Two and a half hours. That’s how long it took me to cast an early vote on Friday afternoon. Let’s put it this way: the wait was so long that people were ordering food on their cell phones and having it delivered to them in line. When I departed the Beverly Hills polling station, there were still over two hundred people waiting. If the lines weren’t bad enough, so many people had voted earlier in the day that they had run out of those cool oval-shaped “I Voted” stickers.

Well, sticker or no sticker, this is an important election, folks, and both Jerry and I want to urge Cartoon Brew readers to exercise their right to vote on Tuesday, November 2nd. The Brew will not collectively endorse a candidate, like some other pop culture sites are doing, nor are we going to link to sites that might be considered partisan. But a quick anecdote. I was chatting recently with animation veteran Victor Haboush and he told me that he considers the vote he’ll be casting next week to be the most important one of his lifetime. Those words carry a bit of weight coming from somebody who’s been around for more than a few elections and who was part of the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. So take a cue from Vic and participate in this election. And remember, arrive early if you want a sticker.

Brew pal Ovi Nedelcu’s new comic PIGTALE debuts on January 12, 2005. Ovi has worked as a character designer/visual development artist on a number of animated series including XIAOLIN SHOWDOWN and ZETA PROJECT. His new bi-monthly comic project, published by Image Comics, has a similar animation-inflected style with crisp design work and a dynamic sense of staging. PIGTALE is the story of amateur private investigator Boston Booth and his talking pig Clyde, and their attempts to save the city of Portland, Oregon (not that it’s particularly worth saving, but that’s besides the point). Take a look at this PREVIEW and all the positive REVIEWS from folks in the biz.

Scott Shaw informs us:On Thursday, November 4th, the multi-talented Jack Mendelsohn — creator of the classic Oddball comic strip, comic book and Paramount animated cartoon JACKY’S DIARY, among many other animated projects (including YELLOW SUBMARINE) — will be honored by The Writer’s Guild of America, West with their Lifetime Achievement Award for Animated Cartoon Writing.The event will take place on Thursday, November 4, 2004, at the Writer’s Guild of America, West headquarters at 7000 West Third Street, Los Angeles, CA 90248, 323/951-4000. A reception begins at 7:00pm and the awards ceremony starts at 8:00pm. Reservations are NOT necessary.

I haven’t liked what I’ve seen so far on THE POLAR EXPRESS, but I’m willing to give Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks the benefit of the doubt - for now. However, the hype machine is getting on my nerves. Like this quote from director Zemeckis:

“I think when you see the movie, you’ll realize it’s absolutely nothing like an animated movie,” Zemeckis said. “You’ll see such subtlety in the performance of these characters that you would have to have the genius-of-all-genius animators. In my opinion, there’s no animation in the world that could have created it.”

Is he kidding?It’s motion capture - the CG equivilent of the rotoscope. This quote is not unlike the B.S. hype that surrounded Bakshi’s LORD OF THE RINGS in ‘79. Wait’ll Zemeckis sees THE INCREDIBLES. And Hanks (aka Woody) should know better.You can read the article that goes with the quote here.

There’s an insightful interview with Brad Bird at AnimationTrip.com. Here’s Brad talking about creating personality through movement:

One of my problems with full animation is, often times, people do beautiful movement, but it’s not specific movement. Old people move the same as young people, women move the same as men, and fat people move the same as thin people… and people don’t move the same. Everybody moves differently. If you guys were to just freeze the way you are right now, you’re both here, sharing this moment, but in very unique ways. [Brad looks at Chris] Like, you’ve got no shoes on but you’re nicely dressed at the same time. You’re kind of off to one side, but your head is counterbalancing it, tilted to the other side like that…it’s specific to you. I wish more people would pay more attention to how things move. I don’t mean just studying how things move…that’s important to know how weight shifts and all that. But it’s also the attitude of people. I feel that a goal that we set out in this was to have every single character have their own way of moving and have it be very specific. And even though it may change from animator to animator, we came to a very specific agreement on who this character was and what kind of moves they would do.

I hope you are a member of ASIFA-Hollywood. If so, you are getting an invitation in the mail to see THE INCREDIBLES, free, opening day, with Brad Bird in person. You need to be a member and you must RSVP. More info at Asifa-Hollywood.org

Tom Sito has written a very nice remembrance of Disney legend Frank Thomas and what his passing means to the animation community. It is posted at SewardStreet.com.

The Los Angeles comics and animation scene lost a big man today - Bill Liebowitz, owner of Golden Apple Comics passed away this morning from a heart attack.This is sad news indeed. When I first arrived in L.A. in 1986, I asked a friend where the best comic book store was. I was told Golden Apple, and set out to find it. I met Bill behind the counter on my very first visit. He welcomed me to L.A. as one ex-New Yorker to another. I think I’ve seen Bill almost every week since that time. I happen to live a block away from the store at the present time.Bill always reminded me of Phil Sueling, the New York comic book impresario, whom I had also known. Bigger than life, big hearted, open minded and forward thinking. Bill always greeted me with a nickname, “Mr. Animation”, because he knew of my interest in said genre. When I started Streamline Pictures, Bill supported our efforts and was the first to order, and in large quanity, our anime videos. Bill always displayed my books and we did several book signings. In fact, I’m currently doing some lectures locally, this month, due to Bill, and I’ve been helping him arrange an IRON GIANT reunion dvd signing event (Nov. 20th). I was very proud when Bill’s store (and wife Sharon) were featured in the movie FREE ENTERPRISE.I’m still in shock over this news… Check out Golden Apple this week, either in person or on-line - it’ll always be a great store, but it won’t be the same.