Here’s a complete list of the winning films from last week’s Ottawa International Animation Festival. I’ll have my thoughts on the festival posted in a few days.

Shane Prigmore, a character designer on FOSTER’S and CURIOUS GEORGE and currently working on Henry Selick’s feature CORALINE at Laika, has started up a BLOG. Even though it’s only been up for a day, I’m still linking to it. Yes, Shane is that good.

(Thanks, Ovi)

I had the pleasure of seeing my old friend Marv Newland (Bambi Meets Godzilla) up at the Ottawa Festival last week. He was handing out postcards to promote his INTERNATIONAL ROCKETSHIP Garage Sale this Saturday, September 30th, starting at 9am. If you are in Vancouver, it would be worth a peek for some of the books, animation desks, art supplies, production equipment and other assorted strange goodies that they are getting rid of. The address is 8938 Shaughnessy Street (in the rear). The phone number is (604) 738-1778.

One has to admire artists like Michel Gagné who constantly experiment, push their limits and attempt different forms of artistic expression. Michel recently announced on his website his next animation project, and it’s particularly exciting because it’s such a departure from his previous film efforts. SENSOLOGY is an abstract animated short set to a jazz composition by Paul Plimley. While the film is still a couple years away from completion - it’s scheduled to premiere at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival in 2008 - Michel has posted a teaser for the short and the story of how the project came about on his website.

I’m not quite as industrious as fellow Brewer Jerry when it comes to posting Ottawa reports. I promise to report on it when I return to LA. In the meantime, I offer you this incredibly appealing piece of DENNIS THE MENACE sheet music from 1952. It was sent over by super cartoon music historian Daniel Goldmark. Considering it’s currently 3:30am, I really have nothing else to add so just enjoy the artwork.

(click for bigger version)

So much to do at the Ottawa festival, and no time to blog.I am delighted to meet so many people who read Cartoon Brew up here. I’ve made a bunch of new friends and it’s great to see my old out-of-town buddies Mark Mayerson (we go back over 30 years), Linda Simensky, Michael Sporn, J.J. Sedelmaier, Steve Stanchfield, Mark Langer, Kelly Armstrong - not to mention my regular L.A. colleagues Heather Kenyon, John K., Tom Knott, Fred Seibert - and a host of others, including Chris Robinson and the staff of the Ottawa Festival. Wonderful people, all.The first two days here feature a business conference devoted to Television animation, with many great panelists and talent. One thing that emerged from the conference: Nelvana’s RUBY GLOOM looks very promising.The festival competition is wonderful. It’s not over yet, but the best films I’ve seen so far include Joanna Quinn’s DREAMS & DESIRES: FAMILY TIES, Georges Schwizigel’s JEU, Obom’s HERE AND THERE, Mait Laas’ GENERATIO and Run Wrake’s RABBIT. John Kricfalusi gave a great speech about the influence of Bob Clampett with numerous clips and John’s wonderful commentary on what makes them so great. The festival ran a group of Clampett’s best films, most of them in gorgeous 35mm prints.Well, I gotta get back to the festival. I’ll be back home on Monday night.

Flash producer Aaron Simpson (WB, JibJab), who also runs the indispensable blog Cold, Hard Flash has unveiled “The Flash Animation 10 - The Top 10 Most Influential Online Flash Shorts,” a list created for a lecture he presented last week at the Flashfoward conference. It’s a solid and important list that I largely agree with, though it also illustrates clearly how the majority of online Flash animation still lags artistically in comparison to other animation techniques. Aaron describes below the criteria for a film to make this list:

Over the last month, I’ve culled together a list of 40 Flash-animated shorts worthy of inclusion, and then graded each one on a 1-10 scale in three categories - ARTISTIC MERIT, REACH and INFLUENCE. The top 10 then revealed themselves to me, and the list was born. I took it one further, and interviewed 7 of the 10 creators and their remarks are included here.

Today’s a travel day. I’m on my way to Ottawa to attend the International Animation Festival, this time as a spectator. Last year I was a Judge and presenter of two programs. This year I’m just hanging out, with the intent of watching as many films as I can.I’ll be bringing with me a bunch of Hornswiggle buttons and postcards to give away, and I’ll have a few DVD copies to sell of the all-new 2006 edition of WORST CARTOONS EVER. I’ll be around all week, but you can count on my presence at the Clampett retrospective, Amid’s book signing, the Cult Toons screening and the Animators picnic - so feel free to come up and say hello.