Greetings from the Lagoon

Well, with my vacation halfway done, here we come to the first of what I hope will be a few pics while I've still got this precious time off. This pic, unless my line of request pics, is a pic for me, drawing a pic of a new obsession of mine, a French cartoon called "Zig and Sharko", which I've drawn in my Danny Phantom style (the show itself, having a bit of a DP art style going on).

The basic gist of the series revolves around a mermaid named Marina, who spends a lot of her time just hanging out by this island, where a hyena named Zig lives. Day after day, Zig can think of nothing else but trying to find ways to EAT Marina. Zig's problem...Marina just happens to have a pet shark.

I caught this show on Netflix recently. Not being a big fan of French cartoons, my first reaction was naturally to just pass it by. But eventually, my curiosity shouted down my better judgement and I gave it a look. And for some reason, I was HOOKED. And even now, I still don't know why. I mean, on its face, the concept just SHOULDN'T work. But the presentation just hits all the right notes.

Essentially, the series takes a lot of cues from classic silent cartoon shorts of the day (even the classic Warner Bros. and Disney shorts). There is no dialogue in this series. Any time someone does speak, it's either through sound effects or nonsensical babbling. Which is probably one of the things that makes this series work as well as it does. Since the point of the show is simply to watch the wacky events as they unfold, trying to accompany it with witty dialogue would only get in the way.

It's amazing how this series can keep coming up with ways for Sharko to pummel Zig and still make it seem fresh every time (few things are more amusing that watching Zig smash into something and then just blurt out, "EEK!"). But truly, the glue that holds this series together has GOT to be Marina, who is fascinating as this instantly likable character that can turn the world on with her smile, yet whose brief moments of sadness can just as easily break your heart. She is also infinitely complex, yet gloriously simple. When we're first introduced to her, she really doesn't appear to be all that bright (although, since this is predominantly a silent cartoon, it's not as if we need her quoting Aristotle or Nitsche, here). But over time, you quickly discover that she does, indeed, have a brain in her head. She just doesn't go out of her way to turn it on unless she HAS to.

And then we come to Bernie, the Hermit Crab, who is definitely the odd man out of this bunch. On the surface, Bernie is Zig's best friend and often serves as his sidekick in his efforts to put Marina on his dinner table. But behind the big baby eyes and impish squeaks lurks the mind of a genius, who will often be seen indulging in his own little side projects whenever he can manage to tear himself away from Zig. Of course, not all of his projects turn out the way he'd prefer, either.

Well, that's the basic gist of the show. If you can, I definitely recommend you check it out. At roughly seven minutes per short, it doesn't take much out of your day. And besides Netflix (as well as certain Nickelodeon and Disney Channel stations), you can also catch several of the shorts on Youtube. Like I say, don't judge this series by its concept. It's the presentation that make this work. In the meantime, though, I hope you enjoy this pic and know that I'm planning to have some more new stuff very soon.