Benjamin Renner is a French cartoonist and was a director on the animated film
Ernest and Celestine about the friendship of a bear and a mouse. I loved the movie released by
Gkids in the US market. When I saw his
The Big Bad Fox was coming from
First Second Books, I ordered the graphic novel at my local comic shop. When I saw Benjamin and
The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales film adaptation was coming to the San Francisco International Film Festival, I made sure to be there. SFFilm Director of Education Keith Zwolfer introduced Benjamin before the screening and conducted a question and answer session afterwards. Benjamin started these stories of barnyard animals when he was twelve or thirteen as short comics he gave as gifts to family members instead of proper gifts. He thought he would adapt one story as a short television program, but his partner convinced him to turn three stories into a feature film. The animation is hand drawn on computer screens. The SFFilm screening showed the movie in French with English subtitles, but Gkids is working on an English-language soundtrack for release in June.Some AV equipment was set up and Benjamin sat down to draw some of his characters and paint them with watercolors. At the conclusion, Keith led Benjamin outside the Castro Theater where he met fans, posed for photos, signed autographs, and drew sketches. Keith announced
The Big Bad Fox graphic novel was for sale at
Green Apple Books, a San Francisco institution, but I may have been the only one with a copy in hand and showed it to a few other fans. I hung back and let the families with kids go first. Benjamin was happy to see a fan with his book and drew the fox with the three baby chicks who adopt him as their mother. My next step will be to seek out his
A Mouse's Tale from Ron Diamond's
Animation Show of Shows. Ron has screenings at WonderCon and San Diego Comic Con.
