The Blackheart Gang’s ‘The Tale of How: The Book’
June 3, 2009 | Tags: animation, Blackheart Gang, F5, high art
I had the very good fortune to attend the F5 Fest digital media conference in NYC in mid-April, and am still recovering from the overwhelming presentations by some of the best of the best in the business — not to mention the open bar from roughly 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. each day. (More on F5 to come in future posts.)
One of the oddest and most inspiring presentations came from a trio of illustrator/designer/director/musicians from South Africa — Ree Treweek, Jannes Hendrikz, and Markus Smit — who call themselves The Blackheart Gang.
They got the world’s attention in 2006 with a 4-minute animated masterpiece called The Tale of How:
While we’re waiting for the other two parts of a promised trilogy (including The Tale of Then and The Tale of When), and the gang mostly occupies itself with some very high-profile paying gigs for its sister project, Shy The Sun and appearances at digital media conferences that seem always to be compared with MTV Video awards presentations, the Tale of How now has an unlikely presence in the offline world: a coffee table book.
