Two 'OC Register' Staffers Team Up to Create Political Animations

By: Dave Astor Political animations by Mike Shelton and Jocelyne Leger of The Orange County (Calif.) Register are being made available to other Freedom Communications newspapers starting today.

The animations -- which can also be used by Freedom properties such as TV stations -- were launched May 8 on Shelton's Register blog. They helped traffic on the blog quadruple from April to May, said Leger, who joined the Register in 1984 and now serves as illustrator and art director for the paper's "Commentary" section.

"We expected an audience for the animations, but people are even more interested than we anticipated," added Shelton, a Register editorial cartoonist since 1983 who's syndicated by King Features.

Shelton and Leger told E&P today that they've collaborated on computer animations since 1991. "We started to do them before Al Gore invented the Internet," joked Shelton, whose commentary has a libertarian perspective. But it wasn't until this spring that they finally had a regular outlet for their work.

Leger and Shelton are both involved in thinking up ideas for the animations and doing the voices. Leger, for instance, has voiced Hillary Clinton and Barbra Streisand, while Shelton has done George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Shelton does most of the drawing and caricatures for the animations, while Leger handles the animation and music -- some of which she composes herself.

The Register duo finish a new animation every other week or so. Each runs from 20 seconds to a minute, and each takes 45 to 65 hours to create.

Leger and Shelton don't begrudge the amount of time the animations require, because they love creating them.

"Jocelyne and I have other duties, so we do some of the work on our own time," said Shelton, who launched his Register blog in January. "But we're not complaining."

Shelton usually draws five cartoons a week for the Register's print edition, but he can do four in a given week if the animation gets too demanding.

Leger and Shelton, who plan to do 3-D animation in the future, don't know how many Freedom media outlets will pick up the animations.

But, said Leger, "it seems that everyone these days is looking for entertaining Web content."