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POSTS FOR “March, 2006“March 6, 2006 1:32 am
The LA TIMES tore painter Thomas Kinkade a new one with yesterday’s article about his crude behavior and shady business practices. As far as I’m concerned, Kinkade is to fine art what Shag is to “pop surrealism”: a mediocre and formulaic artist who has tapped into a very specific market and fooled that fanbase into believing that his work has skill and competence. The piece mentions that Kinkade had worked in animation prior to becoming a ‘fine artist’, which is something I wasn’t aware of. A quick search online reveals that he was a background painter on Ralph Bakshi’s FIRE AND ICE (1983). The TIMES piece also has this anecdote about Kinkade’s “territory marking” habits:
(Use BugMeNot to bypass LA TIMES registration.) March 5, 2006 6:07 pm
![]() Congrats to our friend John Canemaker for winning the Best Animated Short Oscar, for his film THE MOON AND THE SON: AN IMAGINED CONVERSATION, and to Nick Park, Steve Box and Aardman for winning Best Animated Feature for WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT. Interesting to note that neither winner was CG: one is a hand-drawn film and the other stop motion. Great animation can be produced with any technique, despite what industry executives would like you to believe. ![]() March 5, 2006 9:00 am
March 4, 2006 9:55 am
![]() Tomorrow night is Oscar night and nothing seems as certain as the WALLACE & GROMIT win. However, the only suspense around here is for who will win the award for animated short. They are all outstanding, and the winner will seem obvious in hindsight.John McElwee on his Greenbriar Picture Shows blog takes an affectionate look at how RKO and MGM touted their Oscar winning cartoon characters with ads in Hollywood trade magazines 60 years ago. March 4, 2006 9:13 am
A must-see: live-action SIMPSONS opening from the UK’s Sky TV. March 4, 2006 2:55 am
Finally, an animation executive salary increase that’s actually deserved. Anime has arrived in Iraq, otaku will follow. Nick Park on the Oscars: We’re animators, we’re not used to getting out of our dark studio and meeting real people, let alone glamorous and attractive ones CNN does an article about all the March 3, 2006 2:55 am
This interview with Bob Iger is an interesting read. He discusses the Pixar acquisition at some length, and says that in his five months as Disney CEO, the Pixar deal is “what I’m most proud of.” The interview also lays out his three strategic priorities for Disney: 1. Creating great content. (via Animated-News) March 2, 2006 11:17 am
![]() ![]() University Press of Mississippi has two great new Disney books coming out in the next few months. Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records by Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar, is an appreciative overview of the oft-overlooked Disney record company. The book chronicles for the first time the fifty-year history of the Disney recording companies launched by Walt Disney and Roy Disney in the mid-1950s, when Disneyland Park, Davy Crockett, and the Mickey Mouse Club were taking the world by storm. The book provides a perspective on all-time Disney favorites and features anecdotes, reminiscences, and biographies of the artists who brought Disney magic to audio. Authors Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar go behind the scenes at the Walt Disney Studios and discover that in the early days Walt Disney and Roy Disney resisted going into the record business before the success of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” ignited the in-house label. Mouse Tracks reveals the struggles, major successes, and occasional misfires. Included are impressions and details of teen-pop princesses Annette Funicello and Hayley Mills, the Mary Poppins phenomenon, a Disney-style “British Invasion,” and a low period when sagging sales forced Walt Disney to suggest closing the division down. The book is loaded with performer biographies, reproductions of album covers and art, and facsimiles of related promotional material. It’ll be out in May.The other book, Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity by Thomas Andrae, will be published in July. This is a critical study of Barks’s work from a cultural perspective. Andrae analyzes all phases of Barks’s career from his work in animation to his postretirement years writing Junior Woodchucks stories. Barks is one of America’s greatest storytellers and, Andrae contends, “lifted the comic book form to the level of great literature.”
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