This saddens me. TV GUIDE announced yesterday that it will cease to be a digest sized publication as of the Oct. 17 issue and be a regular sized slick color magazine with 25 percent listings and 75 percent stories (versus the 75 percent listings and 25 percent stories it has now).I think I learned to read by studying issues of TV GUIDE (as well as Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, but I digress). I’ve come to use TV Guide as a valuable resource in researching classic TV cartoons. Like Loonatics and New Coke, this decision seems like a mistake to me. TV GUIDE has dropped the ball and I somehow believe someone else will start a new magazine to take its place. I hope so.

Speaking of fps magazine, they just did an interview with the director of MIND GAME, Masaaki Yuasa, who was in Montreal last week for the Canadian premiere of the film. I’m dying to see MIND GAME, and hopefully on the big screen, though I have no idea when or where that’ll happen. It’s surprising that none of the major animation festivals, including Annecy and Ottawa, have taken any interest in screening this film. (See Joshua Smith’s review of MIND GAME posted earlier on the Brew)

I unfortunately forgot to do a plug for the Ray Harryhausen event in Montreal this past Sunday which our friends at fps magazine were hosting, but here’s a comic-style interview with Ray Harryhausen that appeared in the MONTREAL MIRROR. (Thanks, David Maas).

Chris Arrant writes to let me know that he just did an interview with ROCKETO creator Frank Espinosa for Newsarama.com. The direct link to the interview is HERE. (Previous Brew post about ROCKETO here)

Just recieved this sad news from down under:

I am a regular reader of your “Cartoon Brew” website, and an animator at DisneyToon Studio’s Australia. I have some breaking news for you: At 3pm today (Monday 25 July) the entire studio was summoned for a staff meeting in which we told by the General Manager Phil Oakes that upon completion of our next production “Cinderella 3″, DisneyToon Studio’s Australia will be closing down after 17 years. They have cited current business needs and production schedules as the cause. So Disney hand drawn animation now ceases to exist.

Belated congratulations to our friend Linda Simensky who gave birth to Sara Buckborough Simensky on July 8th. She weighed in at 6 pounds, 15 ounces, and is 19 and 3/4 inches long.Linda is the Senior Director, Programming for PBS Kids and a former animation big-shot at Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon - and one of the coolest people working in the industry.

I don’t get much excited over comics, but then again, comics like Frank Espinosa’s ROCKETO don’t come along every day. This is without doubt one of the most awesome books I’ve seen in a long while, and it’s one of my favorite discoveries from last weekend in San Diego. I was prepared for a letdown as soon as I saw ROCKETO’s cover because there’s no way the interior art could live up to such a masterful drawing, right? Well, what an incredible surprise to open it up and find an entire comic that looks like this. Every page of ROCKETO is a jaw-drop gorgeous work of cartoon art, with tight drawing, color and design throughout. The expressive use of color and rhythmical black inks give the book a distinctive feel that defies comparison to any other current American comic; you have to look at European comics to find anything that remotely resembles ROCKETO’s stylish cartoon sensibility.

I was equally surprised to find out Espinosa’s background: until recently, he’d been drawing Bugs, Daffy, Tweety, et al, at WB Consumer Products. Among other things he was responsible for the Looney Tunes USPS stamps and (get ready for this) the original designs for Baby Looney Tunes. Now, fortunately for us, he’s out of there and working on his own projects. In San Diego, Frank debuted ROCKETO #0, a short 16-page introduction to the series. ROCKETO #1 is out in August from Speakeasy Comics. Looks like I have a reason to start dropping by Meltdown again.

Anybody can start one blog. Been there, done that. But it takes some fortitude to launch thirty-nine blogs. That’s right, thirty-nine blogs. That’s exactly what animation producer Fred Seibert is doing for the fourth season of OH YEAH! CARTOONS, the series that he’s exec producing for Nickelodeon. Seibert is encouraging every creator to start their own blog and document the production of their animated short. The first couple blogs are already up and running, and can be accessed from the main Frederator blog HERE. Seibert has been experimenting with blogs for the past year, first with the Teenage Roblog, a blog by the crew of MY LIFE AS A TEENAGE ROBOT, and more recently with The Wubblog, a journal by Bob Boyle documenting the production of his forthcoming Nick Jr. series WUBBY WIDGET AND WALDEN.

It’s great to have an enlightened animation producer who understands the grassroots value of connecting with audiences through blogs, and is now allowing the creators of all these shorts to share their creative experiences with the online community. Not only are blogs a common-sense way of creating and building a fanbase for tv shows, and distinguishing the series from the rest of the competition, but blogs can also help to demystify the animation process, allowing the average viewer an insight into how animated films are produced. That may not sound like a huge thing, but it seems like every other day that I meet a regular joe who is unable to distinguish between cg and hand-drawn animation and who doesn’t have the vaguest clue about how cartoons are produced. Educating audiences about the production process, and all the hard work and thought that goes into the making of an animated film, is perhaps the first step towards achieving the respect and recognition that this art form so very rarely receives.