The Argus: Brighton Festival ThumbFOUNDED in 1990 to hunt down independent, experimental and often dangerously offensive animated shorts that would never normally come within 50 miles of an audience, Spike and Mike have been guardians of avant-garde, underground and downright hilarious pop-culture for more than twenty years.

The first to showcase the likes of John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton (of Pixar fame), Matt Stone and Trey Parker (South Park), Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead), Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls) and the legendary Bill Plympton and Don Hertzfeld, the notorious touring festival finally made its Brighton debut.

Promising to “offend everyone”, the tasteless, violent, sexist and politically incorrect Sick And Twisted show certainly lived up to its name. Featuring slow-motion gun-shots, bulimic piñatas, Eskimos being cannibalised into frozen snacks and a mother who treats her children to homemade lollipops (that you really, really don’t want to know how she makes), the 2011 line up was a grab bag of the stupid, juvenile and occasionally brilliant.

More miss than hit, the show nonetheless unveiled a few hidden gems including the superbly animated Western Spaghetti, the first bubble-wrap horror movie, and an impressively gruesome Japanese zombie short made entirely out of Plasticine.