written by Joe Strike
You can (almost) always tell an animator by their t-shirt, so I figured the young lady in the Supergirl tee waiting for the hotel shuttle at the Baton Rouge airport had to be in town, like me, for the Red Stick festival. The Supergirl fan turned out to be Carmen Llanos from Comet Entertainment, soon joined by her partner Raquel Benitez in a Chinese dragon tee. (Me, I’m wearing my Comic Book Legal Defense Fund shirt with the tough, healthily-chested cat babe pointing her gun right atcha and politely inquiring “who you tellin’ to shut up!?!”) Last year Carmen and Raquel were here with their Santa vs. Claus feature, the screening of which I missed due to an early departure. This year I’m staying to the very end, which means I’ll get to see their new one, Around the World for Free, which they tell me started as a TV pilot, became a feature and will spin itself off into a TV series after all.
Now here in the hotel lobby business office filing this entry, I’m sitting back to back with Marlene Sharp of Enemes, Inc., a Korean animation studio that’s done Higglytown Heroes for Playhouse Disney and the Stitch! DTV movie. She’s here - in a Barbie tee - to be one of the judges in Red Stick’s show pitching competition (and she types faster than me…)