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Craig McCrackens visual style is a staple of American animated television.
And Netflix was ready too.
Soon, hes brought together a ragtag team of locals and turned them into accidental superheroes.
He has no idea what hes doing and every alien in outer space has its eyes on his prize.
What was the genesis ofKid Cosmic?I came up with the initial concept and characters forKid Cosmicin 2009.
By the next Wednesday, the show was green-lit.
It was just being at the right place at the right time with the right project.
I just came up with an idea and realized I couldnt make 11s out of it.
You want to watch him get better, to show growth.
At that point, I couldnt even have begun to work on it.
No one would have green-lit it.
I just put it in the drawer, hoping that someday networks would be open to doing serialized comedy.
Then you just kind of make up an idea on the spot.
I almost conceived of it as a movie, thinking, All right, its about a three-hour-and-20-minute movie.
How do I break this up into chapters?
You think up the big story first, then cut it into parts.
You cant do a serialized show on a week-to-week basis you have to know where youre going every episode.
A big influence onKid Cosmicwas HergesThe Adventures of Tintin, because that was cartoony but grounded in reality.
What adventure are they on now?
Thats a very common storytelling technique in comic books, a medium that influences this series a lot.
Lets talk about those influences.
That dictated how we designed the show and storyboarded it.
Much of the story and its structure comes from my own personal experience.
A lot of things that the kid experiences in the series are things I personally experienced.
My father passed away when I was 7 years old, so I know directly what that feels like.
I pulled from my own life and applied it to these characters.
A lot of kid heroes are very aspirational.
They always say and do the coolest things and they never make mistakes and they always get things right.
What made you return to superhero stories in this cheeky, non-traditional way?I like superheroes.
Im still into that sort of thing.
Im a fan of the genre.
I didnt want that to be the message.
So I asked myself what a real hero is.
The theme of the show is, Heroes help, not hurt.
you could help someone whether you have powers or you dont have powers.
In the world we live in now, thats a very important message to tell everybody and especially kids.
Your art direction is very recognizable, even in shows that look very different.
You know who a character is already when looking at their filled-in silhouette.
Its also just what my hand does!
When Im sitting down drawing, its what comes out of my hand naturally.
Its the way my taste manifests itself on the page, I guess.
Ill keep doing a design over and over again until my brain says, Stop designing now!
1 focus wasnt jokes.
Its a real story, with real emotions, and it pulls from real experiences.
And I had the time to tell it!
I was allowed to let stuff unfold.
I didnt have to rush storytelling because I only had a short format through which to communicate my ideas.
Im a father now, and I have a different way of thinking about and doing things.
Plus Ive already made those shows and got that out of my system.
I dont need to make another campy parody of superheroes.
