David Firth


David John Firth is an English animator, director, writer, musician, actor, voice actor, video artist and broadcaster, born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. As a cartoonist, Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet, most notably through the popular Adobe Flash animation website Newgrounds and his own personal websites. Several of his works in Flash animation, along with multiple music videos and works of video art, have garnered large followings.

Animation

Notable animation sequences from Firth include Salad Fingers, as well as the comedic Burnt Face Man series. A number of Firth's works have been featured by the BBC in the UK, and the BBC has hired Firth on several occasions. He also created a Flash animation series called Jerry Jackson in which a cartoon character claims to be a professional animator, even though the animation is intentionally poorly crafted. The character was based on Firth's perception of Internet users who would leave hateful comments on his videos.
Firth's work often contains a large amount of dark imagery and tends to explore topics of a disturbing or surreal nature, such as depression and mental illness. Firth has stated that it is not his intention to upset or offend. Some of his work may be described as dark humour, while much of it is simply experimental, using many different styles.
Firth has produced several animations for the BBC Comedy website, including his Musical Predictions 2009 and the Jerry Jackson series in 2009. In 2010, he created a new series for the BBC based on a character called Drillbithead.

Filmography

One of Firth's most notable and productive projects has been MC Devvo aka Darren Devonshire. The Devvo series has been described as "a pill-munching, northern scallie that seemed kind of like a documentary.. " but "...far too harrowing and depressing for the main character to ever be real." It is a common misconception that Firth is the actor who plays Devvo. Christian Webb, who provides many of the voices in Firth's cartoons and co-writes the Salad Fingers series, plays the role of Devvo. Firth instead features as the cameraman and occasionally appears alongside Webb as DJ Shady Piez. Firth has also produced short films for "Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe", televised on BBC Four., Firth has been working on his first animated feature film under working title The Meadow Man.
Firth directed the music video for the Flying Lotus song "Ready Err Not", which premiered on Adult Swim on Halloween night 2014.
Firth continues to post on a regular basis on Fat-Pie.com and YouTube. On March 30, 2017, he created a Patreon page where fans can support his work.
On May 30, 2017, Firth released his new short film Cream on his YouTube channel. It was produced by Flying Lotus for his production company and record label Brainfeeder. It is sometimes shown as an opening short to Kuso, a surreal horror-comedy-drama movie directed by Flying Lotus. Firth contributed animation, writing, and a voice role to the movie.

Music

Firth composes electronic music under the pseudonym of Locust Toybox, and has released thirteen studio albums to date, most recently Toyboxica, which was released through Flying Lotus's Brainfeeder label. Firth is a fan of Aphex Twin, and has used his music in his work. Amongst other notable influences are Boards of Canada and Brian Eno. Firth has also created a videoclip for the Aphex Twin song "Milkman" from the Girl/Boy EP. Firth also releases music as Stegosaurus Trap, I'm The Manager, and is a part of English psychedelic pressure-pop band the Grape Digging Sharon Fruits. Most of his music are available as free downloads and have frequently soundtracked his animations.

Discography

All records are self-released except where noted:
Locust Toybox:
Grape Digging Sharon Fruits:
I'm the Manager:
Stegosaurus Trap:
Firth has voice acted as two of the antagonists in the indie psychological horror game, The Cat Lady, and its sequel, Lorelai. He was also a caller, Radio Doctor, on FlyLo FM, in the action-adventure game, Grand Theft Auto V.
Firth's most famous character, Salad Fingers, has been featured in numerous video-games such as Newgrounds Rumble and Chaos Faction 2.