to come in the near future.
Contents |
[edit] Mfprod Era (Dec. 2003 - March 2006)
Mfprod began his run as a flash artist in the summer of 2004, when he submitted a politically oriented cartoon criticizing the four years of President George W. Bush's first term. The end result was blamming at the hands of the Newgrounds community. No copy of the cartoon has ever been found but Ekublai himself found its "obituary" webpage on newgrounds on June 12, 2008.
His first success came in October of 2004 when he submitted "THE Family Guy Soundboard", which in itself was a basic soundboard and thus generally received the same treatment as other soundboards submitted during the time. Incidentally, Newgrounds experienced the heaviest flow of soundboards into the portal in 2004 than any other year.
A mere two months later, Mfprod would submit the sequel to his soundboard "THE FamilyGuy Soundboard 2". This soundboard garnered much more attention than his previous attempt due to the increased amount of sounds (The first had 43 sound clips, the second had 137.) However, some of the problems encountered in the previous soundboard including audio quality and visual appeal were not addressed, and the score of the flash suffered for it. Despite this, it currently has a 3.59/5 score and remains Ekublai's highest scoring submission to date.
Not wanting to end up with all three of his first submissions to be soundboards, Mfprod moved to his first solo movie project since his Bush flash, entitled "The Ink", in March of 2005. It ended up being fairly successful with a 3.17/5 due to the level of complexity in the storyline. The flash is about a man who runs a failing shoehorn business. While in a state of sorrow one day, a mysterious letter is delivered that simply states, "Remember the Ink." The salesman takes out a bottle of ink from his desk and unleashed an ink monster. He commands the ink to set out on an unknown mission. Though it states that the viewer should await part 2, Ekublai has confirmed that there will be no sequel due to other projects taking priority.
Mfprod submitted two more flashes in 2005, one being a stopmotion video that displays paper manipulation called "Fun with Paper", as well as "Still Crying My Heart Out", a tribute flash to the collaboration "Stop Crying Your Heart Out". Mfprod also participated in one of the Star Syndicate's Daily Toons on October 20th.
Mfprod took part in 2 collaborations before changing his name. He took a small part in "Mad World Collab" and the "Widow Collab".
In March of 2006, Mfprod asked that all his posts on the Newgrounds BBS be removed for personal reasons before changing his name permanently.
[edit] Ekublai Era (March 2006 - Present)
Going on hiatus for the rest of the year until September, Ekublai's time was spent mostly writing screenplays to future projects, including a screenplay adapted for The Aquabats song "Captain Hampton and the Midget Pirates". The screenplay is now being animated by JWaldgar and is set to be released on October 20th, 2007.
In September, Ekublai released a video of a friend lipsyncing to an Eminem song, which was largely considered a waste of time. Ekublai then revisited claymation with "Ekublai's Cklaymations". He ended the year with a soundboard based off of the cult t.v show "Mystery Science Theater 3000".
2007 came right when Ekublai had started to lay out his final plans for future projects. With the pressures of writing ideas for projects out of his mind, he was able to concentrate on more submissions than ever before. So far this year, he has submitted 8 flashes, 6 of which have a score of over 3.0/5. They include "The Bunny Suicide Collaboration" in which Ekublai involved himself deeply, and upon submission earning his first award (Daily Feature), "THE TALE OF 8 N00BS: &<(," a flash that was made by him and students that he taught to learn and create flash in two days, and his most recent success the "Wishbone" series. This graphic novel style flash satires the lives of people suffering from depression and suicide contemplation. The series has garnered praise and slight cult status due to its dark humor and artistic value. Ekublai believes that it is the lack of recognition associated with his name that has stopped this series from becoming a hit.
[edit] Future Projects
The Bohemian (Animating) (a literal adaption of the Queen Song "Bohemian Rhapsody," and rumored to be a very important submission on Ekublai's agenda.)
THE Family Guy Soundboard 3 (In Progress)(The final chapter of this soundboard series will encapsulate as many aspects of the show as possible. Supposedly intended to have nearly 1000 sound clips in it, threatening to go over the Newgrounds 10 mb limit. No soundboard has ever accomplished this feat.)
Untitled Blues Clues Parody (Announced) (A very satirical parody of the popular children's program done with either a green screen effect with Ekublai himself, or with a rotoscope effect that would integrate much more easily with flash.)
Untitled FBF Project (Pre-Production)
In Our Hands (Announced) (An interpretive adaption of the Billy Joel song "Piano Man" involving the absence of God and the need for man to help themselves.)
[edit] Projects Under Speculation
While Ekublai does work with an agenda designed to be time efficient, the projects that come into fruition are often few and far between. Therefore, all of Ekublai's works should be under scrutiny and subject to a status change at anytime.
Ekublai has recently expressed interest in eventually either animating, directing, or producing and an adaption of the Pink Floyd song "Wish You Were Here". All other information on the project is up to heavy speculation. It is rumored that such a project may either turn into a collaboration on Newgrounds or into a Co-Directed project with an unattached name. Ekublai has stated that he intends to make the screenplay for the adaption public on the Newgrounds BBS in the near future.
