Quick Stop Entertainment has a lengthy interview with Bloom County and Opus creator Berkeley Breathed. Breathed talks about the earlier troubled adaptations of his comics to animation, his current work with Robert Zemeckis to adapt one of his children’s books into a mo-cap feature (”just to annoy the animation community”), and his thoughts on the recent Calvin & Hobbes student film (”Bill [Watterson] is going to have a cow when he sees this. Not that it isn’t terrific. I think it’s like how we’d feel finding our wives naked on YouTube… no matter how hot they look.”)

File this one under Tragically Amusing: it’s the Super-Short Animation Career of Godfrey Bjork courtesy of Joe Campana’s Animation—Who and Where blog.

This essay by Troy Steele is surprisingly insightful, managing to seamlessly weave together a discussion of gender politics in the movie industry, the live-action films of Jane Campion, and the Ren & Stimpy: APC episode “Naked Beach Frenzy,” about which Steele writes:

Kricfalusi’s sexism is so innocent, so reverent of a sex he clearly doesn’t even begin to comprehend. The inclusion of a grotesquely hirsute male lifeguard only helps to make the women look that much better in comparison. Kricfalusi clearly doesn’t understand women beyond objectification, but at least that pedestal he’s putting an entire sex upon isn’t one of dour victimhood and sour grapes.



WFMU’S Beware of the Blog tells you more than you could ever want to know about one of my favorite voice actors of all time: Bill Thompson, the voice of Droopy. Interesting factoids abound including that Thompson was originally cast as the voice of Fred Flintstone, and that he left show business in the early-’60s to become a business executive at Union Oil.

Interview with the boss’s son: Animation Magazine interviews Laika animator Travis Knight, who also happens to be the son of Laika owner and Nike founder Phil Knight. I’ve heard many positive things from stop-mo folk about Travis’s animation skills, and it’s clear that Laika is embracing more interesting and promising projects than when the studio was Vinton’s, so I tend to be cautiously optimistic about Laika’s future. (via Ward-O-Matic)

And finally, the LA Daily News looks at what happens to CalArts students after they graduate with their $120k chararacter animation degrees.

20 comments  permalink  posted in Ideas/Commentary

An Animation Legend Has A Garage Sale

May 21, 2007 3:28 am






The last surviving member of Disney’s Nine Old Men, Ollie Johnston, has moved to Oregon, and this past weekend, there was a quietly advertised estate sale at his La Canada home. I didn’t attend, but animator Mark Kausler (It’s the Cat) has a lengthy report on his blog (yes, he’s finally blogging!!) along with photos from the sale. DreamWorks animator Donnachada Daly also checked it out and shares a few of his purchases on his blog. Other folks on message boards—here and here—are also posting items they purchased.

7 comments  permalink  posted in Events

Monday Morning Inspiration: Now Hear This (1962)

May 21, 2007 3:02 am




Now Hear This is without doubt one of the weirder (and more difficult to find) WB shorts that Chuck Jones ever made, but it’s a nice reminder that even after twenty-five years of directing shorts, Jones was still open to experimentation and able to have fun with his chosen medium of expression. Credits include co-direction by Maurice Noble, sound effects by Treg Brown, and a co-writing credit between Jones and John Dunn, who I’m sure you’re all familiar with from the recent Animation Blast #9.

(via Mark Mayerson)

14 comments  permalink  posted in Classic, Shorts

Discovering Cartoon Network

May 21, 2007 1:46 am




Australian cartoonist Elliot Cowan recently discovered that he could receive Cartoon Network on his digital cable. After watching it, he created a visual document (posted below) of his virgin CN viewing experience. It’s a brilliant piece of editorial illustration that perfectly sums up the vast majority of children’s TV animation being produced nowadays. Elliot’s brief comments accompanying this piece can be read on his blog.


(click for larger version)

20 comments  permalink  posted in TV

A Fair(y) Use Tale

May 19, 2007 9:35 pm




Film history professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University explains copyright law, via clips from Disney and Pixar films, in this clever video posted by Stanford Law School. Watch it below on YouTube or download a copy to your computer from the Stanford website.

(via Boing Boing)

14 comments  permalink  posted in Disney

Artists get down to business at Otis

May 19, 2007 7:10 pm






Attention L.A. area artists. This one’s for you: on Saturday, June 9th, from 10 am to 1 pm, at Otis College of Art and Design on their campus near LAX, arts instructor Michael Dooley will moderate “Good Business is the Best Art: How to Succeed in Fine Art without Really Starving” with panelists Amy Kim Ganter, Camille Rose Garcia, Anthony Ausgang (art above), Coop, Mark Todd, and Esther Pearl Watson.

This three-hour presentation/discussion will cover a wide variety of art-related topics, including how they mix and blend their animation and cartooning work with their fine art careers.


Join these celebrated artists for three hours of revealing conversation, as they present their work, divulge behind-the-scenes secrets of their art entrepreneurship, and discuss artistic strategies for successful marketing and building name brand recognition. The artists will also be signing books and selling items immediately after the event.

Tickets are available online at ticketweb.com or call 866.468.3399.

3 comments  permalink  posted in Events, Illustration

THIS WEEKEND: SketchCrawl and Charity Auction

May 18, 2007 4:24 am






The 14th edition of SketchCrawl takes place this Saturday, May 19. For those who don’t know, SketchCrawl was an idea started by Pixar story artist Enrico Casarosa a few years ago. The idea is beautiful in its simplicity: whereever you live, pull out your sketchbook and spend the day walking around town, observing and sketching. You can sketch alone or band together with other artists who organize in various cities on the SketchCrawl forums.

This weekend’s edition of SketchCrawl also has a charitable component. Throughout the weekend, artists who are sketching will also be raising money for the relief organization Emergency. Additionally, on Sunday, May 20, from 5-9pm, there will be a silent art auction at Maverix Studios in San Francisco (1717 17th Street) with proceeds going to Emergency. The impressive list of auction contributors includes Glen Murakami, Tadahiro Uesugi, Ronnie del Carmen, Peter de Seve, Scott Morse, Sam Hiti, Steve Purcell, Dice Tsutsumi, Bill Presing, Ed Bell, Andrea Blasich, Alexandra Boiger, Jamie Baker and Ted Mathot, to name but a few. A preview gallery with some of the artwork can be seen here.

1 comment  permalink  posted in Events

You Asked For It

May 18, 2007 4:00 am




Here’s an kinescope excerpt from the classic 1950s TV show, You Asked For It, from sometime during its first year of broadcast (1950-51 season). Here, host Art Baker is answering viewer mail about how animated cartoons are made, assisted by animator Ken Walker (flipping scenes from the short Plutopia) — and a rather pathetic Mickey Mouse puppet.

15 comments  permalink  posted in Disney

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