YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 1, ARMENPRESS. Karo & Abo features two Armenian brothers who still live with their very old-school parents. Creator Hayk Manukyan wants to take his characters and create something bigger. He’s hoping his Kickstarter campaign can get him the necessary funds to make a mini-movie. “Armenpress” reports that The Daily Dot reached out to Manukyan to ask him about his inspirations and what he's hoping to do next.

When Hayk Manukyan was 8 years old he came to America from Armenia. Not knowing a single word of English made it extremely hard to fit in. Luckily for him, drawing helped him connect with the kids around him. He looked at a list and saw that the Pasadena Art Center was the closest to him so Hayk sent them his portfolio. He was in the ninth grade when they accepted him into their high school arts program called Saturday High. Hayk took the portfolio to a small animation studio called Cornerstone Animation; which was owned by a former Disney/Warner Bros. artist and animator named Larry Whitaker who hired him. Hayk Manukyan has worked on such films as The Incredible Hulk, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and TV shows such as The Ricky Gervais Show. Currently Hayk works at Warner Brothers Animation on Teen Titans Go!

Abo and Karo came about in 2007 when Hayk was working on Alvin and the Chipmunks. They were doing a lot of overtime and working weekends, but Hayk wanted to continue making his own shorts. On his YouTube channel Hayk asked people to send in jokes that he could animate. A guy named Harut Balian sent a joke and instead of animating the actual joke Hayk decided to add his own twist to it by having one guy trying to tell the joke while another guy continuously interrupts him by laughing at all the wrong parts and then fails to laugh at the punchline. He created two simply designed and easily animated characters to act out the joke, naming them Abo and Karo. Originally, the idea was that they were just buddies, but over time they evolved into brothers.

Hayk Manukyan says that almost every cartoon he has ever made comes from his real-life experiences and people around him: his dad, mom, sisters, wife, in-laws, cousins, and even himself. Hayk says that they all do weird things that make for great entertainment. It also helps that Hayk and his wife live in a house behind Hayk’s parents. He does not even have to travel far for the material. He needs to look out the window to see his dad fighting with a squirrel, or cops showing up to tell his dad he can't just capture a pigeon from a park because he wants to breed pigeons. This stuff writes itself.