J. J. Sedelmaier sent us a link to his latest set of animated public service spots, based on the subject of donating blood, for the Euro RSCG agency and the Ad Council. The campaign is comic book based and Sedelmaier uses his retro TV cartoon style to make the point: “Saving the world isn’t easy. Saving a life is.” You can view the spots on the well designed Bloodsaves website. Clever stuff and, of course, it’s all for a great cause.For Euro RSCG, credits go to Jason Holzman, copywriter; Rocky Pina, art director; Jeff Stock and Lyndsay Myerscough, producers. For J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, J. J. Sedelmaier was director/producer/designer. Dave Lovelace was production manager, and Lovelace, Dan Madia, Andrew Friz and Steve Jackett were animators.

Smoking may be banned in classic MGM cartoons, but apparently reckless driving and sexist behavior is still condoned - as witnessed by this 1998 Tex Avery-inspired Peugeot automobile commercial by Uli Meyer:

(Thanks Floyd Bishop)

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Nicholas Gurewitch’s Perry Bible Fellowship

August 24, 2006 7:25 am

If you spend time online, chances are you’ve already run across PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP by Nicholas Gurewitch. The comic is hard to describe, but in my opinion it’s the best “absurd” newspaper comic since Gary Larson’s FAR SIDE and that’s not a comment I make lightly. Unlike the countless Larson imitators who have appeared over the years, Gurewitch has a voice and sensibility distinctly his own. He takes risks with his work and the results are frequently laugh-out-loud funny. I’d actually seen quite a few of his comics before I realized recently that they were all done by the same person. That’s because he works in many different styles ranging from rendered “children’s book”-style art to parodies of other artists (like Bil Keane and Edward Gorey) to his standard ‘white blob’ characters. Gurewitch is currently putting together a compilation of PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP for Dark Horse Comics. Needless to say, I can’t wait for that book. He’s also done a bit of animation before like this stop motion short.

I saw this book at Hennessey+Ingalls the other day and it looks like it’s worth adding to the collection. ON AIR: THE VISUAL MESSAGES AND GLOBAL LANGUAGE OF MTV has a pretentious name for what it actually is, which is a collection of recent motion graphics and animation work done for the various MTVs in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. This isn’t easy-to-find material so thankfully it also comes with a 70-minute dvd of the idents and promos featured in the book (the sticker on the cover says the dvd plays both NTSC and PAL but don’t hold me to that). Some of the book’s pages can be previewed HERE.

Considering this is a vanity book done for MTV, I was surprised by the honesty of the filmmaker’s quotes in the book. One filmmaker says that MTV pays peanuts for all this material, but everybody still does it because it’s a prestigious platform to have their work seen. Then there was a quote from another filmmaker who was saying how he hadn’t received any work offers as a result of having his work on MTV. Well, at least he got his work published in this book.

Cartoon Network’s pilot for a new PLASTIC MAN series has found its way to MySpace Videos and YouTube. The show wasn’t picked up so this is likely your only chance to see the cartoon. It’s actually a very handsomely produced short with lots of funny gags and drawings, though perhaps a bit bland in the storytelling department. Certainly it had potential to be developed further, and with the talent involved it would have been fun to see this happen. It’s directed by Andy Suriano, and developed by Suriano and Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob). Boards were by Suriano and Stephen DeStefano, and designs were by Suriano, DeStefano and Phil Rynda. Watch it below.

Welcome to the Boyle-Age of cartoons!Last week I was invited to breakfast on the Disney lot and had a look behind the scenes of Toon Disney’s latest original series, Yin Yang Yo! Though it’s produced by Disney Television Animation, it’s actually not a Disney-labeled show. It’s the first original series for the Jetix programming brand (According to the Jetix presskit: “Jetix is boy-driven, but it is not boy-exclusive and never strays from the Disney core values of trust, quality, optimism, self-expression, creativity, storytelling, imagination, and entertainment”)Yin Yang Yo! follows the antics of two hyper-kinetic tween rabbits who temporarily put aside their sibling rivalry to learn mystical martial arts. It’s done in flash and, along with Puffy Ami Yumi and Foster’s Home, it the best use of the technique on a broadcast series I’ve personally seen. By “best”, I mean I can’t tell it wasn’t animated traditionally - and the art direction is teriffic. An 18-hour programming stunt will launch the series on Labor Day, Monday Sept. 4th (6:00 a.m.-12:00 am midnight).Yin Yang Yo! was created by art director and producer Bob Boyle (Fairly Oddparents, Danny Phantom) who, amazingly, has another show he created debuting a week earlier on rival kids network, Nick Jr. Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! (pictured at right), is a problem solving cartoon for pre-schoolers. The Wubbzy crew has been producing one of the best production blogs I’ve ever seen for the past ten months. In addition to that, a nifty behind-the scenes promo film is posted here. Wubbzy starts regular telecasts on Monday, August 28.

BATMAN writer Paul Dini shares his thoughts about the Tom & Jerry smoking ban we mentioned yesterday. His ideas on Disney’s PECOS BILL are particularly eloquent. Below is Dini’s comment on the Warner short ROCKET SQUAD:

A few people have asked me what I thought about this and as you can guess, I think it’s pretty stupid. I said as much last year when I did VO commentary on the cartoon “Rocket Squad” on the third Looney Tunes Golden Collection. What’s the point of making a cartoon at all if the characters can’t have vices and indulge in “bad” behavior? I don’t smoke but I don’t mind if Daffy and Porky do it in a cartoon that parodies TV police shows of the early 1950s. Besides, any kid who starts smoking because he thinks Porky Pig looks cool when he lights up seriously has the wrong role model.

(Thanks, Ward)

It seems that ex-SPONGEBOB’ers are turning out to be good content providers for Cartoon Network. First, it was Aaron Springer’s KORGOTH OF BARBARIA which was one of the most enjoyable things to appear on CN in a long while. And just yesterday, former SPONGEBOB writer/storyboarder C.H. Greenblatt, who is also the voice of Fred Fredburger in THE GRIM ADVENTURES OF BILLY AND MANDY, announced on his blog that Cartoon Network has picked up 13 episodes of his creation CHOWDER. From what I’ve heard, the show is goofy fun in the SPONGEBOB vein. Greenblatt just started a CHOWDER blog where he’ll keep a series production diary. (Apparently he wasn’t supposed to start a blog yet.)