I hate to see a whole day go by without a post here. Amid and I are are busy on separate book projects this month. My postings will be a little less than normal this month - and this week in particular, as I battle several tight deadlines. Today I spent the whole day gathering all the images together for my Animated Features guide. The Peter Pan ad above has no particular signifigance to anything - just something I came across today, and I thought it was a fun thing to post.Have a good weekend.

Our Lost Hollywood Animator Mural series continues with this beauty (above) painted by Paul Julian.Reader Terry Guy passes along this picture and information:

The recent Cartoon Brew posts about murals reminded me of this one, which is not so cartoony, but is the work of Warner Brothers cartoons background painter/Roadrunner voice artist Paul Julian.It may be seen in the Post Office at 202 E. Commonwealth Avenue in Fullerton, CA, close by the Amtrak station. When I was there about a year ago (when I took the accompanying picture), a document was posted on the wall below the mural (on the other side of the door from the Wanted poster), with the following text:INFORMATION ON THE POST OFFICE MURAL
The noted California painter Paul Julian painted the large mural on display in the old Fullerton post office. Julian was born in 1914 in Santa Barbara, California. He trained with Millard Sheets and Lawrence T. Murphy at the Chouinard Art Insititute. The mural was commissioned by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA program began in 1933 at the suggestion of George Biddle, an artist who had studied with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Biddle persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt to institute a program similar to one the Mexican government created, to decorate government buildings. This effort sparked an artistic revolution. The program provided needy artists with work and money. This also offered artists a range of creative options, from small paintings to large murals.
This mural depicts life in Fullerton in the mid-thirties. Fullerton High students picking Valencia oranges, oil derricks, and the Fullerton airport. The artistic license taken by Paul Julian has created some controversy because the ladder shown, a three-legged type, is not the right type for picking oranges, and oranges were never packed in boxes in the field. They would have been placed into a large over the shoulder bag while being picked and then carried to the boxes, and commingled with the others.The idea that artistic license over orange crates and ladders is controversial seems incongruous today, when we know that the term “controversy” really should be reserved for issues of great magnitude, such as Janet Jackson’s Superbowl “wardrobe malfunction”. On the other hand, this was Fullerton in the thirties, and they took their oranges seriously.

Starting tomorrow and continuing through December 10, FPS: FRAMES PER SECOND magazine will be holding an on-line charity auction, with all the profits benefiting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Canada. They’ll be auctioning all sorts of animation-related goodies including books, DVDs, posters and pins. For full auction details, go HERE.

Here’s an interesting article from THE NEW YORK TIMES that gives some sense of the burgeoning animation industry in China. (via BoingBoing.net)

This just in: There’s been a rash of kidnappings of the giant inflatable SpongeBob Squarepants figures that have been placed atop Burger King outlets to promote the genial sea creature’s movie. Some of the balloons have even shown up on eBay.

Personally, if I were to pilfer any figure from a fast-food joint (which I wouldn’t), it would be a Big Boy or possibly a Jollibee…but those guys aren’t cartoon characters.

I’ve come across several of these in my travels - and have set up a dedicated webpage for them (see the complete four panel strip of the above, here). If anyone has any more to share, or can shed further light on them… let me know.

Our final contest. The first two people with the correct answer (or what I think is the correct answer) to this question arriving in my email-box wins the dvd prize - 2003 Academy Award Winner HARVIE KRUMPET - courtesy of our friends at StudioWorks Entertainment. Today’s question is:

In 1983, a clay animated short by Jimmy Picker won the Oscar. What was the name of his Oscar winning film?

The Contest is now OVER. Our winners: James Boys and Jared Chapman. The final answer: Sundae In New York

No reason for this post, but I just wanted to share this cool caricature of animator Ben Washam by fellow Chuck Jones unit animator Abe Levitow. Click on the drawing to read Washam’s ‘Cartoonist of the Month’ profile from the April 1960 edition of the West Coast animators’ union newsletter.