This is the first time the disease has been reported in the country since the deadly 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa which claimed over 11,000 lives.
Very concerned by reports of 4 suspected Ebola deaths in Guinea. @WHO is ramping up readiness & response efforts to this potential resurgence of #Ebola in West Africa, a region which suffered so much from Ebola in 2014. pic.twitter.com/9eyMLeZutK
“It’s a huge concern to see the resurgence of Ebola in Guinea, a country which has already suffered so much from the disease”, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said.
“However, banking on the expertise and experience built during the previous outbreak, health teams in Guinea are on the move to quickly trace the path of the virus and curb further infections”, she added.
According to the UN health agency, the cases, which were confirmed by the national laboratory, occurred in Gouéké in N’Zerekore prefecture, in southern Guinea. Initial investigations found that a nurse from a local health facility died on the 28 January. Following her burial, six people who attended the funeral reported Ebola-like symptoms and two of them later died. The other four are in hospital.
Samples of the confirmed cases have been sent to the InstitutPasteur centre in Senegal for full genome sequencing to identify the strain of the Ebola virus.
Guinea was one of the three most-affected countries in the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak which was the largest since the virus was first discovered in 1976. The outbreak, which saw some 28,000 cases, including 11,000 deaths, started in Guinea and then moved across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Staff from WHO are already on the ground, assisting surveillance, and infection prevention and control efforts.
“WHO is supporting the authorities to set up testing, contact-tracing and treatment structures and to bring the overall response to full speed”, Dr. Moeti said.
WHO personnel are also reaching out to communities to ensure they take a key role in the response. In addition, the agency is also helping Guinea procure the Ebola vaccine which has proven instrumental in controlling outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
As the epicentre of the current outbreak in a border area, WHO is also working with health authorities in Liberia and Sierra Leone to step up community surveillance of cases in their border districts as well as strengthening their capacity to test for cases and conduct surveillance in health facilities.
WHO is also reaching out to Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal and other countries at risk in the region, the agency said.
Ebola virus disease
Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a rare but severe, often fatal illness in humans. The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50 per cent, with rates having varied from 25 per cent to 90 per cent in past outbreaks.
The Ebola virus spreads through contact with the body fluids – such as vomit, faeces or blood – of an infected person, or through surfaces and materials (such as bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.
The incubation period, that is, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms, is from two to 21 days. The symptoms of EVD can be sudden and include fever, fatigue, muscle, pain, headache, and sore throat.
This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, symptoms of impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases internal and external bleeding.
According to WHO, though there are no known treatments for Ebola, an Ebola vaccine rVSV-ZEBOV can offer protection against the deadly virus. In addition, simple interventions early on can significantly improve chances of survival, including rehydration with fluids and body salts (given orally or intravenously), and treatment of specific symptoms. Hand hygiene is also a very effective way to prevent the spread of the virus.
This loan will further support the progress and expansion of OSE Immunotherapeutics’ lead clinical development programs in diseases with high unmet medical needs,
Divided into three tranches including two tranches of €10 million each and a third tranche of €5 million,
Agreement part of the European Investment Bank’s strategy to support biotech companies developing a high-level of expertise in various areas such as OSE’s immunotherapy programs, including its vaccine program against SARS-CoV-2.
OSE Immunotherapeutics (ISIN: FR0012127173; Mnemo: OSE) today announced that the company has signed a loan agreement of up to €25 million with the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The loan facility of up to €25 million is divided into three tranches including two tranches of €10 million each and a third tranche of €5 million.
The first €10 million tranche, unconditional and which OSE will request payment before the end of May 2021, will help expand the clinical development of Tedopi® in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor in additional cancer indications. This first tranche will also support the entry into Phase 1/2 of OSE-279, OSE’s proprietary anti-PD-1 antibody, in a niche oncology indication. This development of OSE-279 will allow OSE Immunotherapeutics to have its own proprietary anti-PD-1 antibody and leverage it across OSE’s product portfolio in combination with other drug candidates. Moreover, OSE-279 is the key anti-PD-1 backbone component of the bifunctional checkpoint inhibitor BiCKI® platform, targeting PD-1 and other innovative targets, paired with novel immunotherapy targets.
The remaining two tranches of €10 and €5 million, available upon achievement of specific clinical milestones, are planned to be used to accelerate the clinical development of the Company’s other programs, in particular CD28 antagonist FR104 and new anti-ChemR23 agonist OSE-230.
Alexis Peyroles, Chief Executive Officer of OSE Immunotherapeutics, comments: “We are very grateful for EIB’s support, a major financial European institution, as the Company is at an inflection point of its growth. The first €10 million tranche allows OSE to extend its financial visibility to Q2 2022. This new flexible funding tool will help expand and accelerate the development of our clinical stage portfolio and explore new therapeutic indications with strong medical need, reinforcing OSE’s status as a key global player in immunotherapy.”
Ambroise Fayolle, Vice-President of the EIB, explains: “The EIB is pleased to announce its support of OSE, a biotech combining a high level of research and innovation, highly qualified collaborators and cutting-edge expertise in the field of monoclonal and bispecific antibodies. The portfolio of products under development in various therapeutic areas such as immuno-oncology, autoimmune diseases and a vaccine project against SARS-CoV-2, means that OSE Immunotherapeutics is a potential major player in the health sector. This project is fully in line with the mandate set for the EIB by its shareholders – the EU Member States – to support innovation across Europe“.
This loan will carry a fixed interest of 5% per year paid annually, with a maturity of five years (each drawdown is treated separately in terms of maturity). The repayment of each tranche will therefore be made at the end of a period of five years after the date of disbursement of the said tranche.
The loan agreement is supplemented by an agreement to issue warrants to the EIB for the first two tranches of the financing, in particular 850,000 warrants for the first tranche to be issued when drawn. 550,000 additional warrants could be issued if the second tranche of €10 million is drawn by OSE Immunotherapeutics.
Each warrant will give the right to subscribe to one ordinary share of OSE Immunotherapeutics at the subscription price of €0.01 and at the exercise price calculated on the basis of the volume-weighted average of the 3 trading days preceding the pricing (which will take place at the end of May 2021), with a discount of 2.5%.
The warrants will be exercisable for a period of 12 years.
Subject to certain customary exceptions, the warrants will only be exercisable after a five-year period starting from the drawdown of the relevant tranche, thus limiting the impact in terms of dilution and volatility in the coming years.
The warrant agreement includes an exercise parity adjustment clause which could apply, under certain conditions, in case of capital increase. The EIB will be granted with the possibility, under certain conditions, to request OSE Immunotherapeutics to buy back its warrants for a maximum amount of €15 million and, beyond that amount, to find a buyer and pay interests on the price of the remaining warrants.
OSE Immunotherapeutics is an integrated biotechnology company focused on developing and partnering therapies to control the immune system for immuno-oncology and autoimmune diseases. The company’s immunology research and development platform is focused on three areas: T-cell-based vaccination, Immuno-Oncology (focus on myeloid targets), Auto-immunity & Inflammation. Its balanced first-in-class clinical and preclinical portfolio has a diversified risk profile:
Vaccine platform
Tedopi® (innovative combination of neoepitopes): the company’s most advanced product; positive results for Step-1 of the Phase 3 trial (Atalante 1) in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer post checkpoint inhibitor failure. In Phase 2 in pancreatic cancer (TEDOPaM, sponsor GERCOR) in combination. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, accrual of new patients in TEDOPaM should restart in 2021.
CoVepiT: a prophylactic second generation vaccine against COVID-19, developed using SARS-CoV-2 optimized epitopes against multi variants. Positive preclinical and human ex vivo results in August 2020, clinical trial expected to start in Q1 2021.
Immuno-oncology platform
BI 765063 (OSE-172, anti-SIRPα mAb on SIRPα/CD47 pathway): developed in partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim; myeloid checkpoint inhibitor in Phase 1 in advanced solid tumors.
CLEC-1 (novel myeloid checkpoint target): identification of mAb antagonists of CLEC-1 blocking the “Don’t Eat Me” signal that increase both tumor cell phagocytosis by macrophages and antigen capture by dendritic cells.
BiCKI®: bispecific fusion protein platform built on the key backbone component anti-PD-1 (OSE-279) combined with new immunotherapy targets; 2nd generation of PD-(L)1 inhibitors to increase antitumor efficacity.
Auto-immunity and inflammation platform
FR104 (anti-CD28 monoclonal antibody): positive Phase 1 results; ongoing Phase 1/2 in renal transplant, Phase 2-ready asset in a niche indication in autoimmune diseases.
OSE-127/S95011 (humanized monoclonal antibody targeting IL-7 receptor): developed in partnership with Servier; positive Phase 1 results; in Phase 2 in ulcerative colitis (OSE sponsor) and an independent Phase 2 planned in Sjögren’s syndrome (Servier sponsor).
OSE-230 (ChemR23 agonist mAb): first-in-class therapeutic agent with the potential to resolve chronic inflammation by driving affected tissues to tissue integrity.
Photo Credit: Doha Information Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar
Qatari Envoy Mohammed al-Emadi
Although Qatar has not yet signed on to the Abraham Accords with Israel, the Gulf nation nevertheless has been taking a lead role in making sure that Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorists maintain a modicum of peaceful behavior in the enclave south of Israel.
Qatari Ambassador Mohamed Al-Emadi, head of the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, has also headed the distribution of monthly cash payments to the population in the enclave.
This weekend, Al-Emadi told a Qatari news outlet there will be two contracts for a new gas pipeline project to supply natural gas to Gaza from Israel. One contract – between the Palestinian Authority and Delek — will cover the purchase of the gas. The second contract will cover the cost of extending the gas pipeline between Israel and Gaza.
The European Union is believed to have pledged some $5 million for the installation of the gas pipeline on the Gaza side of the border, leading to the power plant. Qatar is believed to be handling the installation of the gas pipeline on the Israeli side of the border.
Once the pipeline is installed on both sides of the border, it is expected the project will result in a greatly expanded supply of electricity – about double the current output, in fact – estimated to reach about 400 megawatts, while reducing the cost of the electricity as well.
The flow of energy to the enclave’s sole power plant in the enclave, and the enclave’s access to electricity, has been iffy at best up to this point due to power struggles between Hamas and Fatah. The two factions have in the past tended to use the Gaza population and their payments of electricity bills as a political football, rather than simply transfer the payments directly to the Israel Electric Company to cover the cost of the electricity they received.
Spotty payments together with rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians that occasionally took out important wires and electrical installations have made delivery of the needed energy supplies difficult to maintain.
It is hoped the new multinational project will finally bring an end to the suffering of the people of Gaza, once control over energy in the enclave is addressed by people than the local terrorist leadership.
Brussels — Aspen Pharmacare warded off a possible hefty EU antitrust fine after regulators accepted the pharmaceutical company’s offer to cut cancer drug prices in Europe by about two-thirds, in a landmark case aimed at deterring excessive prices.
In the past decade, the European Commission has cracked down on the pharmaceutical industry for pay-for-delay deals between brand name companies and their generic rivals, while shying away from excessive pricing cases.
The Commission decision confirmed a Reuters report on February 3.
In 2020, Aspen offered to cut prices by an average of 73% for six off-patent cancer drugs after the EU executive voiced concerns it may have charged excessive prices for drugs mainly used in the treatment of leukaemia and other haematological cancers.
The competition enforcer said there were no legitimate reasons for Aspen’s very high profit levels especially when the drugs used to treat certain serious forms of blood cancer, including myeloma and leukaemia, had been off-patent for 50 years.
“Today’s decision gives a strong signal to other dominant pharmaceutical companies not to engage in abusive pricing practices to exploit our health systems,” European Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
The reduced prices will also act as a cap for 10 years, retroactive to October 2019. Aspen will guarantee supplies for five years and will also continue to supply or make its marketing authorisation to other suppliers for an additional five years.
The pledge is valid for 10 years. Aspen could have faced a fine of up to 10% of its global turnover on top of a finding of wrongdoing if found guilty of breaching EU rules.
Aspen’s offer does not apply to Italy, which earlier had its own case against the company.
Custom-made formwork that will be used to mold plaza walls has been assembled as berm walls rise and work on garden paths advances.
BAHÁ’Í WORLD CENTRE — As construction of the floor for the central plaza of the Shrine of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá nears completion, preparations are underway to build the more complex geometric elements of surrounding walls.
This and other recent developments on the site are featured in the images that follow.
Panels for the custom-made formwork that will shape the walls have now been delivered to the site.
The formwork that will act as a mold for the plaza walls is assembled for the first time.
The gap between the steel panels will be filled with concrete to form a single wall segment.
This mold will be used to build ten identical segments of the walls that will surround the central plaza, whose geometric pattern is visible in the design rendering to the left.
Top: View from the central plaza area toward the south plaza. Bottom: The curved portal wall that will enclose the south plaza takes shape.
Another view of the southeast curved portal wall that will enclose the south plaza.
Formwork is also being assembled for the curved portal wall along the north end of the east garden berm.
Two utility rooms that will be concealed under the garden berms are being built adjacent to the central plaza.
In one of the final stages of preparation for the floor of the central plaza, formwork is put in place for paths among the planters that will hold soil and irrigation for the gardens.
With the paths laid out, the geometric pattern of these gardens becomes visible.
An encircling path is being built on which visitors will be able to circumambulate the Shrine.
A view of the site from the west (left). The wall visible in the foreground marks the line where the slope of the garden berms will meet the encircling path, as seen in the design rendering (right).
Rabat – Two senior Belgian politicians are calling on the European Union to support Morocco’s Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara.
Louis Michel, the former Belgium’s Foreign Minister and Jacques Brotchi, the Honorary president of the Belgian Senate, released a joint statement on Saturday to support Morocco’s autonomy proposal as a viable way to end the conflict over Western Sahara.
In their joint statement, published by the EU Today, the two politicians extolled the decision of the US and other countries to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara
Michel, who also served as former European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, and Brotchi said the international community’s increasing support for Morocco’s stance is a positive move for “geographic, political and geo-strategic reasons.”
“Now we can see that the world is moving slowly but surely towards the recognition of the sovereignty of Morocco over Western Sahara, a positive move for geographic, political and geo-strategic reasons,” the joint statement reads.
The two politicians expressed hope to see support extended across the world, calling on the European Union to join the pro-Morocco trend to ensure stability in the region.
“It is high time for the European Union, as a global actor, to position itself on the world stage by promoting the resolution of the conflict because if Africa is unstable, Europe and the Middle East can follow suit,” they said.
The two Belgian politicians warned that stability in Europe depends on Africa’s security.
“The Sahel and the Maghreb are vital regions for the sustainability and security of our continent,” the statement added.
Morocco has long expressed concerns regarding security in Sahel, calling for a “shared responsibility”-based international cooperation to address terror challenges in the region.
Moroccan officials see the Sahel as a breeding ground for terrorism, denouncing the lack of joint cooperation between neighbouring countries to respond to the crisis.
Morocco, reliable partner for EU
Morocco and the EU share a decades-long partnership in different fields.
The partnership touches on different common challenges, including economic development, innovation, climate change, security, and migration.
Michel and Brotchi called on the EU to preserve cooperation with Morocco.
Both officials described the North African country as a “privileged and reliable partner of the EU.”
Brotchi and Michek said that Morocco became a key regional actor in creating the conditions for a realistic and effective political solution for Western Sahara.
Morocco submitted the Autonomy Plan initiative to the UN Security Council in 2007.
The Moroccan plan suggests making Western Sahara a semi-autonomous region that would remain under Morocco’s sovereignty.
Dozens of newspapers, TV stations and websites blank or black: This was what the national strike of private media in Poland protesting a sudden and crippling government tax on advertising looked like on Feb. 10.
In Hungary the same week, an opposition radio station was ordered by a court to turn off its microphones this coming Monday.
This is the politics of the slow squeeze in Central Europe. It’s a strategy designed by two men, the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, and the vice-premier and de facto leader of Poland, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Their countries, both former members of the Soviet bloc, belong to the European Union, and profit from it, but their ideas on democracy and the rule of law — principles their countries agreed to uphold when joining in 2004 — are far from those endorsed by EU leaders in Brussels.
The Leave.EU campaign and the insurance company owned by the political group’s key financial backer, Arron Banks, have lost an appeal against £105,000 of fines for data protection violations in the wake of the EU referendum campaign.
The companies were issued the fines two years ago, for including promotions for Banks’s GoSkippy insurance brand in emails to Leave.EU subscribers between August 2016 and February 2017.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) had said then that the two organisations were closely linked, with “ineffective” systems for segregating the data of insurance customers from that of political subscribers.
Leave.EU was also fined £15,000 for using Eldon Insurance customers’ details unlawfully to send out almost 300,000 political marketing messages, before the referendum. An initial appeal against that ruling was withdrawn in May 2019.
In February 2019, when the fines and an audit into both companies’ use of data was announced, the information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, said: “It is deeply concerning that sensitive personal data gathered for political purposes was later used for insurance purposes, and vice versa. It should never have happened.”
The fines against which Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance had tried to appeal in the latest case were for sending more than 1 million emails to Leave.EU subscribers, containing adverts for discounted insurance from GoSkippy, a brand name used by Eldon.
The information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham. Photograph: ICO press office/PA
The campaign negligently disobeyed electronic marketing regulations in doing so, the ICO found.
The latest tribunal ruling noted findings of a previous court that both companies have a “confusingly two-faced approach to regulation” of personal data. It also noted that Banks had admitted being “untruthful”, and used a “bullying tone” in correspondence about the case.
“Mr Banks’s letter to the information commissioner admitting that he had been untruthful in the past was hardy likely to assuage all regulatory concerns, especially as it was followed by his letter of bullying tone,” the earlier ruling found.
Banks said Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance “will be appealing the fines to a higher court in due course”. He said the ruling would prevent newspapers and publishers from sending offers to subscribers.
The judges had addressed this argument, saying that Leave.EU’s privacy policy was so loosely drafted, it amounted to “signing a blank cheque”, and “frustrated the ability of its subscribers to consent to receive a political newsletter and nothing else”.
Because of this, the lower tribunal had been entitled “to find on the facts that subscribers did not ‘consent’, as that term is properly understood, to receiving direct marketing about Eldon’s insurance products”, the ruling said.
The judges also said that previous breaches of data protection law at Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance “should have put the parties on guard”.
The fines were initially announced as part of a wide-ranging investigation by the ICO into political uses of voters’ data, launched in 2017 following revelations in the Observer.
Denham, the commissioner, said it uncovered “a disturbing disregard for voters’ personal privacy”, and showed that the digital electoral ecosystem needed reform.
The ICO’s investigation involved 71 witnesses, 30 organisations with data practices under review, and more than 700 terabytes of data being assessed by investigators.
Earlier this week, Netflix dropped a surprise announcement that it’s adapting author Brian Jacques’ iconic Redwall books into a new animated movie and TV franchise. Based on the 22-book children’s series that was published from 1986 through 2011, the books span generations of sword-fighting anthropomorphic mice, rabbits, badgers, and other woodland creatures living at the titular Redwall Abbey.
While the show was previously made into a TV series back in the late ‘90s, it’s never been adapted with the scale (or presumably, the budget) of a Netflix feature film. Many of us here at The Verge are longtime fans of the series. Here’s how we’re taking the news.
What were your initial thoughts on a Redwall adaptation?
Chaim Gartenberg: I think my initial reaction was “OMG” followed by a lot of screaming from my internal seven-year-old. I grew up reading the Redwall books. I remember the original being one of the first “real” books I ever read. And the entire series just has this shining, golden spot in my memory. They’re wholesome, lovely books full of daring adventures, clever puzzles, and where good always triumphs over evil. What’s not to like?
Jay Peters: I was elated when I first saw the news of the Redwall remaster. I was a devoted fan of the books for years as a kid, devouring each new entry in the series as soon as I could. But if I’m being honest, I couldn’t tell you a single plot point from any of the books right now. Hopefully, that doesn’t matter for the new series; as long as it features adorable forest creatures in epic battles and enjoying decadent feasts, I’ll be happy.
Adi Robertson: I’m partly in the same boat: I read the books religiously, but I remember very little about their actual plots. They really hit the part of my brain that loved dollhouses and other miniature things. Unlike Jay and Chaim, though, I remember enjoying that they could be kind of bloody and creepy — we’re not talking Watership Down or anything, but I remember a lot of eerie fortresses and mad kings.
Mitchell Clark: Yeah, I have to agree. While I remember books like Triss being light-hearted adventures, I know there were some pretty dark ones like Marlfox and parts of Salamandastron — assassins, bloodlust, the whole nine yards. As an adult, and given Netflix’s reputation, I’ve wondered if they’ll get into the darker parts, but I’m honestly kind of hoping they keep it aimed more at kids, and that it’ll inspire some of those kids to pick up the book series.
What makes Redwall a good choice for a TV show?
Jay: There’s lots of swashbuckling action and heroic tales, which consistently makes for pretty good TV. I’m sure many of the characters will be fuzzy and adorable, making the show even more watchable. And Netflix has a lot of source material to pull from, given there are approximately 1,000 books in the series.
Chaim: So many books. But part of the brilliance is that they’re all (for the most part) fairly standalone, so adapting each one could be its own project.
Mitchell: Fantasy has been very in lately, but it’s usually not aimed at kids. It’s a good series that has a lot of elements that really let your imagination run wild, and I think that’ll be very fun. It could also lend itself to a really neat art style. There’s always a lot of talk of tapestries and paintings in the books.
What parts or books in the series are you most looking forward to seeing?
Russell Brandom: It’s been a good 20 years since I read these books, but two scenes stand out. First, the outright terror of Matthias standing off against Asmodeus in the first Redwall hooked me like nothing else. The snake hypnotism is a great use of the central animal-fantasy conceit, and the fact that Asmodeus isn’t the primary villain makes the encounter that much more unsettling. The second — spoilers for Mossflower, I guess? — is Tsarmina in the sinking castle at the end of the second book, a legitimately haunting image if you have any fear of drowning, which I definitely did at the time. (Cats hate water! So true.) I’ll have to wait for the Martin the Warrior prequel series to see that one on-screen, though.
Chaim: I’m kind of hoping for some good, fuzzy, Lord of the Rings-style battles. Show us some Badger Lords, please.
Any concerns about making a Redwall show?
Mitchell: There’s just so much lore, backstory, and regular stories told over the series that I hope Netflix and the show’s creators have come up with a specific story they want to tell within the universe. I’m not sure I want to see them try to tackle the whole thing. I’d rather be left wanting more than overstuffed.
Chaim: It’s a good point, but it seems like they’re starting (relatively) small: a movie based on the first book, and a TV series focused on Martin the Warrior, which makes sense to me. Martin’s story is a broader one, spread across a number of books, while the first book is relatively self-contained.
Adi: I remember the books relying a lot on Tolkien-style species-based morality, and that’s objectively weird, and I’m not sure how the show will deal with it! I was going to soften this by saying that I remember some good foxes or something, but the Redwall Wiki informs me that foxes are “without exception villainous vermin,” so I guess that settles that.
Russell: I’m going to throw in a practical concern here. Part of the fun of the books is imagining this wide range of animals interacting both as friends and enemies, with rabbits, badgers, mice, crows, and various obscure mustelids interacting more or less as equals. But if you have to draw canonical versions of these characters, the size differential becomes a problem. Mice are just much, much smaller than crows, cats, weasels, rats, and most of the other common Redwall antagonists.
Sword or no, even the bravest mouse cannot realistically take down an animal more than 10 times its size, so choreographing the fight scenes is going to be a serious problem if we stay even slightly close to natural proportions. But at the same time, an undeniable draw of the series is picturing mice holding swords in their little mouse hands, which becomes less fun if you stray too far from the sort-of photorealistic animals depicted on the classic book covers. It’s a real bind!
CGI? Hand-drawn animation? Lion King-esque faux live action? How would you want to see a Redwall show realized?
Mitchell: I hate to be boring, but it’s gotta be hand-drawn. I think that’ll work best for the fantasy setting, and while I don’t need it to have the same art style as Over The Garden Wall, I’d like the vibe to be similar, if that makes sense.
Chaim: Anything but “realistic” CGI, please. These books are… pretty violent, which I’m worried would translate really badly to a realistic style. No one needs to see a mouse murder a bunch of rats with a sword in faux-live-action, especially not the family-friendly target audience.
Jay: I want hand-drawn, but I expect CGI. Netflix, if it’s not too late: please, make the show hand-drawn.
Russell: Given the surreal nature of the setup, I think they could also get away with computer-assisted 2D animation, along the lines of what Cartoon Saloon does. But definitely not 3D and definitely not photo-realistic. Nobody wants to see another Lion King.
Some Deeper’n’Ever Turnip’n’Tater’n’Beetroot Pie or some strawberry cordial?
Mitchell: While I don’t love beetroots, strawberries are extremely out of season right now, so rustle up what roots you can from the cellar, aye chap?
Adi: Anything except clotted cream, because A) the large amount of dairy-based food in Redwall has always raised questions to me about where exactly the milk is coming from in a series about humanoid animals (I vaguely remember “aphid milk” being an answer at one point?), and B) I still don’t really know what it is.
Jay: Honestly, I’d try any of it. If the show is successful, maybe Netflix can make a Redwall-themed cooking show spinoff.
Adi: Either way, Redwall Feast TikTok is gonna be great.
