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Artist Goes Cartooning

Anthony Aroya, a lifelong Bronxite who grew up on Prospect Avenue and now lives in Norwood, is a man of many talents and interests.

He’s written a series of children’s books, a handful of screenplays and a couple of plays. For the past three years, the baritone-voiced Aroya — he sounds like a late-night R&B deejay — worked as a voice-over actor on a few commercial and several video games. His persona in 2009’s “House of the Dead: Overkill”, Det. Isaac Washington, was nominated for best newly created video game character. (Interesting side note: “Overkill” set a Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition record for being “the most profane video game in history,” dropping an astounding 189 f-bombs.)

Now Aroya, who works at Montefiore Medical Center, is looking to break into the world of cartooning. So, he created “Spike and Mike Take Over the Universe One Molecule at a Time,” which he illustrated and wrote (he’s also the voice of Mike).

Looking for some help getting his project off the ground, Aroya uploaded a pilot-version of “Spike and Mike” onto Kickstarter, an online funding platform for creative projects. The idea is that artists upload to Kickstarter with a fund-raising goal (for “Spike and Mike” it’s $10,000) and deadline. Then people can check out the projects and decided whether to help fund it.

If the artist achieves his or her goal by the deadline, then they get the money for the project. If it doesn’t achieve its goal, all the contributions get returned.

Aroya says he came up with the idea for “Spike and Mike” when thinking about the diversity of his northwest Bronx neighborhood and the notion of seeking common ground among people of such divergent backgrounds. Spike (who’s white) and Mike (who’s black) are both sperm looking to impregnate the same egg, but they talk about all sorts of issues and crack insightful jokes along the way.

It’s comedy with a message, Aroya says. “I feel like you can get a lot more done with humor.” Aroya says the cartoon is adult in its content, “but it’s nothing off-putting, once you get past the fact that it’s talking sperm.”

Ed. Note: To see and episode of Aroya’s cartoon, click here
 

Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.

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