Acclaimed animation house Lil Critter Workshop (LCW) has made two strategic moves to further expand its global business, launching Lil Critter Digital – a Digital First Animation Production Studio out of Malaysia, which provides total solutions for art, design and production for social media and web series content – while continuing to develop long-form animated series from its Bristol base with the appointment of Jan Stradling as Consultant Development Executive.

Lil Critter Digital’s first project is Lawak Campus: School Daze, a 104 x 15 second surreal comedy series for tweens which has launched on TikTok and will also debut as a 52 x 2’ web series in English on YouTube and in a Bahasa Malaysia exclusive to Astro later this year. The shorts have already garnered an impressive 96.3k followers since they launched in TikTok last month.

Lawak Campus: School Daze animated series is adapted from KGS’ original comic Lawak Kampus which became a major hit in Asia when it debuted in 2003 and sold over 7.7 million copies in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and China. The transition from comic to animation marks new ground for Lawak Kampus and highlights KGS’ new direction to introduce the comic via short-form videos with diverse, highly engaged audiences around the world. The series is a mad-cap co-viewing series which follows three best friends and their school mates as they learn to navigate essential life skills at school.

“It is essential for companies to keep moving with the times, especially when it comes to digital content,” says LCW’s Co-Founder and Executive Producer Walid Omar. “Developing a digital-first strategy will enable us to create fast turn-around properties at the same time as building our portfolio of animated series for more traditional broadcast outlets and platforms. In tandem, we are committed to growing our UK presence and we are thrilled that a senior broadcasting executive with Jan’s experience will be working with us on our slate of development projects that are being spearheaded from our Bristol base.”

Jan Stradling joins LCW with a wealth of experience holding senior positions including Commissioning Editor/Executive Producer at the ABC is Australia and Senior Network Producer at Walt Disney Television, Australia and New Zealand.

She will be overseeing the company’s development slate from LCW’s UK base following the new studio launch in Bristol last year which is focusing on developing the company’s own IP, working with creative talent, studios and co-production partners in the UK and across Europe.