MANILA, Philippines - Mid-season hiatus? For devotees of quirky NBC sitcom Community, going on break last November had to be the foulest joke ever. Since then, though, the show’s fans have saved the remainder of its third season, fanning the flames of Twitter outrage with hashtags like #SaveCommunity and #OccupyNBC.
It worked. The fans had rescued Community, yes, but to further sustain it and in a way foil any more let-downs from occurring to its newly renewed fourth season, fans have come up with an art show called “Six Seasons and a Movie.” To be held at Monk Space in Los Angeles from June 23 to 24, the show will feature over 130 artists from around the world.
Here, we talk to our very own art tandem Rob Cham and Kasey Albano on what it feels like to send their art all the way to LA in support of their dearest Greendale gang.
YOUNG STAR: First things first, Los Angeles, not bad. Not only are you and Kasey getting your work displayed at an art show abroad, but you’re also supporting Community. How does it feel to be given the chance to somehow put smiles on Troy and Abed’s faces?
ROB CHAM: Pixel Drip, the organizers e-mailed me about being part of it and I said yes immediately. It’s the kind of thing I would have seen on the Internet and say something like, “Damn. I wish I was a part of that.” Somehow I was asked, and I can’t not be geeking out over it. Community’s a wonderful show that just clicks with me, with its jokes, characters, and the general weirdness of its universe. I somehow place people who like Community above people who don’t but that’s just a terrible bias I have. It’s exciting to be part of the art show.
KASEY ALBANO: Thanks! The whole thing is cool. Cool, cool, cool. And it’s not just Troy and Abed — I’ve seen Alison Brie, Yvette Brown, and former showrunner Dan Harmon express their support for the art show on Twitter. The love and fuzzy feelings they give back to fans like myself means a whole lot. Hopefully they’ll swing by and pick up our prints.
Rob, what did you feel about Community going on hiatus?
ROB: It was a bummer and a sign of possible cancellation for the beloved series. I guess it was good in the long run because it caused fans to react with #SixSeasonsAndAMovie hashtags and other rallying cries to bring more awareness to the TV show. I tried to somehow support the show with angry tweets and sad ones, but it felt like something the fans loved was going away. It sucked to not have any new episodes. It felt like going cold turkey from this sweet, sweet show. It came back and all, and it was just a really great season of television for me. The last few episodes got me crying like a 22-year-old shouldn’t. There’s a fourth season so I guess all that fan participation and general watching of said show paid off.
If you could hang with anyone from the cast of Community for an entire morning, who would you pick and what would you do?
ROB: Donald Glover. Learn the secrets of his ways.
KASEY: Abed, definitely! We’d build a fort and eat tons of cereal while watching Game of Thrones. Or Girls. I think Abed would totally be into Girls.
Let’s do a quick jump to your works. Can you talk about the kind of art you do in general, and how it translated into the artwork you’re sending over to LA?
ROB: The art I do in general is influenced by comics, Adventure Time, and various Adult Swim cartoons. Just weird, trippy, happy nonsense. I hope it is anyway.
The piece I did for the show is called “In The Year 2013” and I sort of conceptualized what would happen to the Greendale Seven and notable supporting cast next year if they actually got a fourth season. At the time when I made it, there wasn’t any announcement if there’d be a fourth season so I figured, what the hell, I’ll make it the dumbest thing possible. I predicted that somehow Chang would end up naked and sad, Troy just grows a mustache (and that’s it), Abed continues to be the greatest human being, Shirley is now running her sandwich business, Jeff has become a nudist, Annie a delusional woman who wants to help people through impersonating a nurse, Pierce continues to be wacky on pills, Britta has become a full on Rastafarian, the Dean gets implants, the Human Being finds peace, and Star Burns continues to haunt them all.
KASEY: I admit design just always felt more natural to me than illustration ever did. So I cheat a little with illustration by keeping my forms simple, but I work with lots of texture and color to give them that vintage, mid-century character.
The artwork I’m sending over is an homage to one of my favorite Community episodes (Biology 101), which is full of references to two other things I absolutely love: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Doctor Who. In keeping with the Six Seasons and a Movie theme, I envisioned that episode being translated into an entire movie — earth is invaded by Kybermenschen, and it’s up to Inspector Spacetime, the Constable, and their newfound companions to save Earth from destruction. I threw in some Star Trek references as well and worked with a color palette reminiscent of the Space Race in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
What’s in store for you next?
KASEY: I’m going to continue designing stuff over at Create.ph. I plan to contribute illustrations to more magazines with the end goal of maybe creating something for The Monocle. Finally, more art exhibits. Rob and I are looking to participate in a Judd Apatow tribute art show in July. If that goes well, that’d be another article for you to write.
ROB: I’ll probably just work on projects I get from Create.ph and that Judd Apatow tribute show in San Diego as well. Other than that, I am working on comics. Yeah, I have nothing going on.