The Saga of Rex is a graphic novel by Michel Gagne. It is, I am told, about a fox named Rex that is abducted by a spaceship for an alien ritual that ends up falling in love with "an enigmatic biomorph." Sounds awesome, right? Well, Mr. Gagne is attempting to create an animated version of the novel - with traditional cell animation. It's an incredibly ambitious project and he's turned to Kickstarter to find the funds to make it happen. His animation test is solid but he promises an end product along the lines of a Disney or Bluth classic.

Magne's financial rationale is right out in the open and highly respectable in how he spells out the need for his goal. The more he makes, the longer a short he'll be able to make. It definitely looks worthwhile, go fund it.

Oren Jacob has a pretty impressive resume - including being the Pixar CTO and Supervising Technical Director for Finding Nemo. Now he's teamed up with a bunch of other folks with impressive resumes - Martin Reddy, Bobby Podesta and a load more - to create ToyTalk; a forthcoming iOS app that, from what I can tell, creates a virtual interactive playfriend for your child. I'm taking a wild guess but based on the teaser video I'm going to say it's the Teddy Ruxpin of this decade. That may sound harsh but it's not meant as an admonishment, just an oversimplified touchstone review. Regardless, I am intrigued.

My immediate concern is that it would stifle a kid's creativity but since there are so many Pixar people at the helm on this, I am willing to bet it's immersive and facilitating of new wonders.

Jonathan Keogh

NylahKitty

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TheOnion

What a week! That whole Hurricane thing, Halloween, another VHX release, continued support for the previous one and more coming down the pipe real soon. Things are happening! This playlist is a weird one but, hopefully, you'll enjoy.

• Drunk Ghostbuster Backflips Over Cop - this ends exactly as it should.
• Sandy Timelapse - when Manhattan goes dark that's when things are getting super crazy. The only bummer is the lack of visible power plant explosion.
• Abby is tired of politics - in some part, I think we all feel this way. It's all over next Tuesday. If you haven't early voted yet, Don't Forget Election Day is November 6th. That's this coming Tuesday folks.
• 50 Cent dubbed with Jehovah's Witnesses want Deaf People to Stop Masturbating - I don't know the story behind this video and I'd like to keep it that way. I mean, explanation can only make it less entertainingly bizarre, right?
• Yo Gabba Gabba - Calm Down - great little animation from Jason Whetzell and Danny Jelinek (you know, the duo responsible for Everything).
• LA Rams - Ram It - Endurance Challenge. Can you actually make it through all six minutes of this? I could barely make it 1:30. via Burr.

That's all I got! Tapped out! Enjoy your weekend.

ToyTalkInc

Take some time to watch this great featurette on The Hattery Font, a typeface designed by James Edmondson. Typography design is one of those fields of creation that I can't even begin to wrap my brain around - particularly when it's done this well.

When you're done watching, go read this and then snag some typefaces: Lavanderia, Mission Script, Edmondsans, Duke and Wisdom Script all from Lost Type.

The talented folk over at Sandwich Video recently launched the introductory video for Summly - an iOS app that summarizes news articles in roughly 400 characters. Longer than a tweet, shorter than a full article. The video features 17-year-old Summly designer Nick D'Aloisio and one of my favorite folk, Stephen Fry.

I'm just now getting acquainted with the app itself but the video worked - I'm hooked on the concept and the UI!

Lately I've been seeing more and more "low-polygon" art making the rounds. We saw it with Geo A Day and now I'm seeing even more evidence of its rise with this collection of works from Tim Reynolds. The implementation has a unique style unto itself but Tim Reynolds makes it strikingly beautiful at times.

Much like Killscreen, I hope this art form continues to be gain traction and be pursued.

You think my title reads poorly? Try taking a bite out of the real, full, thing: Top 35 Startups In Tech that TechCrunch missed out on - October 2012.

Despite the hilariously awkward title, the rundown of Startups doing interesting thing is definitely worth taking a look at. I'm particularly intrigued by the likes of Mover.io, Artery and Typeform - all fairly nerdy endeavors but right up my alley. There's also plenty of more artistically inclined undertakings like Cappture, HealthAware or Iconify.

Long story short, it's a great list. Dive in.

Erica Luke

CompilarizTV

Earlier this week, We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists was released in its entirety online. The documentary tells the story of Anonymous - where they came from, what their perceived mission is and how they've always been splintered between actual activism and plain ole lulz. The trailer gives you a peek at a very small portion of the story and the exploits (good and bad) that Anonymous have been involved in.

On the whole, the movie opens up a larger discussion about activism through hacker culture. Anonymous is, obviously, already doing this but it's interesting to realize that forces banding together online really can make real world impacts. Either in Egyptian governments or in massive pizza delivery attacks. Works both ways. Get the movie.

Related: Director Brian Knappenberger AMA, @WeAreLegionFilm, @knappB, Rosie O'Donnell loves it.

There's a lot of enjoyable work in the portfolio of Samuel Guigues. I love this set of animals in city environments, Nature Humaine, but I'm also really loving his typography pieces as well. Like I said, lots to see.

So, I watched this video introducing the core concept behind Web Zap, a Photoshop plugin intended "to assist web developers with their mockup and ui design workflow." Essentially, it's a bunch of premade graphics and layouts that you can quickly dump / re-arrange into a PSD. It looks very well made and I can certainly see the benefit of using it a number of scenarios. My question is; is this a fast track to web homogeny or is it all in how you implement it?

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