Talent Pun

Charlie Brown's All-Stars

¶ Art Direction, Design & Animation
¶ June 2013

Loud Crow Interactive: Talent Pun (art direction, design, animation, photography), Colin Cove, Mark Carter, Mars Dong (engineering), Tracy Tsui (designer)

A Charlie Brown's All-Star is an interactive book adaptation of Charles Schultz's 1966 follow-up TV special to the hit, A Charlie Brown Christmas. 

What people don't realize is that All-Stars is hysterically funny, even by today's standards, and very reminiscent of early Simpsons episodes. So the primary challenge was to preserve as much of the comedy and action as possible. 

One of the innovations of this app was that it became the first Loud Crow app to feature animation that could be controlled by the readings touch, similar to scrubbing back and forth through a playhead. It allowed us to combine the dynamism and timing of animation with the control and pacing of reading a comic book. It was complicated to produce — we had to storyboard and restructure every scene — but it demonstrates the potential of what an interactive reading experience can be.

In addition to being an Apple Editor's Choice in Canada, All-Stars received a Kirkus Star Best of 2013 from Kirkus Reviews and a Silver Parent's Choice Award.

Learn more about the evolution of Loudcrow’s interactive books apps.

Making Navigation More Meaningful

For Charlie Brown's All-Stars, I wanted to make the action of swiping tabs feel more dynamic, purposeful, and integrated into the reading experience. Because there was more action in the All-Stars — there are long sequences where the gang plays baseball — we tied the shot transitions and simple animations to the dragging of the tabs. This allowed the reader to manipulate the pace of animation while controlling the pace of reading, and reveal 'the hidden frames’ or transitions between two shots.