First it was Fred Osmond and Katie Rice who started blogs. Now, two more talented folks who recently worked on DISNEY’S THE BUZZ ON MAGGIE have put up their own blogs: Flash artists Sean Szeles and Tony Mora. Sean’s blog, called “Face It!,” promises to have great artwork. Already posted are some entertaining studies from SONG OF THE SOUTH and random napkin doodles. He has a fun cartoony style mixed in with an illustrative bent, and I’m looking forward to checking out more of his work.

Tony’s blog, titled “So Bad It’s Good,” has nothing to do with animation, but instead focuses on carniceria (butcher shop) art painted on buildings around Los Angeles. Says Tony, “I’ve always had a fascination with them ever since I was a little kid. Seeing these somewhat surreal and fanciful paintings depicting the foods that I would be eating later that day. Taco stands, bars and restaurants will make there way on this site as well. This is my tribute to those paintings and the artists that made them.” The carniceria art actually doesn’t look all that different from the artwork one finds when flipping through JUXTAPOZ magazine — the only difference being that this art strikes me as coming from a more honest place and more deserving of the title “lowbrow art.” These artists paint what they know and create murals that serve a functional purpose; these aren’t ‘hip’ paintings intended to make the artists rich by selling for thousands of dollars at some trendy Silverlake gallery. It’s JUXTAPOZ without the pose and it’s commendable that Tony is bringing some of this work to light.

Masaaki Yuasa and his animated feature MIND GAME swept the Fantasia International Genre Film Festival in Montreal, which wrapped up this past Monday. The film beat out dozens of live-action films and took awards for Best Director, Best Film, Best Script and Special Award - Visual Accomplishment. Complete list of winners HERE. (via In-Betweens)

Previous Brew items about MIND GAME: film review and interview with director Masaaki Yuasa.

65 years ago on this day, Warner Bros. released a Merrie Melodies short called A Wild Hare. The zany wise-guy personality that the studio was slowly developing was finally nailed in this film by Tex Avery. A Wild Hare was recognized with an Academy Award nomination, launched a long running series of classic cartoons and created a beloved animation super star.Happy Birthday Bugs!

I love these images from the UPA industrial film LOOK WHO’S DRIVING (1954). The design is spare, yet artful. More importantly, it’s a lot of fun to look at. There’s an easy-going quality to the design which one rarely finds in designed animation nowadays. The shapes and colors are inviting and none of the visual elements feel forced or contrived. The film doesn’t employ this white-background technique for its entire length, but there is terrific design and layout throughout, and the added bonus is that it moves beautifully too. The film’s design credit went to Bob Dranko, with color styling by Dranko and Michi Kataoka, and direction by Bill Hurtz. (Judging from the way Hurtz worked on other films, he likely collaborated with Dranko on the layout and overall visual direction of this film.) Hurtz was also one of the designers on GERALD MCBOING BOING (1950), the quintessential example of a UPA film that reduced its backgrounds to the bare essentials. LOOK WHO’S DRIVING perhaps doesn’t reach the classic status of GERALD — it is, after all, a driving safety film commissioned by Aetna Casualty and Surety Company — but it is no less entertaining and has much to recommend. Unfortunately, it’s also quite impossible to see nowadays, unless you happen to own a print of the film. Documenting obscure animated projects from the 1950s, like LOOK WHO’S DRIVING, was one of the goals for my upcoming book on 1950s animation design. So many stellar cartoons from that period are all but forgotten today, and I’m hopeful this book will play a small role in reintroducing some of the great “lost” cartoons of that era.

The Center For Jewish History in New York City is presenting A Tribute to the Fleischer Brothers, a screening and lecture by animation historian Mark Langer, on Monday August 29th at 7pm (Admission: $10/$5 for students and seniors). The Center is at 15 West 16th Street. Langer, a Professor of Film History at Carleton University in Ottawa, has been writing the definitive Fleischer history for years. His insight into Fleischer’s work and several surreal Fleischer films should add up to quite a rewarding evening.

Reader Adam Koford brings this to our attention:

I don’t know if you have caught the History Detectives on PBS yet, but a recent episode had a segment you may be interested in. It was about a “Micky” Mouse toy patented in 1926, before Walt’s Mickey officially came along.

In case you missed it, here’s a PDF of the episode transcript.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has just scheduled another classic animation event. On Friday August 19th at 7:30pm, in conjunction with their current exhibition of animation movie posters, they will screen 18 Academy Award winning cartoon shorts. The program, OSCAR WINNING ANIMATION: “Make ‘Em Laugh”, will contain 35mm prints of:

The Three Little Pigs (1932/33), Ferdinand the Bull (1938), Lend a Paw (1941), Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943), Tweetie Pie (1947), For Scent-imental Reasons (1949), Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953, pictured above), Knighty Knight Bugs (1958), Ersatz (1961), The Critic (1963), The Pink Phink (1964), The Crunch Bird (1971), Closed Mondays (1974), The Fly (1980), Sundae in New York (1983), Creature Comforts (1990), Bunny (1998) and For the Birds (2001)

General admission is $5.00, the location is the best screening room in L.A. - the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre. See www.oscars.org for more information.

Leonard Maltin’s Movie Crazy is not only a great website, but also a wonderful quarterly 16 page hard copy newsletter. The latest issue (#12, Spring 2005) features a nice interview with both Betty Kimball (Ward’s wife) and Marie Johnston (Ollie’s spouse). Both ladies were ink & paint gals at Disney in the 1930s (Marie left Disney to paint cels at Warner Bros. in the 1940s). This issue, and the previous eleven, feature interviews, rare movie material and original research not available on the web (or anywhere else), and are highly recommended.