Edd Gould

Edward Duncan Ernest "Edd" Gould (28 October 1988 – 25 March 2012) was a British animator and artist. He was known for being the founder of the media franchise Eddsworld, which focuses on an internet flash animation series by the same name, of which he was the primary creator.^[1] Production of the Eddsworld series and various other works were maintained by Gould and his friends Thomas Ridgewell, Matthew Hargreaves and others.

Early life

Edward Duncan Ernest Gould was born on 28 October 1988 in Isleworth, in Greater London. Gould presumably attended the Orleans Park Secondary School, (as shown on his first cartoon, titled Edd Again) and met Matthew Hargreaves on a Sports Day Event. Although at first disliking him, Gould became good friends with Hargreaves upon the departure of his former best friend, (referred simply as) David, and Hargreaves was transferred to Gould's classroom. Gould declared he had a habit of drawing his friends into comics, so he included Hargreaves in what would become Eddsworld. Although first complaining about always getting killed on his early animations, Hargreaves became a prominent part of Eddsworld, but having substantially smaller parts in early animation inspired by the film Wayne's World based on a popular Saturday Night Live skit.^[2][3]

Gould met Thomas Ridgewell online, shortly after he started making stick animations. Ridgewell was a fan who added him on a messaging service when Gould was making the Bendee series. Ridgewell sent Gould fan art of his work. At about the same way he met Ridgewell, Gould met Tord Larsson online as well, becoming good friends. Ridgewell and Larsson were eventually included in the Eddsworld cast along with Hargreaves, appearing in the 2004 animation Eddsworld Christmas Special 2004,

Career

In 2002, Gould began animating using a GIF animation program with the purpose of publishing in "sfdt.com".^[4] Upon discovering that the mentioned site was no longer accepting GIFs, Gould began watching flash animations. Astonished by the quality improvement, he abandoned the program and moved to Macromedia Flash in November 2002. After 7 months of learning the basics of Flash animation from his mentor Lavalle Lee (a flash animator and web designer), Gould published his first Newgrounds entry on 6 June 2003.^[5] Gould went on to create a nine-episode series called Bendee, featuring stick figures. Moving on to full bodied characters, Gould abandoned the Bendee series and characters to focus on his new Eddsworld characters and series, publishing the first official episode on 25 December 2004. He did a crossover in the episode "Eddsworld Christmas Special 2004" with Bendee's last appearance, The special was uploaded to Newgrounds. Gould never uploaded it to YouTube, although it was later uploaded by YouTube user EddsworldLostEpisodes.

Gould soon began his professional career in animation and studied as an independent animator at the University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone, England. Along with Ridgewell, Gould and six other artists founded Cake Bomb, a creative media group to form various artistic works and animations. He later coined a personal catchphrase "It's pretty swell" that became popular with his fan base. He also voiced the "I Like Trains" Kid in the popular 'asdfmovie' videos on YouTube made by Ridgewell. Cake Bomb disbanded in 2011, although his series Eddsworld was already independently in production during this time.

Eddsworld

Eddsworld is an independent British comedic flash animation and artistic media production company that was created by Edd Gould in late 2004. Eddsworld currently consists of over thirty-six episodes (called eddisodes), over 150 comics, flash games, and various art work distributed on the home website, YouTube, Albino Blacksheep, Newgrounds, DeviantArt, SheezyArt and the BBC.^[6] The episodes are the focal point of the organization, which star Gould, Ridgewell, Hargreaves, and previously Larsson, and run anywhere from 30 seconds to 11 minutes. Until his death, animations were created solely by Gould and co-written by himself, Ridgewell, Hargreaves, Tom Bown, and Larsson. It is currently under direction of Ridgewell. Eddsworld is created using Adobe Flash, a computer animation program.

The Eddsworld series has been popular on YouTube especially. At the time of his death, his YouTube channel had the most subscribers in the comedian category for the United Kingdom and was the 4th most viewed comedian of the United Kingdom. Eddsworld was noticed by the organizers of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference who requested the creation of an episode about climate change, which was used in the opening ceremony of the conference.^[7][8]

Illness and death

On the afternoon of 16 April 2011, Gould revealed he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. This was the second time he had been diagnosed with this illness (as he was diagnosed with the disease in 2006). He posted a video on YouTube entitled "Edd vs Cancer" which featured himself, Ridgewell, and Hargreaves discussing the diagnosis. Despite his health, Gould used his illness as a platform for several sketches on his friends' YouTube accounts, including Hargreaves' YouTube account and Ridgewell's alternate YouTube account.

On the morning of 25 March 2012, Gould died from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and after a 6-year battle with cancer. Ridgewell and Hargreaves announced Gould's death in a short video "R.I.P Edd Gould (1988–2012)" on 27 March 2012. At the closing screen, Ridgewell stated that "Edd may be gone, but his world will keep on spinning".^[9] Gould's funeral was held on 10 April 2012 at All saints Church in Isleworth, and a eulogy was created from various video clips from fans and friends giving condolences to Gould in response to his death, which was shown at the funeral.^[10] The last Eddisode he wrote and partially animated before his death was "Space Face Part 1", and was released onto YouTube on 2 June 2012. Ridgewell was left in charge of the Eddsworld franchise and is continuing to produce Eddisodes as part of Gould's will. This is being done through donations, via which expenses will be paid for production. Excess money and profits are to go to charities to provide non-medical support to adult cancer patients under Ridgewell's direction.

Gould was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium after his funeral. In July 2012, Hargreaves scattered some of Gould's ashes in Hollywood after he, Ridgewell and others had been to VidCon.^[11] On 28 October 2012, Ridgewell and Hargreaves buried the rest of Gould's ashes in honour of what would have been Gould's 24th birthday. Ridgewell kept some of it close to him, and as for Hargreaves's bit, he was making a list of places to spread his portion of the ashes.

Filmography

Year	Title	Creator	Writer	Animator	Actor	Role	Further details
2004-2012	Eddsworld					Himself Various Characters	Internet animation series
2009-2012 (original); 2015 (archival recording)	TomSka					Himself Various Characters	YouTube channel
2009-2012	Slomozovo					Himself	YouTube channel
2010-2012	InkyKeyboard/Matt Lobster					Himself	YouTube channel
2011	Action Bunnies (RageNineteen)					Various Characters	Internet animation series
2012	Skeff (Paul ter Voorde)					Narrator	Internet animation

References

External links

• YouTube channel
• Newgrounds account