There’s a good article about Frank Espinosa, creator of the new comic book ROCKETO, at Comic Book Resources. The article includes some of his concept art for the book. I found out about ROCKETO down in San Diego last month, and thought it’s one of the most visually outstanding comics I’ve seen in a long time. In the article, Espinosa talks about how his animation background has influenced ROCKETO’s style: “Because I come from an animation background, I try to put down the movement and energy. For instance, I try to get the feeling of the hand rather than just drawing a hand. It’s really more about movement than it is actual drawing. I keep a lot out of my drawings. I try to keep it simple.”

Chronicle Books is going to be making a lot of people happy in April 2006. Not only is my 50s design book coming out then, but my friend Jon Gibson just let me know that Chronicle will also be releasing his book in the same month. Jon’s book, I AM 8-BIT, is based on the well received art show that he curated in LA earlier this year, wherein nearly a hundred modern illustrators, painters and animation artists offered their visual interpretations of classic lo-res videogame characters. To get a taste of the book, check out the I AM 8-BIT show website.

Here is a terrific interactive gallery of Saul Bass title sequences. It’s by no means every film title he did, but the majority of his most important title design work is included here. As an aside, it’d be cool to see somebody create galleries like this for classic animated shorts, with commentary on who animated which scenes and other geeky details.

And a couple more Bass-related bits. When I interviewed Saul Bass’s close associate Art Goodman a few months ago, he told me that he had been interviewed for a major forthcoming book on Bass. I can’t wait for this book. Bass is one of the most important mid-century graphic designers (with movie titles being just one facet of his work) and it’s damn near criminal that there isn’t an authoritative document concerning his life and work. It looks like the book that Art was telling me about is now listed on Amazon, though unfortunately it won’t be released until November 2006. It’s being written by Pat Kirkham with an intro by Martin Scorsese. Also, this short film compilation DVD on Amazon has a rare half-hour interview with Bass. A reviewer on Amazon writes: “30 minutes of Saul Bass talking straight into the camera, explaining how he came up with his famous title sequences for IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM. He talks about 10 different title sequences.” I haven’t seen this, but I’m definitely planning on picking up a copy. (Thanks to Will Kane for the dvd tip)

I hadn’t heard of the new animated series, HOPELESS PICTURES, which premiered last Friday on IFC. After watching (or more appropriately, enduring) the clip on the show’s website, I’m quite glad I hadn’t heard of the show. It’s simply another example of a radio show masquerading as animated cartoon, and there’s nothing more infuriating than a cartoon where the animation is an afterthought to everything else. At least the show has an appropriate title: pictures that are subservient to dialogue are truly hopeless. There’s a review of the show at SLATE.

Here in the U.S., the fine folks over at The Right Stuff are looking for several lost episodes (in 16mm) of the original 1963 ASTRO BOY series - to complete their restoration of the series for DVD. A full list of missing titles is posted on FPS.Meanwhile in Japan, researchers have found an ancient piece of anime:

The 35-millimeter, celluloid animation film consists of 50 frames stuck together with paste. It depicts a boy in a sailor suit who writes Chinese characters, “katsudo shashin” (moving picture), takes off his hat and gives a salute.

The Japanese historians believe this film strip to be over 100 years old! Read the full news report here.(Thanks to Charles Brubaker for the link)

If you’ve emailed me anytime in the past few weeks, chances are you haven’t received a response. Crazy book deadlines will do that. I’m trying to catch up this weekend, but there’s well north of a hundred emails that need replies so please be patient. Also, if you email me, make your subject headers clear; otherwise I’ll assume it’s spam and junk it. Don’t write vague headers like “Question” or “Hello” or the worst of all, no subject header at all. Please put Cartoon Brew, Animation Blast, or something animation-specific in the subject line. Thanks.

The mainstream media may not be interested in properly covering the death of an influential animation artist, but the ‘net (i.e. regular people around the world) is abuzz with reaction to Joe Ranft’s passing. Searches for Joe Ranft are currently ranked #3 on Technorati, the website that tracks activity across 15 million blogs. The only other searches more popular in the blogging world right now are for Cindy Sheehan and Jude Law, while Joe Ranft beats out searches for worldly topics like Iraq, Gaza and Music. To see what everybody is saying about Joe, do THIS SEARCH on Technorati.

UPDATE (3:55pm): Ronnie Del Carmen has details of where to send donations and cards. Click HERE.

UPDATE (9:34am): Hold off on donations to Mosaic for the moment. Jan Otters provides an update of how they’re going to deal with donations: “Actually there is a memorial fund being set up at Pixar in honor of Joe. The Ranft family will divide the donations amongst Joe’s favorite charities (including Mosaic).”

I’m sure there’s a lot of people wondering what causes they can donate to in honor of Ranft’s passing. Now there’s an answer. Allison Brown at Wild Brain writes, “We have heard that in lieu of flowers and fruit baskets, etc. the Ranft family is asking that donations be sent to the Mosaic organization, which is the men’s group Joe was with when they had the accident.”

Here is the website for Mosaic Voices. They have an on-line donation form, which can be found by clicking on the “Contact” section.