Edward Duncan Ernest Gould was a British animator, artist, writer, and voice actor. He was known for creating Eddsworld, a media franchiseconsisting ofFlash animations and webcomics featuring fictionalised versions of himself and longtime collaborators Thomas Ridgewell, Matt Hargreaves and others. After Gould's death in 2012, production of Eddsworld was passed on to Ridgewell and later Hargreaves.
Early life
Gould was born on 28 October 1988 in Isleworth, in Greater London to his mother, Susan "Sue" Gould and father Duncan Gould. He has a sister, Victoria "Vicky" Gould, and brother George Gould. Gould attended the Orleans Park School, and met Matt Hargreaves on a sports day event. Although disliking him at first, Gould became friends with Hargreaves upon the departure of his former best friend, David Chapman, and after 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. Gould met Ridgewell online, a fan of his work, shortly after he started making stick animations. In the same way he met Ridgewell, Gould met Tord Larsson online as well, becoming good friends. Ridgewell and Larsson were eventually included in the Eddsworld cast along with Hargreaves, appearing in Eddsworld Christmas Special 2004.
Career
In 2002, Gould began animating using a GIF animation program to publish on Stick Figure Death Theatre. Upon discovering the website no longer accepted GIFs, Gould moved to Macromedia Flash in November 2002. After seven months of learning the basics of Flash animation from his mentor Lavalle Lee, Gould published his first Newgrounds entry on 6 June 2003. Gould soon began his career in animation and studied as an independent animator at the University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone, England. Gould later joined Cake Bomb, a creative media group founded by Ridgewell. He also voiced the "I Like Trains" kid in TomSka's asdfmovie series on YouTube and animated the second episode of asdfmovie.
Illness and death
On the afternoon of 16 April 2011, Gould revealed that he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. This was the second time he had been diagnosed with this cancer, previously diagnosed in 2006. He posted a video on YouTube entitled "Edd vs Cancer" which featured Gould, Ridgewell, and Hargreaves discussing the diagnosis. Despite his health, Gould used his illness as a platform for several sketches on his friends' YouTube accounts. On the morning of25 March 2012, Gould died from a recurring infection caused by his cancer. Ridgewell and Hargreaves announced Gould's death in a short video, "RIP Edd Gould ", on 27 March 2012. Gould's funeral was held on 10 April 2012 at All Saints Church in Isleworth, and a eulogy was compiled from various video clips from fans and friends giving condolences to Gould, shown at the funeral. His last episode for Eddsworld was "Space Face ", which was released on YouTube on 2 June 2012. Production for Eddsworld was passed to Ridgewell and he continued to produce episodes as part of Gould's will. Under Ridgewell's direction, excess money and profits went to CLIC Sargent, a program which provided support to child cancer patients. Gould was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium after his funeral. In July 2012, Hargreaves and Ridgewell scattered some of Gould's ashes in Hollywood after they were at VidCon.
