David Firth

David John Firth (born 23 January 1983)^{[citation needed]} is an English animator, video artist, amateur filmmaker, and musician. As a cartoonist Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet (most notably the popular Adobe Flash animation Web site Newgrounds, as well as his own personal sites). Several of his various works in cartoon Flash animation, as well as his multiple music videos and works of video art have garnered large followings, and include some of the most acclaimed video series online.^[1][2]

Notable animation sequences from Firth include Salad Fingers, as well as the comedic Burnt Face Man series. A number of Firth's works have been featured on the BBC in the UK, and the BBC has hired Firth on several occasions to work on television programmes and commercials. He also created a Flash animation series called "Jerry Jackson", viewable on Newgrounds and his own site, in which a cartoon character ironically pretends to be "a professional animator", even though the animation is intentionally poorly crafted. Jerry Jackson was also based on the people who would write badly written hate comments on his videos, as he would read them, he imagined that they spoke like Jerry Jackson.

Firth also created Men from Up the Stairs, and wrote and animated his Sock series, based on his own dreams.

Firth's work often contains a large amount of dark imagery and tends to explore topics of a disturbing or surreal nature, such as depression and mental illness. Firth has stated that it is not his intention to upset or offend.^[3] Some of his work may be described as dark humour, while much of it is simply experimental, using many different styles.

Firth is a fan of Aphex Twin,^[4] and has used references such as the song "Milkman" in a cartoon also titled "Milkman". Also, in the cartoon "Scribbler", an Aphex Twin poster can be seen. Firth has also used music by Aphex Twin in his more experimental, stop-motion films. He has also used music from prolific ambient artists Boards of Canada and Brian Eno in his work, amongst others.

In addition to several broadcasts of "Devvo", Firth has produced short films for "Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe", televised on BBC Four.^[5]

Firth composes electronic music under the pseudonym of Locust Toybox. As of 2012 he is working on his first animated feature film, tentatively titled "The Meadow Man". Firth believes the title will eventually change, though has said that for now it is the official title,^[6] as well as more of his small cartoons, such as another Health Reminder. Firth also plays lo-fi pressure-pop music under the alias Stegosaurus Trap, and is a member of a band called Grape Digging Sharon Fruits with friends and contributors to his projects.

He is currently hitchhiking around England and going to the following countries: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic, France, Switzerland, and Croatia.^{[citation needed]}

Work with the BBC

Firth has produced several animations for the BBC Comedy^[7] Web site, including his Musical Predictions 2009^[8] and a five-part series about a character called Jerry Jackson^[9] in 2009, a character sometimes believed to be an actual person, but stated on Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe as being an alter-ego of Firth.^[10] An earlier short of Jerry Jackson made outside of the BBC about Linkin Park also gained the attention of the band.^[11] In 2010 he created a new series exclusively for the BBC based around a new character called Drillbithead.^[12]

Work with Playboy

In 2009 David Firth produced a series of four cartoons for the Playboy Web site.

References

External links

• Fat-Pie.com David Firth's site hosting a complete collection of his works
• Devvo.tv David Firth's Devvo Work
• Interview with David Firth at Personal Halfquake
• BBC Comedy – David Firth animations
• Interview with David Firth on Red Bar Radio
• David Firth at the Internet Movie Database