Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1485933
D E PA R T M E N T 35 KEYFRAME SEEN AND HEARD Abominable and the Invisible City takes children on a playful ride through Chinese culture. While Abominable and the Invisible City is a spin-off series from the 2019 feature film Abominable, it trades in the movie's "epic quest" trope for adventure-lite stories that take an imaginative look at Chinese tradi- tion. Each episode features Yi, Jin, and Peng, along with the lovable yeti Everest, as they help a different magical creature, some original but most inspired by mythol- ogy, such as Todd the Toad and Sewer Koi. For Tiffany Lo and Ethel Lung, the series' Story Editors, one of the exciting things about working on this project is that much of the creative leadership is Asian American, sharing similar refer- ence points. "When you say, I want a sesame bun, that's it," says Lung. "[The art directors] don't need to look it up. They eat it with their kids. Or [take] Voice Director Stephanie Sheh. She understands exactly how to speak to an elder. The respect level. The luxury of bantering in a certain way. It would be hard for us to convey that to a director who didn't have those experiences." A big fan of cartoons as a kid, Lo says that when she watched the characters: "I would insert myself into them in a way. But they never looked like me. What that did to me—it was this subconscious thing: I didn't want to be me. I wanted to be what I saw on the screen. That is why it's so important to have representation behind the screen in writing." As for any characters of color that did exist, most were written by white writers, and Lung adds, "we need to make sure that our voices are heard in authentic ways." The show is also important, they say, because of the recent rise in anti-Asian hate. "Very few media outlets report on it," says Lo. "There's very little outrage around it other than from our own community. What we can do as writers and creators is put people who look like us front and center in the mainstream as normal, flawed individuals—not the quote-unquote other." The message they hope to convey comes organically, according to Lung, because a lot of Chinese folklore and mythology is about acceptance. Not that they want Abominable and the Invisible City to be a "message show." They want it to celebrate Chinese culture in a fun way, and to do that, they took inspiration from original folklore and then built modern stories around that. Todd the Toad, for example, is a tradi- tional symbol of prosperity. Most Chinese businesses display a toad with coins in its mouth. Using this as a foundation, Lo and Lung built on the character, giving Todd the ability to grant wishes. Another character is Sewer Koi, who is based on a traditional giant fish who wants to be a dragon. "Why not utilize our [Shanghai] cityscape and the close relationship with AUTHENTIC VOICES VOICES OF EXPERIENCE DEEPEN SHARED CONNECTIONS IN TWO ANIMATED SERIES opposite: Story Editors Tiffany Lo (left) and Ethel Lung united traditional Chinese culture with their own modern perspectives to create universal stories of adventure and acceptance. this page: Todd the Toad. Abominable and the Invisible City images courtesy of DreamWorks Animation WINTER 2022 35 By Kim Fay