Cactus Animation is well advanced in the production of Bob Morane and Fennec, two of the first three series to emerge from the $100 million animation coproduction agreement signed in ’96 with Ellipse Animation, France’s largest animation house.

A third series to be posted in Quebec, Blake & Mortimer, is almost complete and is being produced by Ellipse.

Cactus is a wholly owned subsidiary of Coscient Group which also owns Montreal’s Productions sda, Coscient, Allegro Films and Coscient/Astral Distribution.

Morane is budgeted at $15 million and chronicles the time-traveling adventurers of a spy-catcher/detective hero whose escapades unfold in many countries, over many time periods, even off planet in deep space.

The series is largely aimed at family audiences, tweens and their parents who grew up reading the pulp novels. Normand LeBlanc, who directed Flash Gordon at Lacewood Productions, is the director. Twenty-six episodes are in production.

‘There’s certainly no lack of original material,’ says Belanger. Henri Verne, Morane’s creator, has penned 175 of the novels, and, at 78, is still churning two or three out each year.

Belanger says the comic book design style used for the Morane series has been totally revised.

The character has evolved to a very modern James Bond sort, with all the latest gadgets ­ the Jag, the omnipresent cel phone and PowerBook. And the era’s Cold War hysteria and unflattering racial (‘tales of yellow peril’) references have also been set aside for a more contemporary approach.

Blake & Mortimer is based on a pulp fiction series created by French comic book author Edgar P. Jacobs. The storyline chronicles the international gumsh’e adventures of two English colonial spy types. ‘It’s a lot more realistic than Tin Tin,’ says Belanger.

Blake & Mortimer will be broadcast on French-track pay-tv channel Super Ecran starting this fall, with Bob Morane following suit in early 1998.

As for Fennec, it’s based on the richly illustrated Antoon Krings albums and features a delightful detective fox character. The series is aimed at the preschool set, with the initial 26 15-minute order expanded to 52 episodes. Raymond Lebrun is the director. Radio-Canada will broadcast the series this fall.

The work done at the downtown Cactus studio includes all aspects of visual development ­ the predesign phase, the storyboarding, layout and posing. The colorizing is done at AstralTech, which recently acquired a usanimation/Toon Boom Technologies software system, says Belanger.

‘Once the shooting is done at Astral we output directly (from the sgi workstation) to digital videotape. The post-production is handled by Francois Gervais, who’s posting all three series,’ says Belanger. The music for both Fennec and Bob Morane is also being produced in Montreal.

Belanger says Cactus expects to begin production on Fantomette, a new series, as early as March. This time the heroine is a female.

Another 26 half-hour series in development is Life Craft. It’s a sci-fi story set 500 years into the future. The concept originates with Life Craft, a Montreal company.

Cactus’ agreement with Ellipse includes a reciprocal ‘first look’ on new projects.

And although Cactus production financing comes from its Canadian and European partners, Belanger says Ellipse Programme and Coscient/Astral Distribution are developing plans to attack the u.s. market.

‘We have the impression Bob Morane is in a style that the Americans will like,’ he says.