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Edd Gould
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Character Information
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Edward Duncan Ernest "Edd" Gould (28 October 1988 – 25 March 2012) was a British animator and artist. He is known for being the founder of the media franchise Eddsworld, which focuses on an internet flash animation series by the same name, of which he was the primary creator.[1] Production of the Eddsworld series and various other works were maintained by Gould and his friends Thomas Ridgewell, Matthew Hargreaves, and previously Tord Larsson
Early Life
Edward Duncan Ernest Gould was born on October 28, 1988 on Isleworth, in the Greater London area. Gould presumably attended the Orleans Park Secondary School, (as shown on his first cartoon, titled Edd Again) and met Matthew Hargreaves on a Sports Day Event. Although at first disliking him, Gould became good friends with Hargreaves upon the departure of his former best friend, (referred simply as) David, and Hargreaves was transferred to Gould's classroom. Gould declared he had a habit of drawing his friends into comics, so he included Hargreaves in what would become Eddsworld. Although first complaining about always getting killed on his early animations, Hargreaves became a prominent part of Eddsworld, but having substantially smaller parts in early animation inspired by the movie Wayne's World based on a popular Saturday Night Live skit.[2] [3]
Gould met Thomas Ridgewell online, shortly after he started making stick animations. Ridgewell was a fan who added him on a messaging service when Gould was making the Bendeeseries. Ridgewell sent Gould fan art and his work. At about the same way he met Tom, Gould met Tord Larsson online as well, becoming good friends. Ridgewell and Larsson were eventually included in the Eddsworld cast along with Matt, appearing in the 2004 animation Eddsworld Christmas Special 2004.
Gould met Thomas Ridgewell online, shortly after he started making stick animations. Ridgewell was a fan who added him on a messaging service when Gould was making the Bendeeseries. Ridgewell sent Gould fan art and his work. At about the same way he met Tom, Gould met Tord Larsson online as well, becoming good friends. Ridgewell and Larsson were eventually included in the Eddsworld cast along with Matt, appearing in the 2004 animation Eddsworld Christmas Special 2004.
[edit]Career
In 2002, Gould began animating using the GIF animation program with the purpose of publishing in "sfdt.com".[4] Upon discovering that the mentioned site was no longer accepting GIFs, Gould began watching flash animations. Astonished by the quality improvement, he abandoned the program and moved to Macromedia Flash in November of 2002. After 7 months of learning the basics of Flash Animation from his mentor Lavalle Lee (a flash animator and web designer), Gould published his first Newgrounds entry on 6 June, 2003.[5] Gould went on to create a nine-episode series called Bendee, featuring stick figures. Moving on to full bodied characters, Gould abandoned the Bendee series and characters to focus on his new Eddsworld characters and series, publishing the first official episode on December 25, 2004.
Gould soon began his professional career in animation and studied as an independent animator at the University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone, England. Along with Thomas Ridgewell, Gould and six other artist founded Cake Bomb, a creative media group to form various artistic works and animations. He later coined a personal catchphrase "It's pretty swell" that became popular with his fan base. He also voiced the "I Like Trains" Kid in the popular 'asdfmovie' videos on YouTube made by his friend Thomas Ridgewell. Cake Bomb disbanded in 2011, although his series Eddsworld was already independently in production during this time
[edit]Eddsworld
Main article: Eddsworld
Eddsworld is an independent British comedic flash animation and artistic media production company that was created by Edd Gould in 2004. Eddsworld currently consists of over thirty-five episodes (called eddisodes), over 150 comics,flash games, and various art work distributed on the home website, YouTube, Albino Blacksheep, Newgrounds, DeviantART, and the BBC.[6] The episodes are the focal point of the organization, which star Edd, Tom, Matt, and previously Tord, and run anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. While he was still alive, animations were created solely by Edward Gould and co-written by himself and colleagues Thomas Ridgewell, Matthew Hargreaves, Tom Bown, and Tord Larsson. It is currently under direction of Thomas Ridgewell. Eddsworld is created using Adobe Flash, a computer animation program.
The Eddsworld series has been popular on YouTube especially. At the time of his death, his YouTube channel had the most subscribers in the comedian category for the United Kingdom and was the 4th most viewed comedian of the United Kingdom. Eddsworld was noticed by the organizers of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference who requested the creation of an episode about climate change, which was used in the opening ceremony of the conference.[7][8]
[edit]Death
On 16 April 2011, Gould revealed he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. This was the second time he had been diagnosed with this illness (as he was diagnosed with the disease in 2006). He posted a video on YouTube entitled "Edd vs Cancer" which featured himself, Tom Ridgewell, and Matt Hargreaves discussing the diagnosis. Despite his health, Gould used his illness as a platform for several sketches on his friends' YouTube accounts, including Hargreaves' YouTube account and Ridgewell's alternate YouTube account.
On the morning of 25 March 2012, Gould died from leukemia. Ridgewell and Hargreaves announced Gould's death in a short video "R.I.P Edd Gould (1988–2012)" [9] on 27 March 2012. At the closing screen, Ridgewell stated that "Edd may be gone, but his world will keep on spinning". Gould's funeral was held on 10 April 2012, and a eulogy was created from various video clips from fans and friends giving condolences to Edd in response to his passing, which was shown at the funeral.[10] Gould was cremated. The last Eddisode he wrote and partially animated before his death was "Space Face Part 1", and was released onto YouTube on June 2, 2012. Thomas Ridgewell was left in charge of the Eddsworld franchise and is continuing to produce Eddisodes as part of Gould's will. This is being done through donations, via which expenses will be paid for production. Excess money and profits are to go to charities to provide non-medical support to adult cancer patients under Ridgewell's direction.