Michael Sporn has posted an amazing article about Harvey Kurtzman’s animated work for Sesame Street . There’s a lot of rare artwork in the piece alongside info on how he collaborated with Phil Kimmelman and Associates to make the cartoons. In particular what stood out to me is this unbelievable page of animation drawings by Dante Barbetta . Loose, free and funny animation—it’s what shows like Chowder can only dream of being.... 

How do I love thee, let me count the ways: this isn’t so much a book review, but a book RAVE . Craig Yoe’s massive new tome reprinting the comic book art of Milt Gross (IDW/Yoe Books, 354 color pages, $39.99 or cheaper on Amazon ) is an absolute must-have by everyone reading this blog. Buy it now…  Read More →

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the title Tangled isn’t the only thing being changed about Disney’s production of Rapunzel – it’s repositioning the film to attract a male audience. From the article : The makeover of “Rapunzel” is more than cosmetic. Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success. Concluding... 

The Oscar winners were announced tonight. UP won two Academy Awards: It won for BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM and Michael Giacchino won an Oscar for its musical score. The winner for BEST ANIMATED SHORT was LOGORAMA . The highlight of the broadcast was a segment featuring lead characters from all five nominated animated films, Coraline, Mr. Fox, Louis the Alligator (from Princess and the Frog ), Ashley (from Kells ) and Carl & Dug from Up... 

Ray Favata (l.) with Jules Feiffer at Terrytoons My pal, Ray Favata, is the subject of a lengthy profile in this week’s Post-Star paper . He started his career at Tempo Productions, one of the early ‘cartoon modern’ studios that was later shuttered because of the blacklist. He went on to design commercials at Academy Pictures, John Sutherland Productions, and Deitch-era Terrytoons (where he boarded an unproduced sequel to Flebus... 

I don’t know much about the new Pink Panther and Pals series – which premieres this Sunday March 7th on Cartoon Network at 7:30am – except I like the redesigns of the Ant and the Aardvark . The new show features three six-minute cartoons – two featuring a “teenage Pink Panther” and one Ant and Aardvark short in the middle. 26 episodes were produced by MGM Animation. There’s no animation online, but here’s... 

Lou Scheimer tells all . . . like about the time he produced something crappy, or that other time he produced something crappy, or those few decades where he had an impressive streak of producing lots and lots of crap in a row. There’s also an uplifting personal story about the time he vowed to produce something decent, but then realized it was more important to stay true to himself and produce crap. Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation... 

Today’s New York Times has an article about the surprise Oscar nomination of Secret of Kells . There are some fascinating details in the article about the grassroots campaign to get the film nominated: GKIDS was aided by a “superfan,” Jamie Bolio, an animator who had fallen in love with the film at Edinburgh. The company essentially enabled her to be a citizen publicist, allowing her to post on “The Secret of Kells” Facebook page... 

This homage to Disney’s Alice in Wonderland is one of the nicest cartoon tattoos I’ve ever seen. A larger version of the pic above can be found HERE . The artist Holly Azzara has a post on her blog about the process of creating the tattoo . I’d like to see Disney’s legal team try to get rid of this example of “copyright infringement.”  Read More →

Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon got a little unintended publicity this weekend in Hollywood. A man alleged to have put up a large, “supergraphic” billboard in violation of Los Angeles city law was arrested and held on $1 million bail over the weekend. The massive movie ad was draped over a 1927 building on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, property co-owned by Kayvan Setereh, the man arrested. The... 

From the top: Brewster Rockit (2/26/10) by Tim Rickard, The Argyle Sweater (2/27/10) by Scott Hilburn, and Off The Mark (2/23/10) by Mark Parisi (Thanks to our usual crew of comic strip mavens: Uncle Wayne, Jim Lahue, Charles Brubaker, John Hall and Jed Martinez)  Read More →

Regular Brew readers are aware that I collect old Little Golden Books relating to animation and have frequently mentioned my admiration of the recent “retro-stylized” Golden Books for current Disney and Pixar films. Add Nickelodeon to the watch-list. I just discovered Mr. Fancypants , a Spongebob Squarepants tie-in, at my local Barnes and Noble last night. The book was published as a commemorative to celebrate the sponge’s... 

Concept art from John Hubley’s Finian’s Rainbow This repost of John Canemaker’s article about John Hubley’s unproduced feature Finian’s Rainbow reminded me of a book idea I’ve had for years. With my full plate of writing, editing, and creative directing various book projects, I know I’m never going to get around to doing this book, but I believe in the idea so I’m going to put it out there and... 

Next Tuesday, at my usual monthly screening at The Silent Movie Theater , I’ll be running a great selection of 1950s cartoons in widescreen CinemaScope. I will be showing rare 35mm and 16mm prints – many in Technicolor. Among the titles being screened will be Ward Kimball’s Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom and the Donald Duck Grand CanyonScope from Disney, Tom & Jerry and Droopy cartoons from MGM, Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing... 

Bob Peterson, the co-director of UP and voice of Dug, is interviewed by Glenn Close about his affection for dogs. He offers some good details on how he developed the personalities of the dog characters in UP .  Read More →