I have always been a big fan of the look of 60s Amer­i­can illus­tra­tion, with very sim­plis­tic fea­tures that tell o much about the char­ac­ter, a dom­i­nant colour on each scene, basic com­po­si­tions and very accen­tu­ated poses. This charm­ing short has it all and it’s all hand­somely delivered.

This short ani­ma­tion was com­mis­sioned by Faber & Faber to pro­mote the release of Andrew O’Hagan’s novel The Life and Opin­ions of Maf the Dog and of His Friend Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe.

Robin Davey designed, directed and ani­mated the whole short. The music is Bean Bag by Jeff Curry.

Robin says: “Draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from film titles and car­toons of that era and incor­po­rat­ing quotes from the novel itself, I pro­duced this minute long whistle-stop tour of Maf’s early life, trac­ing his jour­ney from an Eng­lish farm­house kitchen to the com­pany of the most famous woman in the world. The piece was con­ceived as a sin­gle sequence with­out obvi­ous cuts, using colour tran­si­tions to rein­force the sense of move­ment.”

A bit of advice: Select the HD ver­sion and play full screen, it’s worth it!