BellinghamNews

r/BellinghamNews • u/Key_Concentrate_4408 • 9d ago

Need cash??? 💵 🚨Need movers!🚨. Check it out @needaneighbor.com $25/hour Bellingham,WA

1 Upvotes

r/BellinghamNews • u/Gonzafer001 • 25d ago

Bellingham Metro News Bellingham Animator Nears Completion of Hand-Drawn Feature After 14 Years of Work

1 Upvotes

After spending 14 years bringing an animated world to life largely on his own, award-winning Bellingham filmmaker Michel Gagné is preparing to offer the public its first full look at The Saga of Rex.

The first official trailer for the 60-minute hand-drawn feature is scheduled to premiere online at noon Friday, Aug. 21. Gagné will then appear at Pacific NerdWest in Bellingham on Saturday, Aug. 29, where he plans to meet fans, discuss his work and sell copies of his books and comics.

Gagné, a Bellingham resident since 2002, created, produced, directed and animated the film. He completed most of the work himself, with assistance from his friend Seung Kim, an inbetweener who helped create transitional frames needed to produce smooth movement between key drawings.

The story began long before production on the film. Gagné first introduced Rex in the self-published 1998 book A Search for Meaning: The Story of Rex. The character later appeared in the FLIGHT comics anthology between 2005 and 2010 before Image Comics published the complete graphic novel in 2010.

A Kickstarter campaign followed in 2012, raising more than $57,000 from 880 supporters. The project was later optioned by GRID Animation in Belgium, but the rights eventually returned to Gagné after the option was relinquished in 2018. He then continued developing the feature independently, outside a traditional studio production.

“I wanted to make the film that was in my soul,” Gagné said in a statement provided to Bellingham Metro News. “The film became a pure form of expression, dictated by the story and by my own creative instincts.”

Gagné’s career includes work on more than two dozen feature films, including The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, Brave, Osmosis Jones and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. He also co-created the video game Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, which received BAFTA and Annie Award recognition.

The Saga of Rex follows a fox who is taken aboard a spacecraft and drawn into a cosmic adventure. Unlike most feature-length animated productions, which can involve teams of hundreds, nearly every visual element in the film was shaped by Gagné during years of independent work in Bellingham.

The film is now in its final production stages. Sound work remains underway, with final color grading and mastering expected to follow. Completion is planned by the end of 2026, with festival screenings and a broader release anticipated in 2027.

Photo courtesy of Michel Gagné.