With the Kickstarter campaign for Far-Fetched live. We are delighted to be joined by its creators, Dave Capdevielle and Ashley Nichols. Dave is a writer, director, voice actor, and musician. Ashley is an animator and voice actor.
Hi, Dave and Ashley; it is so great having you both here with us.
Dave: Thanks for having us! Why is it so dark in here?
Ashley: and thank YOU!
Could you please introduce yourselves to our readers?
Ashley: I’m Ashley Nichols! I do animation stuff and sometimes voice acting. I’ve worked on shows like Lackadaisy, Animaniacs, and the Hazbin Hotel Pilot. I’m probably best known though for voicing Zooble in The Amazing Digital Circus. I’ve also voiced Billie Bust Up and Lackadaisy!
Dave: I’m Dave Capdevielle, a writer, director, voice actor, and the co-creator of Far-Fetched with Ashley. Originally, I wrote for the pilot of Hazbin Hotel, and currently work as a writer for Lackadaisy. I’ve also lent my voice to various creators and projects such as Gooseworx, Billie Bust Up, Gamecade, Monkey Wrench, and more. I’m also a huge horror and comedy freak!
Could you introduce us to Sesamoid?
Ashley: Sesamoid is the band our main group of characters is a part of! Rue, the main character, has to live in her childhood best friend Quinn’s garage after an unfortunate incident. As repayment Quinn makes her join his band even though she can hardly play keyboard (It’s his last option after every other keyboard player quits). Cosplay with Piper plays guitar, token dad Warren plays bass, and trash gremlin Griff sings lead vocals. The band takes a ton of inspiration from old 2000s pop punk/emo music.
Dave: Sesamoid is the hard rock / punk / goth / whatever band composed of the main characters in Far-Fetched: Quinn on drums, Piper on guitar, Warren on bass, Griff on lead vocals and their newest addition Rue on keyboards. They’re your definition of a mid-2000’s broke garage band, trying to make it big in their hometown where no one cares about them even though they’re pretty good. The fact that they now have a purple dog as their mascot and only an always broken / clown-headed ice cream truck to travel around in certainly doesn’t help their status either.
Could you tell us about the origins of Far-Fetched?
Ashley: Back in 2006 I was incredibly active on the art site Deviantart and made a bunch of OCs (original characters) to roleplay and draw with friends. Rue and Kira were two of those characters! Even though I didn’t draw them for a good 6-7 years, they stuck with me for some reason. In 2015-2016 the urge to revisit some old ideas and work on something that was truly my own hit me and I found myself going back to those old characters once more. I slowly developed them and played with ideas for stories for years until Dave came along and everything really took shape and blasted off from there. So there’s a ton of late 2000s nerd on the internet culture packed into this show, to honor those roots.
Dave: The series originally started as a more “slice of life” comedy starring Rue and Kira, with the misadventures of owning a demon dog. After we made the original proof of concept “Night Of The Cute Feast”, we decided we wanted to expand on the series and began developing the whole world of Veilport, the main setting of the show. We just kept dumping our brains out until we ended up with a horror comedy series about a girl dealing with a quarter life-crisis made real through her own mental creation and a band of misfits trying to survive in their hometown where monsters crawl around and science is trying to take over everything. It’s pretty much all the stuff we love put into a big ole blender.
Could you tell us about the origins of Sesamoid?
Ashley: In the show Sesamoid originated as a bit of a vanity project and middle finger by Quinn to the music industry that failed him. In the real world Dave came to me one day, looked me dead in the eye and said “we’re working with Jacob, Hunter, and Brett to make Sesamoid’s music” and as I was already familiar with how amazing they all were I had absolutely zero objections haha
Dave: People always ask “Why did you choose the name Sesamoid for the band?” and the real answer is that the human skeleton is hilarious and “sesamoid” tickled my funny bone. When Ashley originally mentioned to me in developing the show that Quinn would be the type to have a band, I pitched the idea of the other characters being members of it. Running with that, we just really liked the scope of making actual music to release into the real world alongside our cartoon one, like Gorillaz or Metalocalypse. Music is incredibly important to me, so it’s been awesome to create original songs and covers that have REALLY helped sell people on the show and our characters!
Ashley, can you tell us about the world that Far-Fetched is set in?
Ashley: Far-Fetched’s world is a place crawling with the supernatural, but with the onset of man and their loud bustling cities, supernatural creatures have had to change with the world. Either by adapting or dying out. So most people don’t even believe in the supernatural anymore, but between vampires running the music industry, a corrupt medical corporation with a special interest in monstrous creatures, and plenty of missing people cases, the veil is only hanging on by a thread and our gang of freaks is certainly pulling at the veil.
How did Spike Trotman get involved with Far-Fetched?
Ashley: We were already familiar with Spike through Lackadaisy and so when we realized we needed to start a crowdfund, she was our top choice in helping get that off the ground. She’s absolutely saved us from making more than a few newbie mistakes and we’re endlessly grateful haha.
Dave: We befriended Spike from working on Lackadaisy, and knew they had extensive knowledge on creating successful crowdfunding campaigns. This is the first time either of us have run a Kickstarter, so it’s been incredible to have someone on board who not only believes in the project, but also knows exactly what they’re doing with a proven track record to boot.
Dave, is there a particular character from Far-Fetched that you enjoy writing?
Dave: They’re all a ton of fun in their own unique ways, especially getting to mess with their quirks and develop them as time goes on as a misfit found family. If I had to pick a favorite to write for, it probably would be Griff, just because he’s so unpredictable in nature and responds to a lot of insane scenarios in really strange and hilarious ways. He’s my golden-hearted trash boy who goes through the ringer both on and off the stage.
Ashley, visually, have the characters changed since their inception?
Ashley: Oh ABSOLUTELY. Rue used to have long hair, blue eyes, and pointy ears. Kira used to have angel wings and be capable of walking on two legs, but shockingly hasn’t changed a ton since 2006. Rue also went through a period where she was a 12 year old boy named “Ethan”. Quinn’s character started out as a soft spoken blonde until becoming the black and blue egomaniac he is now.
Dave, what can you tell us about VeilPort?
Dave: Veilport is the setting of our series, modeled after seaside lighthouse / boardwalk towns and filled with forest spots for things to go bump in the night. We really wanted to bring out those vibes of “there’s something off about this place” that most residents just ignore on the surface. I think of films like John Carpenter’s The Fog when we came up with it, but during a time of major expansion into a bigger city due to the recent arrival of the mysterious company CerviCare. The theme of “your hometown slowly becoming something you don’t recognize anymore” will be a big one in the series for the Sesamoid gang to deal with.
How would you describe Far-Fetched?
Ashley: My favorite way to describe the show is “Scooby-Doo meets Resident Evil, but for people who shop at Hot Topic”. Our main character Rue is thrust into adulthood well before she’s ready and just like how it feels in the real world, it’s a horrifying and supernatural experience. Thankfully she has her purple Deviantart sparkle-creature Kira by her side, even if she is chaos incarnate, and her egocentric best friend by her side… okay maybe not thankfully. She might be screwed. And all the monsters around don’t help. But… maybe they’ll survive?
Dave: All jokes aside, I really think it’s just a fun show that brings something new to the table while paying homage to horror films of the 1980s and the classic era of cartoons and music of the 2000s that we grew up with. If you like comedy, action, scares, rockin’ tunes, monsters, mad science, strange small towns, the struggles of early adulthood and anxiety, beautiful animation, fun characters, and the color purple, then why not give us a shot?
Do you have a favourite Kickstarter reward?
Ashley: I’m SUPER excited for the Far-Fetched Art & Comics book! It will feature tons of concept art all the way from the characters inception in 2006 through the completion of the pilot as well as production stories, behind the scenes looks at making an indie show, character art and also every single comic we’ve released for the show so far! And likely some revamps of our older comics as well.
Dave: We’ve included lots of juicy perks for folks to sink their teeth into, but my favorite is probably a tie between the original animatic download, complete with bloopers from the voice actors and the exclusive MP3 downloads of all the Sesamoid songs! We really wanted to give our backers a bunch of things they can’t get anywhere else from the production of our pilot.
Any message for the ComicBuzz readers?
Ashley: If you’ve read this far you’re pretty cool and if you’d like to support our freaky little baby please go check it out! Keep animation alive! Support Indie!
Dave: You can pre-save the campaign for Far-Fetched on Kickstarter right now, and visit our website and social media for all information about the show. We hope you’ll consider donating to bring Far-Fetched to life! Also, wear your seatbelt, kids! Your parents didn’t lie about that one.
We would like to say a big thank you to Dave and Ashley for chatting with us, and we wish them the best of luck with the campaign for Far-Fetched.
Free free to check out Far-Fetched on Kickstarter.
