monkey pirate zombie news

I AM alive!

2009-07-15T15:34:00.002+01:00

Yeah, um so it's been far too long since my last post and even longer since I've posted anything substantial but events have conspired. I have been working more at the job that actually pays me money (good for money, less good for time), which is only the beginning of my excuses. Also I have had yet another bloody cold that meant I didn't feel like doing much of anything, which was swiftly followed by the arrival of The Great British Summer which meant sweltering heat (for about a week), which again prevents me from spending all day staring at a screen making silly cartoons. Finally I now have KITTENS. They are very distracting. And awesomely cute.

So yeah, sorry about that. But I will make up for it. You will see a couple of new photoshops attached to this post that you can see in the newly updated photoshop gallery

More stuff will be up soon.

things

2009-06-21T21:29:00.002+01:00

Another family occasion (father's day in this case) means another in my series of photoshops for you to see today. Click for bigger. While I'm here I'll draw your attention to the poll I'm running over at the blog- you can help decide the future of the blog. Whether or not you read the blog you might wanna check it out!

Hasta La Vista Monkey

2009-06-08T16:14:00.003+01:00

Traveling back in time to a time when Terminator movies were actually good* and Arnie was just a movie star it's a new Movie Monkey.

Wallpapers: big bigger wide. Click on them if you want to live.

More Movie Monkeys

A new animation should be ready in the near future. Whoop whoop! I'll be back....

* Full disclosure I haven't yet seen Salvation, I'm going on T3 here. But by all accounts McG's flick ain't much cop either.

Update-othon

2009-05-31T18:10:00.002+01:00

A couple of little things to tell you about today. Firstly our friends over at Proving ground are offering you the chance to win some goodies including the previously unseen uncut version of the Defiant One video. All you have to do it sign up to the mailing list (for free) and enter. Details here
A selection of Defiant One wallpapers, avatars etc. are now available.
I've added a link to our Youtube channel, which has now had a snazzy update. Why not stop by and leave us some friendly comments?
Defiant Merchandise has also been added to the shop

The Defiant One

2009-05-27T18:15:00.004+01:00

In collaboration with Proving Ground, I am finally able to bring you the finished article of the animation i've been working on for some time now The Defiant One. It's a music video- the first full length one I've produced, and it's the first for Proving Ground as well. The second single from Proving Ground's Album Through the Red Door, this video is a dark and violent look at a war between angels and demons, and the effects of betrayal. It's avaialble in lovely shiny HD on Youtube, or you can watch it in it's original flash form here on this very site. Finally, it is avaialble to download as a podcast episode. However you prefer to watch it, make sure you check it out!

We're on amazon, how'd that happen?

2009-05-27T15:07:00.004+01:00

In 2006, I produced a little book MPZ: the bog book that I put up for sale on Lulu.com and has pretty much been forgotten about since. Oddly enough 3 years later, the peeps over at Lulu sent me an email to say that that its' been selected to be available through amazon.com market place. It's available to be seen here. If anyone wanted to buy it now It's cheaper to buy through Lulu directly but I just wanted to share the news of the book's unexpected reappearance... maybe it's time for a revised edition?

Oh and for my UK readers- it's on the US amazon only I'm afraid.....

new 'shop

2009-05-17T12:14:00.002+01:00

A small new photoshop for ya all. That's how I roll.

[click for big]

coming soon

2009-05-15T11:58:00.003+01:00

*hopefully

Checking in

2009-05-10T16:53:00.002+01:00

The new Proving Ground music video (which is what I am currently hard at work at) is progressing well. It may even be done ahead of schedule but time will tell. Other stuff is in the works too. Stay tuned....

May the 4th be with you..rofl

2009-05-04T17:49:00.004+01:00

It's the unofficial Star Wars Day- May the 4th. So naturally the first Star wars monkey is here to celebrate. (Doesn't mean I forgive you Lucas!)

In other news, I am currently working hard at a new animation that hopefully will be ready before the end of the month. Either way I'm keen to show it to you guys and gals.

Update.

Wallpapers now available in small large wide

Podcast update

2009-04-29T21:14:00.003+01:00

The HD version of leprocop has been released as a Podcast episode. Sadly the HD version won't be compatible with ipods (not with mine anyway), but you can play it on your computer if you can run quicktime (.mov) files.

We is 5!

2009-04-28T20:59:00.002+01:00

Five Frickin Years Old today ! The monkey has been celebrating a little too hard. That's all for now!

Five Frickin' Years: MPZ goes HD

2009-04-27T22:07:00.002+01:00

Monkey Pirate Zombie is officially Five Frickin' years old as of tomorrow (28th of April), which means expect all sorts of celebratory shenanigans over the coming days, weeks of months (we're five for a whole year after all). To kick off I have an announcement : that I will now be producing animations in HD. So I hatched a plan to transfer lots of my old toons into the new spanky format. Until I discovered that the HD-ness shows up the creakyness of some of the old material. So i decided I had to basically do it all again.

Which brings us to the shiny new version of my personal favourite animation from the site's history: Leprocop. It has been pretty much remade from the ground up (although the awesome voice acting remains) and is about 90% new, and very shiny looking. It's also a sneaky peak at where I'm looking at going with my trailer spoofs in future. You can check it out in HD on YouTube. (Make sure you click the HD tab to watch it in best quality)

RIGHT HERE

This may be just the first of my old toons to get shinied up so watch this space.
(You can see the flash version here)

Mad Cats and Englishmen

2009-04-23T21:59:00.003+01:00

Just a quickie update here- it's another photoshop mashup for yet another birthday card I produced. Click it to make it go BIG!

While I'm here it's nearly over but Happy St. George's Day to all my English readers around the world!

A thing. And another thing

2009-04-13T20:24:00.005+01:00

This is a small photshop I did for a card for a birthday. It won't be added to the photoshop gallery, not yet anyway, (it's a bit sloppy) but you can see it here. (Click for Biggy)

The last Movie Monkey Is now available as Wallpapers too- in the usual flavours
small large wide

up up and away!

2009-04-09T22:30:00.001+01:00

New Movie Monkey. That is all.

Less boring, cartoon related update

2009-04-07T16:41:00.003+01:00

Just to fill you in, there's quite a number of things in the pipeline. Two more episodes of Lovebytes (aka Ud8.tv) are written and are somewhere on the path to production. I am also collaborating with Proving Ground to make another animation, following the last successful collaboration. And those are only the things I'm prepared to tell you about right now!. More info soon!

Boring techie update (updated)

2009-04-06T16:45:00.007+01:00

If you swung by here in the last 24 hours in this space you may have seen a very happy post in this space about how I had overcome the problem with the coding on this page that made it look screwy on MS Internet Explorer. Very pleased with myself I was too. However checking back this morning I have no idea how but it's screwed up again. As a last ditch attempt I'm going to scrap the template and start again. So in the meantime there may be some disruption and the look of the site may change back and forth. Sorry for the disruption but hopefully It'll be worth it in the end.

update 14.55 BST: Site maintainence has begun. Site will look different for a little while, please bear with us.

update 16.30: Now looking pretty much as it should. A few bits of cosmetic changes still to go but so far so good! knowing my luck the small changes will cause the whole thing to go screwy again!

2009-04-01T10:00:00.004+01:00

I'm very excited today to bring you the most exciting news in the history of the site. Just hours ago we've signed a contract with a major Hollywood studio! In Summer 2011 Leprocop will be coming to a cinema near you! Based on our popular animation, it will be adapted into a full length feature. The director is already attached- and this is the best news of all.-the visionary genius behind such modern classics as House of the Dead and Bloodrayne 3. Yes folks, none other than Uwe Boll. It's too early to confirm casting but Bruce Willis has shown interest in the role of Jack Kannon, and Jeremy Irons is in negotiations to play the villain- a real coup after his tour-de-force performance in Dungeons and Dragons. More news as we get it.

UPDATE//...... Well obviously this was our little April Fools gag. Ahhahahahahah! Sure nobody fell for it, (Uwe Boll? Visionary?) but hey it was fun.

March Round-up

2009-03-31T21:56:00.003+01:00

I'm going to try and start doing these again, so you can find easier to keep up if you're a not-so-regular visitor to the site. This will be the highlights of the last month but to see it in every single post of the month - you can click here.

We launched the 5th anniversary celebration of MPZ, by giving the site a makeover. It looks best in Firefox or Google Chrome.
The Flash Gallery became 'Movies' but it's still the same old nonsense. You can download most animations in mp4 format now too!
The series previously referred to as ud8.tv is now called 'Lovebytes' and has a snazzy new minisite
I made a promo video for Proving Ground's new album Through The Red Door. It's got zombies in it.
The booty section was updated.

Ch-ch-changes again

2009-03-26T17:53:00.004Z

Believe it or not, Monkey Pirate Zombie will be 5 years old on 28th of April 2009! Woo! Go us! Who wants to make us a cake? Anyhoos as part of an early Birthday present I've given the site a bit of a makeover, sort of a version 2.0 of the new look that was launched last summer, as you should be able to see. What else is new? The 'Flash' section is now called 'movies'- I felt that as flash can mean movies or interactive games (and most videos can be downloaded too now) I needed to distinguish the animations. So The page has been redesigned- it's less flashy but much easier to maintain and keep up to date. Ud8tv finally has a proper mini-site and a new name to go with it- Lovebytes. The site map has been redone, and from now on if you'll find yourself there if you stumble on a broken link as well.

A little explanation

2009-03-26T17:33:00.002Z

OK, so having had one before and removing it I've reinstated the Paypal donate button in the sidebar. I won't ever beg or anything, but cards on the table time: if you feel like you'd like to contribute to the site but find the merchandise too expensive, then making a small donation ultimately could mean that I get the same amount. I get a couple of bucks from each sale so if you donate a similar ammount, you can support the site while making a smaller outlay. Any donations would be greatfully recieved (and all donors will be sent some exclusive artwork). If you feel like it click the button to the right. But no pressure.

Simply Booty-ful

2009-03-19T12:52:00.000Z

I have updated the Booty section (a.k.a. downloads) and added some new wallpapers and avatars, some relating to our latest zombie-tastic animation. The below image is available as wallpapers in various sizes, check out the wallpaper section to find the one that suits you best.

Through The Red Door

2009-03-12T14:04:00.000Z

I can finally reveal what I've been working on now. A little while ago, Paulo (you may know him as The Protector, the very talented composer of the MPZ theme among others) asked me to make a video to promote the release of his upcoming third album with his band Proving Ground. In typically overambitious fashion I set to work on a zombie epic. Eventually I had to scale back my ambitions slightly but I'm pleased with the result. It's my first action animation, and is quite different in style to anything else I've done to date, so I'd be interested to hear if you'd like to see more in the same vein. A word of warning- it contains violence against zombies.

Click here to watch the high quality Flash version (recommended) or you can see it on Youtube here (less high quality). Proving Ground's new album is due this spring, and the first single is being released on 13th of March, so if you like the music you can buy it soon! Visit their site here

This is also available as the latest podcast.

Update

2009-03-06T18:13:00.000Z

I don't generally get too specific with ETAs for things I'm working on (as they generally change, often for reasons beyond my control) but I'm going out on a limb here by telling you my latest animation project is nearing completion. I intend to get it done in the next week (although it's by no means definite) so keep checking back and you should have something new to gawp at in the very near future.

Probably.