DAY 013: Fawn Fitter's Red Eye, Yellow Puddle

Day 011: How To Speak Cat, is missing. It was probably a cat meowing, with improbable subtitles. Also missing: Day 012: DeathCo. If memory serves, it's Death in a business suit using corporate jargon. And when isn't death funny, right? But Day 013 features Bay Area writer Fawn Fitter, who recorded this true story somehow just for the Bateman365. Animating weird-but-true stories would become a regular feature on the Bateman365.

Day 010: Elyse Sewell's Fabulous Hong Kong Apartment

Oh man, Elyse Sewell! Elyse Sewell appeared on season one of America's Next Top Model. She was the "edgy pre-med student," and she was awesome. She placed third, which, not bad! She went on from the show to do a ton of modeling in Hong Kong, which is where she was when she recorded this for me to animate. Later, she came back to the US and used her modeling bank to go back to medical school. As near as I can tell, she is back in Albuquerque and still in med school? I should really get caught up with her, and apologize for how I made her look here.

DAY 009: Actual Excerpts From The President's Speech of 2/6/03

The first Bateman365 animation to use actual audio of a politician. This idea of riffing on the actual audio of actual speeches by actual politicos would go on to form the basis of the work I did for Salon during the 2008 presidential election and DailyKos back in 2009-10. This is where all that started!

DAY 008: Scurvy Steve, Pirate Accountant

The debut of another character. As I've said, the Bateman365 was originally to be mostly character-based and not guest-based, and but so the first 60 or so animations feature lots of goofy characters like this. And I promise the upsetting color style goes away eventually!

DAY 007: Mayzie Hart's Cat In A Bun

Day 006 is missing. It featured author Terry Bain (You Are A Dog) talking about Starbucks, I think. Day 007 features Portland resident Mayzie Hart, who I knew from LiveJournal (which was still a thing in August 2005 when this animation was made). We still follow each other on all the social media, but I believe we have yet to meet in real life. What? I know! But: I love this story.

DAY 005: Stoner Dude

The animations for Day 003 and Day 004 are lost forever. Day 003 was called "Trapped in the Closet." Day 004 was called "Puffy's New Name," and featured the 365's first guest star, Colleen AF Venable. Day 005 introduces another favorite character, Stoner Dude. He's a dude who's stoned. So that's a thing.

DAY 002: Bob The Damn Bunny

Before I realized I could collaborate with others for sound bites to animate, I figured I could simply come up with a dozen or so rotating characters. Some of these characters are better than others, but I still kinda love Bob the Damn Bunny.

DAY 001: Politics Schmolitics: Karl Rove

This was the animation that started the Bateman365, a project where I made an animated thing a day for a year. Oh, such humble beginnings for a project that would change my life.

Since I was transitioning from being a print political cartoonist to a web animator, it makes sense I would start with politics. Luckily, I would soon turn to more pressing topics.

The style: for the first several Bateman365 animations, I drew line drawings on paper, colored them in with colored pencils, then scanned them in and digitized them in Flash, which produced the weird color effects you see here. Luckily, this eventually goes away, too.