I’m not quite sure who is behind this particular website, but someone has posted a Preston Blair Gif Gallery which presents a great set of animated gifs taken from drawings in Preston Blair’s esstential Walter Foster ANIMATION book.The site includes a rendering of Blair’s “dancing girl” (aka “Red”) in full motion.

Here’s a gem of a quote from Cartoon Network’s Mike Lazzo, who heads up the network’s “Adult Swim” block:

“We knew adults really didn’t care about the quality of animation. With children, if you had something brightly colored and moving, you could make it go. But with adults, they become bored pretty quickly with the dancing brooms unless it’s exceedingly well done. From the start, words were more important than pictures.”

It is utterly astonishing for one of the top executives at a TV channel called CARTOON Network, which specializes solely in ANIMATION, to have the audacity to say that the very reason for the network’s existence is not a concern of his and that audiences also don’t care about it. So if the pictures are mere afterthought, then somebody kindly explain why the hell does Cartoon Network even exist?

Here’s an entertaining little interview with John Kricfalusi done a few months back on a Chicago radio station. John talks about the new REN & STIMPY episodes, and other things like how he first met Bjork and his involvement on the Heathcliff animated series in the Eighties. Download it here: PART 1 and PART 2. (Thanks to the website ‘Tweening with Meaning for posting this interview. Visit the site HERE.)

Worth a listen: NPR’s “Day to Day” with guest Charles Solomon talking about the SIMPSONS voice cast demanding more money per episode. Reader Brock Gallagher says, “He makes some good points that people in the industry have been complaining about for years, mostly how when compared to the voice actors, the artists barely scrape by”.Also, on Sunday, a new episode of THE SIMPSONS, entitled “My Big Fat Geek Wedding,” features cartoonist/creator Matt Groening making his first guest appearance on the show. Groening appears as himself signing autographs for fans at a sci-fi convention.

Hartman’s MICKEY The New York Times has posted a teriffic article (to be printed in Sunday’s edition) asking if Disney can ever really revive Mickey Mouse.Along with the article is a slideshow sidebar Mickey Reimagined which has half a dozen notable artists updating Mickey in various ways. The artists include Pete De Seve, Bruce McCall, Butch Hartman, Gary Baseman and Milton Glaser, along with several others.

Mark Evanier posts that Warner Bros. animation artist and Western Publishing comic book mainstay Pete Alvarado had passed away January 30th.Alvarado also worked for Disney, MGM, UPA, Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng, Krantz, Sanrio, Ruby-Spears, Filmation, Marvel and Hyperion.

Manichi News reports that cartoonist Mitsuteru Yokoyama, best known as the creator of the animation series GIGANTOR (aka Tetsujin 28-Go), suffered serious burns and died after a fire broke out at his Tokyo home early Thursday.He was 69. Noting that there were numerous cigarette butts in an ashtray in his bedroom, investigators said they suspect that the fire started because the artist failed to extinguish one of his cigarettes.

Which one of these doesn’t belong?I can’t get over this publicity photo of Disney great Bill Tytla, with Isadore Sparber and Seymor Kneitel together in the same 1945 publicity shot for Famous Studios (pitching a background painting to Little Lulu!).Yes we all know they worked together in the mid-40s, I just never saw a photo of them standing together - an odd couple (triple?) indeed!This is one of several behind the scenes photos from Famous Studio I plan to post one day (when I have a spare moment) on a new page on my main site, CartoonResearch.com.