SIMPSONS creator Matt Groening talks to THE SUN about his new goal: “I’d love to get to 365 episodes, so there’s one for every day of the year with no repeats.”

And Groening once more from a much longer piece in the GUARDIAN: “Everyone on the show this year seems really re-energised and we’re starting to throw out ideas for the movie and I think that will either kill the show or completely re-invigorate it.”
(Reg req’d for Guardian, see here for fake logins)
(links via TVTattle.com)

Sunday, July 18, 2004
_________________________

I take a (sixty dollar!) cab ride to the Blue Lagoon, Iceland’s largest geothermal spa. If I’d remembered to bring my camera I would share with you the MIND NUMBING WRONGNESS of the fat old man with the tiniest Speedo I’ve ever seen. I swear to Christ, he must have stolen it from a midget child. The horror! The horror!

I return home and discover there is certain music that triggers a deep emotional response relating to my total isolation from my wife and home. Songs to be avoided at this time are: “I Am Yours” by Derek and the Dominoes, “Shore Leave” by Tom Waits, and pretty much anything by Simon & Garfunkel. Yesterday I bought a CD that Oddur suggested, by an Icelandic band called sigur rós. The slow dreamy melodies match the magic of this place, and if their lyrics deal with separation or sadness I can’t understand them. It’s my new lullaby. Oh, and the voices of the invisible women have gone away since my diagnosis. I kind of miss them, the gabby slags.

Nighty night,
Ken Pontac,
All crusty from that stinking lagoon,
Iceland

On November 9th at 7pm, at New York comedy club Carolines On Broadway, Bill Plympton will be “roasted” by some of New York’s best known comics and actors. This is the first time I’m aware of an animator being the subject of a comedy roast. Bill plans to draw caricatures of his “roasters” so it will be a two-way street… more information is forthcoming on Plymptoons.com

Asifa-East is finally getting serious about it’s internet presence. Animator Xeth Feinberg (MishMash Media) is the new webmaster of the oraganization’s website and he plans semi frequent updates on all the local New York area animation events.If you are in New York City, Asifa East is a group you should belong to.

BREW pal and PC WORLD editor-in-chief, Harry McCracken, visited Pixar over the weekend, as part of the Cartoon Art Museum’s benefit night. He has an in-depth report on the proceedings as well as some insightful thoughts, such as the following: “…it’s clear that [INCREDIBLES is] going in a somewhat different, less Lasseteresque direction than Pixar’s previous films. Rather than Brad Bird making a Pixar film, it looks like Pixar is making a Brad Bird film–which is a smart move for everyone involved.” Also revealing are FINDING NEMO co-director Andrew Stanton’s comments about Pixar vs. DreamWorks: “[Stanton] also said that Pixar’s basic philosophies about filmmaking were different from Dreamworks’, and said that the Pixar crew had problems with ‘the man who runs that studio’ (maybe Jeffrey Katzenberg, although he didn’t mention him by name).” Read Harry’s report HERE.

A couple cool cartoon finds to report from my recent sidetrip to Montreal. The first was my discovery of cartoonist La Palme. In one of Montreal’s many excellent used bookstores, I stumbled across a book from 1950 called LA PALME: THE FIRST 20 YEARS OF THE CANADIAN CARICATURIST. According to the bookseller, Robert La Palme is fairly well known in Canada (granted, as well as any cartoonist can be known) and this book is the only significant catalogue of his early work. In addition to being packed with caricatures, which are executed in a highly stylized Covarrubias/Garretto vein, the book also has examples of his painting, graphic design work, and political cartoons (the book says he drew over 2500 of them for the Montreal paper LA CANADA between 1943 and 1950). The political cartoons are also quite stylized, but here he employs a beautiful wavy bold brush line rather than the geometric abstractions of his caricatures. The book was published in a numbered edition of 5000 and I highly recommend searching it out to anybody interested in cartoons and caricature. There is an online obit about La Palme which says that he continued political cartooning until 1963 and that he was also the artistic director of Expo ‘67: Montreal World’s Fair.

I also had a chance to visit the Cinémathèque québécoise which is a stellar organization devoted to film and animation. I’d heard of the organization before, but only had a vague idea of what they actually did. The organization was founded in 1963 by a group of filmmakers and film enthusiasts with the goal of documenting, conserving and promoting cinema in all its many forms. They have monthly screenings on a broad range of cartoon subjects, with shows this month dedicated to animators Paul Grimault and Raimund Krumme. They also house a wonderful research facility where I managed to put in a couple hours of work that resulted in the discovery of some important documents needed for my latest BOOK. If this place existed in LA, I would assuredly be spending a good deal of time there.

Another thing that must surely be recommended about the Cinémathèque is their current exhibition on French-Canadian animation pioneer Raoul Barré, who is credited with the creation of animation pegs as well as starting the first animation studio in New York City, among many other achievements. It is a first-rate exhibition that deserves a visit from anybody in the Montreal area. It’s rare to see animation treated with art gallery-type respect, but this exhibition sets a perfect example of how to elegantly present the works of an animator. A broad range of Barré’s life and work is on display, including a Felix drawing by Otto Messmer on an envelope, family photos, sketchbook drawings by Barr&eacute, sequences of animation drawings, letters, and other personal effects. Barré was a classically trained painter and while most of his paintings are lost, there are examples of his fine art work also on display.

The exhibition was organized by the Cinémathèque’s animation curator Marco de Blois and runs through October 24. In conjunction with the exhibition, they’ve also released a DVD of Barré’s early animated series “Animated Grouch Chasers” and “Fables” from 1915-1916. Show information can be found HERE. Download the PDF brochure for a nice write-up on Barré’s work in English.

Holy Mackerel!
SHARK TALE has an estimated weekend box office gross of $49,000,000.!

Saturday, July 17, 2004
_________________________Mark Zaslove has killed me. He’s shown me where to get the BEST HOT DOGS IN THE WORLD, and I know I’m going to eat them until I explode. The no-preservative meat has a crisp-but-tender quality that’s probably attributable to some cruel, Icelandic butchering technique, there’s a sort of yellow sauce squirted on them that must have crack or something in it because I WANT MORE RIGHT NOW, but the absolutely orgasmic aspect of these weenies is the crisp bed of fried onion bits that lines the bottom of every bun! YUM!

Nothing else today has happened that’s as important as this, so I’ll sign off now.

Ken Pontac
Writing with my mouth full,
Iceland