Our buddy Daniel Goldmark was interviewed about Music and the Hollywood Cartoon last week on WNYC’s music discussion show, SOUNDTRACK. You can listen to it here. His new book TUNES FOR ‘TOONS’ is now on sale - and will be reviewed in Friday’s WALL STREET JOURNAL. Congratulations Daniel!

Character designer Harald Siepermann has a series of posts on his blog where he shares his character concepts from Disney’s TREASURE PLANET and speaks of his ideas for various characters. Fascinating stuff. Scroll down his blog to read all the entries.

I know Jerry has already mentioned this, but it’s worth doing so again. I received my copy of GO FOR THE GOLD: A MEATHAUS SKETCHBOOK when I got back from Ottawa and I’ve been completely inspired over the past couple days. Credit belongs to the talented Chris McDonnell, who is responsible for bringing together an incredible array of names from the illustration and animation worlds, and putting together an awesome sketchbook. There are 31 artists represented and each artist’s section ranges anywhere from two pages to over twenty pages.

It’s nice to see work by Spumco friends like Katie Rice, Wil Branca, Robert Cory and John Kricfalusi. Cory is working on SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS now, and his work is shown alongside two other SPONGEBOB contributors: Chris Mitchell and Paul Tibbitt. All three of them have some solid, twisted work in here. Also good to see NY pals like Jim Campbell and Celia Bullwinkel with their own sections, as well as contributions by other well known names like Jim Mahfood, Tomer Hanuka, James Jean and Ralph Bakshi. The whole thing totals 218 black-&-white pages, and sells for a quite affordable $12.95. You will not find a better bargain around. It’s printed on-demand by Lulu.com, and the print quality rivals any printed book to be found at the bookstore. Note: I was offered a complimentary copy, but insisted on paying because I want to encourage quality artist-driven projects, and GO FOR THE GOLD is a project most worthy of support.

Here’s a photo of me at the CHAPTERS bookstore in Ottawa last week, shortly before my book signing, with copies of both my new books on the shelves. I will try not to keep hyping these projects, but it’s rare to have two books debut at the same time. Both THE ANIMATED MOVIE GUIDE and PINK PANTHER: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE should appear in local bookstores near you within the next few weeks - and can be ordered on Amazon.com now.

Swish! After Roy Disney Jr. fouled out with SaveDisney, he has rebounded by purchasing the Harlem Globetrotters. Yup, nothing beats buying a few black people to help a rich white businessman regain his confidence…or something like that. (via The Disney Blog)

Four words: OTTAWA WAS A BLAST! I’m still recovering (sleep, man, sleep) and will write more about the festival in a bit. If you post photo galleries or do a festival report on your blog, email Jerry and I, and we’ll let others know. In the meantime, here’s a photo of the Ottawa festival’s artistic guru Chris “Animation Pimp” Robinson and myself at the tail end of this year’s festivities. A week of animation will make anybody look deranged. Either that or I really suck at taking photographs.

Gabe Swarr and I first met Marc Deckter when we had a booth at the San Diego Comic-Con a few years back. When Marc whipped out his sketchbook, we were both immediately taken with the utter uniqueness of his work. Sheer genius or sheer insanity, we wondered? Often times it’s one and the same. Marc’s latest project, which also happens to be his USC Master’s thesis, is called castleBERDskillz.com.

Marc explains the concept: “CastleBERDskillz is a secret magical world inhabited by singing birds, cautious deer and playful bears. It’s an interactive environment, so you need to click around and see what you can find! There is no story - it’s just a place to visit and explore.” The layering of sounds and how those audio elements mesh with the visual environment is truly impressive. It may not be to everybody’s taste, but if you enjoy hilarious cartooning that would make any mental institution proud, then you’ll easily spend an hour or so exploring castleBERDskillz. A few navigation tips: Multiple clicks will yield different results. Press the space bar and left arrow keys for more variety. To return to the main menu, click on the ‘M’ on the right side of the screen.

PINK PANTHER BOOK: Ok, I think I have the answer. Apparently, according to my Pink Panther book designer at DK, the U.S. version WILL include a dvd of several DePatie Freleng cartoons.OTTAWA FEST: Bernard Joaquin went to an Ottawa Animation Festival workshop I was a panelist on - Creating Compelling Characters - and he sketched and posted a portrait of me and co-moderator Ellen Besen on his blog. If anyone else has photos of me (or Amid) in Ottawa - please send them in.