I want to thank everyone who’s followed this blog or just followed Grease Monkey’s progress over the last couple of years.

Sadly however I’m officially shelving the Grease Monkey project until I can give it the time and crew it deserves.

I’ve always had high hopes for this project and I’ve never wanted to compromise on the quality in order to get it made and after a while I’ve realised that I just don’t have what it takes to make Grease Monkey and do it the justice it deserves.

I hope to eventually come back and do it right but in order to do so I need a team of animators, a producer with some money and some real time, none of which I’ve got right now what with university and other projects. If I ever have the team though (and here’s hoping that I eventually will) the first thing I’ll do is tell the story of the big blue monkey and his lonely cyberpunk world.

In the mean time check out our new victorian horror project Greenwich Freakshow and follow GWFreakshow on twitter.

Thanks again, hope to tell this story someday.

The generosity of Professional musicians never ceases to impress me.

If you’re a regular follower of Do it Monkeyboy, then you’ll know that not only has my good friend Luke Bishop taken out far too much time to provide the project with not only the theme tune but an ever growing soundtrack album to boot.

A little further down the line I contacted Keith Karloff of the Bonedrivers (and formerly the Gone Jackals), who graciously allowed me to use an old track of his in the show.

Well it’s 2011, Year of the Blue Monkey and I woke up today to find a reply to an email I sent a little over 3 months ago to the masterful Author and folk singer, Spider Robinson. Once again I didn’t really think he’d give me his permission but the song Oblivion felt a perfect fit for the world of Grease Monkey so I thought I’d send him an email…

..Well of course if he’d said no I wouldn’t be blogging about it, let alone praising the man, but I just have to express quite how thankful I am to have this kind of support, especially from someone with such literary acclaim.

For those of you who don’t know, Spider Robinson is a science fiction author probably most notably known for his Callahan’s series, he’s also the winner of Canadian Hugo and Nebula award and has written well over 2 dozen books and I’d recommend a read if you get the chance. He’s also as you should have guessed, a musician and a great one at that. To fully try to summarise everything he’s done here would fill the page and I’d undoubtably not do hiim justice, so instead If you want to know more, have a look at his website.

 Support Spider’s music by buying his CD Belaboring the Obvious from his website here.

In other news, look forward to some concept art at the end of the week.

Updates are non-existant on the blog for the past week, I moved into me new student digs in Greenwich and we don’t get the internet till next friday, but I’ve been writing and tinkering and the finished Pilot should be finished by January 2011.

Keep watching this space!

Inspired by the Alien Traffic Cop blog, I think it’s about time I posted some information on the people behind Grease Monkey.

The Creator: Ben Nathan

I am Ben Nathan and I’m an Animation student from Leeds, West Yorkshire. I originally sketched Grease Monkey as the logo for a Rockabilly night at the Cockpit Leeds, called Grease Monkey @ The Garage, hosted by my brother (The Reverend Black of The Braxton Hicks and formerly Aces & Eights). I instantly loved the image but really just shelved it and thought nothing more of it.

It was only when I moved down to London to attend a Foundation Art course at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication and began to study animation that I looked back at the things I’d done to try and create a character that I could use and would be my own. I found the original sketch of Grease Monkey and began to rework the logo as a workable character, eventually making my final major project “Dirty Rockabilly Blues” as a vehicle for Grease Monkey. Grease was originally going to be a comic book until I realised quite how much I love animation. And the rest is history, I got writing with my good friends Adam Dukes and Luke Bishop and the rest is history.

Writer/Musician: Luke Bishop

I originally met Luke as he was trying to chat up my housemate in the Ravensbourne Halls of Residence, we quickly became good friends. Luke has been a musician for the longest time and if you’ve known him for a few minutes you’ll know this, but he’s also a great writer. Luke provided the theme tune and was an important contributor to the early development of Grease himself and the world in which he was set and even provided the voice acting of Grease in “Dirty Rockabilly Blues”. Luke is a great friend and an invaluable member of the team.

Writer: Adam Dukes

Adam was one of the first people I met when I got to university and we quickly became good friends. Adam is an aspiring sitcom writer and spills out a million ideas a minute….and finishes about 2 of them, but was invaluable in the early stages of developing the world and characters of Grease Monkey and as my new Housemate, he’ll be an intrinsic part ‘till the story is done

To me this is one of the biggest updates since I started this blog.

I’ve been a fan of a band called The Gone Jackals since I was a little kid. If you’ve ever played the old LucasArts masterpiece that is Full Throttle, the entire badass soundtrack is thanks to The Gone Jackals and as soon as I installed the game and the song “Legacy” played over the opening cinematic I loved their music and it very probably shaped my musical taste to this day.

Anyway about a month ago I was thinking of how I wanted to end the pilot episode of Grease Monkey and I always saw how I wanted it to end, even before the rewrite it was always to end the same way but I could never quite get it right in my head. So I’m walking to work with my headphones in and the Gone Jackals song, “We want our Brothers back” came on and suddenly it all fit together in my head. The only thing is that I don’t own the song. All the other music associated with the project is either from my Brother’s old band Aces & Eights or was written especially by my good friend Luke Bishop so I was resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to get professional music for Grease Monkey.

Well the other day I was talking to my good friend Gary and he told me to just email the record label and ask if I could use their song.

This morning I wake up, check my emails and Keith Karloff himself (the writer of the song in question) replied personally with the wonderful message:

Hi Ben:
Glad you’ve enjoyed the GJs work - our pleasure.
You have my permission to use “We Want Our Brothers Back” in your video, as long as it is a non-profit operation.  I am the sole writer on that puppy, so you’re asking the right guy.
When it’s done, maybe you can send a copy over to the BB address below - would like to see it.
Good luck in your artistic endeavors.
Write any time!
Very best wishes,
Keith Karloff

So as you would expect I’m over the moon, and Grease Monkey is not only one step closer to completion but now a musician I’ve admired since childhood would like to see it when it’s finished. Times have never been better for the big blue monkey!

Let the good times roll!

Support Keith by buying his CD by following this link

With me having actually gotten better with my updating and working regularly lately it’s a shit time to do it, but I’m moving into my new house down south 6 days from now and I’m having to pack.

Along with this the creator of the theme and a regular co-writer is house hunting and too busy to give me any updates on that front and the people I usually go to for proof reading aren’t around at the moment, so updates are going to grind to a halt, potentially immediately after this post.

Now this should only last about a fortnight at most and then I’ll hopefully have more images, music and characters for you to enjoy…

…but in the mean time thanks for the few of you who actually frequent the blog and support the development of the project, hope to be back with you soon.