This week’s Underworld comic strip from Kaz (Kazimieras G. Prapuolenis), the alternative cartoonist also known for his writing on Spongebob Squarepants and Camp Lazlo.

“The Making of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs,” courtesy of Popular Science Monthly (January 1938). Posted on the Modern Mechanix blog.

(link via Boing Boing)

It’s amazing the things one can find in old magazines. Below is an article I recently stumbled across in issue 16 of Lithopinion: The graphic arts and public affairs journal of Local One, Amalgamated Lithographers of America published in winter 1969. The article was written by husband-and-wife artists Eugene Fleury and Bernyce Polifka, both of whom had worked in animation. By the late-1960s when the article was published, they were teaching at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles as well as exhibiting their fine art.

Earlier in their careers, Fleury had been an in-house instructor at Disney and background painter at Warner Bros. on shorts like The Dover Boys and The Aristo-Cat. He had also worked in the Army Air Force’s First Motion Picture Unit and Lantz. Polifka also designed backgrounds at Warner Bros. (most notably on Wackiki Wabbit,), worked on UPA shorts like Hell-Bent For Election and Giddyap, and art directed Frank Tashlin’s short The Lady Says No, which we’re currently offering on CartoonBrewFilms. Both Fleury and Polifka also contributed to Lou Bunin’s puppet-animated feature Alice in Wonderland.

Their article, “In Celebration of Color,” is about how we perceive and appreciate color in art. It’s a fairly abstract examination of color, but then again, color has always struck me as being a fairly abstract concept. Beyond the application of basic color theories like hues, values, complements, and the like, there’s a second more expressive and pyschological component to good color. Most artists are content as long as their colors are tasteful and harmonious and never consider that second part of color. But there are tremendous possibilities to exploit color for deeper meaning and effect, and this article does a nice job of encouraging one to think about those other possibilities.

(Notes: The article pages are presented in their original order. The last page is a large fold-out. I was too lazy to scan in the oversized pages so these are digital camera pics, which is why some of the pages may appear somewhat warped.)

The L.A. Times wrote about this film last month. We told you about it exactly one year ago.

From the studio that brought you Mind Game, here comes Tekkon Kinkreet, based on the manga known in the U.S. as Black & White.

Finally making its way to the States, The Museum of Modern Art will be screening a 35mm print of Studio 4C’s new anime feature for a one-week run from April 25–30, 2007. Director Michael Arias will appear at the April 25th screening.

While we are still struggling to revive 2-D, the Japanese are already re-inventing it. Check out the trailer and see why we’re so excited. If you are in New York in April, you have six chances to support the cause.

MoMA’s SCREENING SCHEDULE

Wednesday, April 25, 8:30. North American premiere. (Introduced by Michael Arias)
Thursday, April 26, 8:30
Friday, April 27, 8:30
Saturday, April 28, 2:00
Sunday, April 29, 2:00
Monday, April 30, 8:30

What We Call The News, the latest JibJab effort, premiered last night at the Radio and TV Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C. and then later on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The short, which lampoons the inanities of contemporary TV journalism, can be viewed online at JibJab.com.

Now here’s what we call the news: normally JibJab charges $1.99 for a high-quality downloadable version of their films. However, this time around, JibJab studio founders Evan and Gregg Spiridellis have graciously given CartoonBrewFilms a 1-month exclusive on the high-quality download (640×480) of What We Call The News. And even better, they’re making it available for one cent to BrewFilms users. It’s a great way for everyone to sample how easy CartoonBrewFilms is to use—and to obtain the latest JibJab masterpiece for your iPod or to look at frame-by-frame on your PC/Mac.

Remember, this deal is only good through April. After that, you’ll have to fork over your hard-earned money at JibJab’s own website to get the downloadable version.

The Internet is home to a wealth of classic animation goodness nowadays. It’s hard to keep up with all the wonderful material that people are posting everyday but here’s a few things that have caught my attention recently:

Kevin Langley has posted animation scenes from two of my favorite animators: Pat Matthews animation from the Shamus Culhane short The Greatest Man in Siam (1944) and Bobe Cannon animation from the Tex Avery short Wags to Riches (1949).

Animator Colin Giles put up video clips of Marc Davis and Ward Kimball from “Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life,” a 1981 documentary which aired on the Wonderful World of Disney.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is featuring a Yogi Bear storyboard drawn by animation great Warren Foster.

Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle (creators of Disney’s Kim Possible) will be signing their new book Liar of Kudzu at Storyopolis in Studio City, CA at 3:00 on Saturday March 31st. They’ll also be appearing at Square Books Jr. in Oxford, Mississippi next Tuesday the 3rd at 4:00. The book is a “Southern-gothic-science fiction-teen-comedy, with a romance” and it was just optioned by the Disney Channel for a Disney Channel Original Movie. They told us that they’d be happy to sign any Kim Possible books for any fans of the show who come out and say “howdy”!

The cover of the book (above) was illustrated by the amazing Chris Turnham.

I’ve known about this for a while and am excited that I can finally let everybody know about it. Pals Jon Gibson (of I Am 8-Bit fame) and Chris McDonnell (of Meathaus fame) have begun working on a bio/art coffeetable book about animation legend Ralph Bakshi. The book is slated for July 2008 release by Rizzoli NYC. Most importantly, Ralph Bakshi himself, currently 68 years old, is 100% on board with the project. Bakshi is allowing full access to his archives and granting these guys the opportunity to write an unbiased tome about his life and career. Here’s more about the project from Jon and Chris:

Since Ralph has worked with such an absurd amount of people in his 40+ years in the industry, we thought the best way to go about doing our research is to open the floodgates. To start things off, we’ve opened a production blog that will chronicle the making-of our book called Ralph’s Spot named after the legend’s own studio from back in the day. Rizzoli NYC, a great publisher that has printed many masterful art books in the past, has given us hundreds of pages and extra-large dimensions to truly exploit all the amazing art and stories that a book about Bakshi should not be without.

We’d absolutely LOVE to here from any Brew readers that have worked with Bakshi, have some Bakshi-relevant artwork to share, or just have some tales (because, as we’ve learned over the last year of getting this book going, pretty much everyone knows a least one Bakshi yarn, whether they’ve met him or not). Seriously, no matter how insignificant someone may think the story is—or if it’s only one drawing—we want it!

Knowing Jon and Chris, I have no doubt they’ll deliver one of the must-have animation books of 2008. So spread the word that they’re looking for Bakshi stories and art, and if you can deliver the goods, get in touch with them at jon [at] jonmgibson.com and chris [at] meathaus.com.