It was very important for the backgrounds to serve the characters, making sure they could navigate through the spaces without it seeming awkward.” If you saw something in the background, you could imagine getting closer to it, and exploring it, or if you spotted an object, you could imagine Clancy using it. “ The Midnight Gospel definitely has that effect, but it also always maintains a sense of realism. “Some backgrounds in cartoons can be really ‘wacky,’” says Cobb. The challenge, as Cobb explains, was in finding a balance between maintaining the “logic” and consistency in the backgrounds-making sure things made sense from scene to scene-and creating otherworldly environments. Sketch of “junk collected by Clancy.” Courtesy Liam Cobb. “Every graphic element had a smooth straight line, and all shapes and corners would always have the same diameter,” says Cobb. The set of visual rules not only underscored stylistic details like the need to simplify busy compositions, but also focused on the nitty-gritty. “I was reminded of artists like Hieronymus Bosch, and created these twisted landscapes that look a bit like skeletons crawling out of the earth, but with a comical touch, of course.” These complex backgrounds that add layers of symbolism to each scene lend a very re-watchable quality to the show, with a promise of new discoveries with every rerun.Īlong with fleshing out the storyboards and animatics that laid the conceptual foundation of the backgrounds, Moynihan and lead background designer Elle Michalka also defined a “house style” that ensured all creations developed across multiple teams looked coherent. “ Based on the concept and the initial sketches, I wanted to reflect the pain and the demons that the prisoners could have experienced within the landscape,” he says.
In episode five, which follows Clancy visiting a soul prison on a remote island, Cobb delved into his own ideas of an apocalyptic landscape. “Although the background stories might, at times, seem almost incidental, if you pay attention you’ll find all sorts of interesting things going on.” “So although the background stories might, at times, seem almost incidental, if you pay attention you’ll find all sorts of interesting things going on.” “Sometimes, they even act as metaphors to help visualize what Clancy and his interviewees are discussing,” says Cobb.
In addition to outlining the details that define these new worlds, the backgrounds also help set up the multiple narratives going on throughout the show. Still of the zombie house from Episode 1.Īs Clancy hops across universes meeting weird new characters, much of the intricate worldbuilding that anchors the story occurs through the trippy backgrounds.
“There are beautiful, wondrous worlds full of intelligent beings with stories to tell, and I’m going to interview them and put my interviews online and make a bunch of money so suck my d***,” he declares. In each episode, Clancy picks a brand new universe to travel to, pops his head into a yonic, fleshy “multiverse simulator,” and the show begins. “ The Midnight Gospel explores what it means to be human through conversations between characters, rather than asking those questions and looking for their answers in a straightforward narrative,” says Cobb. Still of “Meat City” from The Midnight Gospelĭigging into ideas of metaphysics, love, zombies, and loss, the show poses compelling questions, but sets forth to answer them in comic, irreverent ways.
But Cobb’s illustrations, as well as the creative processes that led to the scenes, are an indispensable part of the worldbuilding process-especially in a series with as many worlds as The Midnight Gospel. Many of the show’s viewers may not even realize that designing the backgrounds required a team of its own. Each episode unfolds against the backdrop of a new fantastical world, created in part by illustrator Liam Cobb and a team of designers entrusted with the show’s background design.Ĭobb, well-known for his quietly surreal comics like The Inspector and Shampoo, had never worked as a background designer for an animated series before the series’ art director, Jesse Moynihan, approached him. The outlandish, brain-melter of a series follows the adventures of its protagonist, Clancy, as he travels to unknown, dying universes to record interviews for his “spacecast” (like a podcast, but trippier).
On April 20, Netflix released The Midnight Gospel, an eight-episode, psycho-cosmic adventure spun by the brilliant minds of Pendleton Ward-of Adventure Time fame-and comedian Duncan Trussell (whose podcast, Duncan Trussell Family Hour, set the tone for the show). Still from the new Netflix animated series The Midnight Gospel