Tracy Mark Lee at Electric Tiki is doing it right - once again!He’s gotten me excited about these classic cartoon maquettes - Get a look at the rough sculpt of this sexy Betty Boop maquette. As Bert Lahr (and various cartoon wolves) used to say: “Gnong, Gnong!”And here’s a sneak peek at the Famous Studios Popeye maquette. Note the base, designed to look like the Paramount star opening.Both these statues will be ready to purchase later this year. They’ve got at least one sale from me.

Here’s the raw list:Best animated feature film of the yearThe Incredibles
Shark Tale
Shrek 2Best animated short filmBirthday Boy (An Australian Film, TV and Radio School Production) Sejong Park and Andrew Gregory
Gopher Broke (A Blur Studio Production) Jeff Fowler and Tim Miller
Guard Dog Bill Plympton
Lorenzo (Walt Disney Pictures) Mike Gabriel and Baker Bloodworth
Ryan (A Copper Heart Entertainment & National Film Board of Canada Production) Chris LandrethAlso in these catagories: Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song): “Accidentally In Love” from Shrek 2 and “Believe” from The Polar ExpressAchievement in sound editing: The Incredibles Michael Silvers and Randy Thom; The Polar Express Randy Thom and Dennis Leonard.Achievement in sound mixing: The Incredibles Randy Thom, Gary A. Rizzo and Doc Kane; The Polar Express Randy Thom, Tom Johnson, Dennis Sands and William B. KaplanOriginal screenplay: The Incredibles Written by Brad Bird.Congratulations to the nominees!

Animation director/designer dynamo Jorge Gutierrez has released a new line of T-shirts which are guaranteed to make you the envy of all your Chicano friends. There are three designs, all most festive - Calavera Serenata, Muertito Skull and DJ Muerto. I just received my own shirt in the mail (a black Calavera Serenata) and am looking forward to wearing it around town. They’re $20 a pop and include free shipping at Muertito.com.

In response to the conservative charges about Spongebob Squarepants promoting homosexuality, John Martz at Robot Johnny.com presents a gallery of beautiful frame grabs (off the Looney Tunes Golden Collection dvds) that illustrate the questionable status of Bugs Bunny’s sexual preferences.(via Boing Boing)

A few Brew readers wrote in today to tell me of Ralph Bakshi’s announced plans to start a graphic novel sequel to WIZARDS. Interesting… but the bigger news is the fact that Ralph has added a blog to his established website.It’s always worth a visit to www.ralphbakshi.com Recent updates include video of a cut scene from his LORD OF THE RINGS, and it’s a place to view rare personal photographs, and buy Bakshi animation cels — and it’s the only place I know selling an official COONSKIN T-Shirt!

These little plastic Japanese statues are GRRR-REAT! Megahouse is making a whole series of these collectible Kellogg’s cereal character statues - including long-forgotten favorites like Sugar Pops Pete (in center, above) - in their original, most appealing designs. First Oswald the Rabbit, now this. I’m glad someone, somewhere is preserving - and celebrating - our classic cartoon hertitage!(via Scrubbles.net)

Friday January 21st 2005. Jerry Beck and host Sarah Lane on the set of G4’s THE SCREEN SAVERS. Photo by Coury Turczyn.

Highly recommended is the latest issue of SIMPSONS COMICS (#102, now on sale) featuring a tribute/spoof of Western Publishing Carl Barks classic Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge adventures. Mr. Burns, in a the Scrooge-like role, enlists Homer (as a pants-less Donald-like companion) for his annual summer treasure hunt. Bart, Lisa and Maggie (in the nephew roles) join in as they sail to the Island of Donrosa where they scale Mount Van Horn, seeking the floating key of “Strobl” (”where the ancient tribes of Taliaferro placed it years ago!”), through Gottfredson trench, to ultimately find the “Barks Billions”. All of those italicized names are, of course, references to popular Disney comic book artists. The Bongo Comics line is consistantly good (the Radioactive Man issues are my particular favorites). This story, from Ian Boothby and editor Bill Morrison, deserves our special notice.

As you may recall, in last month’s NY TIMES, film reviewer A.O. Scott erroneously wrote that Henry Selick’s stop motion animation in THE LIFE AQUATIC was computer-animated. Apparently, the writers at the NY TIMES not only can’t tell the difference between stop motion and CGI, they also don’t know what animation is. Joel Schlosberg wrote us this morning about their latest error (reg. req’d):

In today’s New York Times, in the “Week in Review” section, there’s an article commenting on the “SpongeBob is gay” nonsense, pointing out (and rightly so) that there’s a long history of controversy over cartoon characters’ antics, and that the medium of animation is subversive and boundary-pushing. So far, so good. But the list of cartoon characters that have been objected to in the past includes, along with the likes of Bugs Bunny and Betty Boop, Bert and Ernie and the Teletubbies’ Tinky-Winky. So now filming a person in a suit is considered “animation”? It’s just indicative of the unbelievable degree of carelessness affecting much reporting on animation.

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