EasterEggs in EasterLegs : The Jesus Leg Apparition

The animated Flash film 'The Gift Factory' (myTHself 2004) is a creation myth for the Easter Legs.  It was published on the Flash film makers portal NewGrounds and at www.Easterlegs.com in 2004 (in Flash ID [Infinite Definition!]) and on YouTube in 2010 (limited quality pixel encoded edition).

I Made it in Flash (Wikipedia) when the web was slower.  Traditional pixel based video could not download its necessary data in real time quickly enough for watchable video. Flash could use vector animation which simulated frames re-drawing them 'on the hoof' in the browser at the desired frame rate.  Vector drawings define line and area using maths.  The pictures are made from drawing algebraic graphs, giving each line and area its specific colour, thickness etc.  Designing with this in mind could give moving pictures with a tiny file size compared to pixel based video. 'The Gift Factory' movie is 6 minutes long but can be described in 700 kb of data, and half of that is the music! 

Flash movies are more like games than traditional films.  They are composed of a library of reusable graphic objects and characters.  Characters, character parts and whole scenes are made by nesting animations inside one another Russian doll style.  Flash had a simple coding language called Actionscript (Wikipedia) which could make parts of the screen responsive to user mouse clicks and cursor movement.  These areas named 'buttons' could be developed using timeline loops to make complex animated characters.  The movie maker could, game like, hand the power of directing these characters over to the mouse controller.  The resulting user manipulable virtual entities were called 'sprites'. The Easter Legs are sprites!

MIRACULOUS TECHNOLOGY

When I was testing the EasterLegs animated interface I unknowingly created a blank browser window appear with the JesusLeg alone and bleeding.  Initially I had no explanation for this screen.  A little freaked I undertook to find out how I had summoned this virtual space.  After extensive tests I realised that the window was a result of clicking and pressing the mouse over the Jesus' Leg and then moving the 'cursor' off  the 'leg image' with the mouse button still pressed.  The Jesus leg animation  is deliberately horrorful on continued mouse button pressing, did the movie's horror induce recoil in my mouse hand and thus the Jesus Leg apparition?

Having explained the phenomenon I was able to furnish this new space with intention - a few words and colours.  A miracle unaverted yet explained.  A serendipitous easter egg in WWW.EasterLegs.com




   

The animated web object www.EasterLegs.com, 2004.

www.Easterlegs.com is a moving picture made in 2004 by myTHself, Christopher Wonker.  It was built in ‘Flash’ to be on the web in a time before YouTube and it has been live ever since.  Flash was a visually intuitive drawing program ubiquitous but almost extinct now.  Most of the imagery is ‘vector’ based giving it unlimited definition for the modest file size essential for it’s day.  The website contains about 20 minutes of animation measuring about 2MB but with at ID (Infinite Definition?! having googled this word paring I think I have just coined a new phrase - It's lovley!  ID - Infinite Definition - a special feature of vector based animation) .

Opening with an emotive ‘creation myth movie’ the website establishes a plausible new family of holiday heroes ‘The Easter Legs’. The tension is made explicit in the collective presentation of the individual family members and the values, emotions they express and provoke.

Whilst building the website Christopher Wonker discovered a page he did not create featuring the EasterLeg he calls Jesus’ leg.  He has since wondered if this was the second coming of Jesus Christ as a digital avatar or at the very least a divine miracle. See if you can find this divine Easter egg when you explore www.EasterLegs.com.

A second version of the website exists  in which the Jesus leg character is replaced by a yellow eyed pink furry monster 'Beast Leg'. Blood continues to drip although now it follows the curve of long vicious talons. This version of the site has never been 'live' on-line.

Still Image taken from EaserLegs in the costume of their father featuring BeastLeg. 




The EasterLegs dressed as their father featuring Beast Leg.

Christopher Wonker 2/08/2006 & 25/06/2017. myTHself.

He/I is the creator of the EasterLegs.  He/I is Christopher Wonker.

"It was the Wednesday before Easter in 1998, my niece was almost three. I felt obligated to send her a gift for the first Easter she would be aware of. I lived in London, she lived in the north east, I had about 3 pounds.  I went to the shops and saw all the Easter eggs, I had enough money to post a chocolate egg but not buy it as well.  I went home and set about making a gift. I was going to send her a simple chocolate bar but there is more to Easter than that... holiday gifts should be more than stuff given. The previous Christmas I'd shared a joke with my niece. I pointed to my knees and asked 'if you are my niece, who's knee's are these?' ... she laughed aloud. It was the first joke we shared. I thought about the cardboard Christmas stockings I got as a child. It had regular chocolate bars stuck to a piece of card board in the shape of a stocking, this had made them special for Christmas. I thought about Easter eggs.... Easter eggs.... and then Easter Legs!!

I drew a large comedy cartoon leg and gave it googly eyes, a nobly knee, and prickly hairs, wrote on it ''to my knees", attached a few regular chocolate bars and posted it to her. I heard my niece had been delighted to receive her Easter Leg.

Over the next few weeks I began to ponder my idea. Broke, I wondered how I could make money with it. I drew all kinds of cartoon legs: animals; sportsmen; heroes; monsters. Then I drew a cartoon leg... with cartoon wood behind it... and I banged a large cartoon nail write through them both, the cartoon nail wound of the cartoon leg ran red cartoon blood. I had crucified an EasterLeg.  What was it's relation with Jesus' leg?

Brought up through the catholic church this Easter Leg picture/idea held power over me. I loved it. But to sell the idea must I forget it?  This tension of values interested me and was the turning point in providing the ideological momentum for the animated flash website www.EasterLegs.com. "