
''The World of Stainboy'' is a series of
Flash animation
Adobe Flash animation (formerly Macromedia Flash animation and FutureSplash animation) is an animation that is created with the Adobe Animate (formerly Flash Professional) platform or similar animation software and often distributed in the SW ...
shorts created in 2000 by director
Tim Burton
Timothy Walter Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American filmmaker and producer. Known for popularizing Goth subculture, Goth culture in the American film industry, Burton is famous for his Gothic film, gothic horror and dark fantasy films. ...
and animated by Flinch Studio. The character Stainboy first appeared in two short poems in the book ''
The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories'', also created and illustrated by Tim Burton.
The series is Burton's first foray into the
superhero
A superhero or superheroine is a fictional character who typically possesses ''superpowers'' or abilities beyond those of ordinary people, is frequently costumed concealing their identity, and fits the role of the hero, typically using their ...
genre since ''
Batman Forever
''Batman Forever'' is a 1995 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Batman by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. It is the third installment of the ''Batman'' film series, acting as a standalone sequel to ''Batman Returns''. Directe ...
''.
In the shorts, Stainboy works for the
Burbank
Burbank may refer to:
Places Australia
* Burbank, Queensland, a suburb in Brisbane
United States
* Burbank, California, a city in Los Angeles County
* Burbank, Santa Clara County, California, a census-designated place
* Burbank, Illinois, ...
police, and at the start of each episode he is ordered to investigate and bring in social outcasts. Many of the outcasts are characters from the ''Oyster Boy'' book. Each of the six episodes is under five minutes in length. The final episode had Stainboy living through a
flashback to his early childhood at an
orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusi ...
, implying the beginning of a larger storyline, although no further episodes were produced.
In November 2010, Burton began a new story about Stainboy, on the
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
account "BurtonStory". Fans could contribute to the story via Twitter, and the best continuation Tweets of the day would be re-Tweeted by BurtonStory. The project ended on December 6.
List of episodes
# "Stare Girl"
# "Toxic Boy"
# "Bowling Ball Head"
# "Robot Boy"
# "Matchstick Girl"
# "The Origin of Stainboy"
References
External links
Multimedia The Tim Burton Collective. 6 Stainboy episodes.
*
American animated short films
Film superheroes
American horror short films
Animated films directed by Tim Burton
Short films directed by Tim Burton
American superhero films
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