L E V
L E V ,(aka Lev Yilmaz) creator and star of the wildly popular and poignant “Tales of Mere Existence” comic series is a San Francisco based independent film maker, artist and publisher.
Born July 16, 1973 in Boston, MA as Levni R. Yilmaz, he is the youngest of three siblings. His father is Turkish physicist, Huseyin Yilmaz, author of the Yilmaz theory of gravitation, and mother is Karen Carlson.
As a child L E V was interested in film and made a series of short satirical works with his brother by using his mother’s Super-8 camera .They made satires of what ever they view around them. An early critical eye observing a world as a skeptical outsider.
This skeptical view has permeated L E V’s current work. His series, “Tales of Mere Existence” is a portal into the inner thoughts we all have but fear to openly acknowledge, illuminating the encompassing alienation of social interaction in a world of post modernity. Hilarious and bitter sweet in its truth, the universal appeal of his work often finds one wiping away a tear of expressed hilarity that intermingles with ones own sadden acknowledgement of personal defeat.
The narrative of “Tales” is a pessimistic anti-hero who navigates the land of hipster-dom, akin to that of Sartre’s version of “social hell” and becomes an existential guide to the reality of this modern world. Similar to another pessimistic comic hero, Charlie Brown, of “Peanuts” fame, L E V working on a report as a boy about the comic strip actually contacted creator, Charles Schulz, who was accommodating and gracious to the young boy, spending time conversing with him. That conversation could have been one of the multiple influences, a prophetic foreshadowing of things to come. A critical, comparative analysis of both bodies of work could alluded to the idea that L E V in a way, could be considered what Charlie Brown might be like all grown up in post adolescences.
L E V’s career path to comic artist has not followed the traditional path. Usually a comic artist draws a strip and then creates the animated version second. L E V was the opposite.
”.... One odd thing, is that the movies came before the comics. I started drawing the comics simply because I wanted something to sell with the DVD's at film festivals. The early comics were very crude, and then developed into equals to the movies in the series” (November 1, 2007).
L E V notes multiple and varied influences to his work from other artist and performers such as ;
“Matt Groening's "Life In Hell", Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast Of Champions", Scott Dikker's "Jim's Journal", John Cleese, Bill Cosby's standup comedy records from the 1960's’ (November 1, 2007), can be felt in “Tales of Mere Existence”.
Inspired by a movie “The Mystery Of Picasso”(1956) painting on translucent canvas and filmed from the other side gave L E V the idea to show animation and motion of the story by filming while it was being drawn. This visually appealing technique, incorporated with L E V’s wit and exceptional storytelling has earned him honors in the animation world and festival circuits.
Some of his many career highlights included:
- In 2004, hired by sadly short lived Comedy Central show “Jump Cuts” to have “Tales of Mere Existence” featured.
- Had several illustrations included in Davy Rothbart’s 2004 book “Found”, which feature a series of discarded articles giving clues to the inner working of people’s private thoughts and lives.
- Toured France in 2005 at the invitation of Yann Broly and BOXLAND, where he showed live his technique of storytelling and animation.
- Audience Choice Award winner at “The World Of Comedy Film Festival” in Canada 2006, beating out Aardman Studios (Adventures of Wallace and Gromit:1989-1995, Chicken Run:2000, Flushed Away:2006).
-Only two year in a row winner of Audience Choice award in the Florida Film Festival for 2006 and 2007.
Notes of interest:
-Lev’s older brother, Emre Yilmaz, is also in animation business, working on such features as “Shrek” series (Dreamworks: 2001,2004, 2007) and
“Sesame Street's Elmo’s World” (1998-present).
-As of November 28th, 2007, Agent XPQ (L E V’s YouTube channel) is the 69th most subscribed to channel.
- Showing the immediate power of YouTube, within 24 hours of being feature channel for film “Subtext” on April 3rd, 2007, a hot political debate began between comments left pondering if Lev’s work was “giving joy to people, thusly improving the world” or “causing others to waste time they could use to be helping the world, thusly [...] starving babies by the millions”.
Quotes:
" I'm very happy every time I sell a book. $11 is a lot to pay for anything, especially if you can't eat it or jerk off to it".
WHERE TO FIND L E V ON THE WEB:
http://www.ingredientx.com/
http://www.talesofmereexistence.com/ (Under construction)
http://www.myspace.com/tales_of_mere_existence
http://www.youtube.com/AgentXPQ