Earlier this week, UCLA’s Department of Special Collections unveiled a new searchable website that houses 5,100 hi-res images from the archives of the LA Times and the original Los Angeles Daily News. Most of these images haven’t been seen since they were originally published in the newspapers. I was curious if there were any animation related photos among the collection and I’ve posted my finds below. Bear in mind that the entire archive consists of 3 million photos so the images online represent only a tiny fraction of the collection.

The animation and cartoon-related photos include images of Carl Urbano, Bill Peet, Gus Arriola, Matt Groening, June Foray, Phil Interlandi, Hank Ketcham, a couple Ward Kimball pics (1, 2), some nice shots from the Disney strike of ‘41 (1, 2), a few Walt Disney photos I’d never seen before (1, 2, 3), and a Snow White float from the 1938 Rose Parade.

(via LA Observed)

Imagine if there was a New York Times Book Review that exclusively covered inspiring art and illustration books. Well, there is such a site and it’s called Book By Its Cover. The site has a broad focus, everything from children’s books to comics and hand-made books, and the selections are pure quality. There’s even a few animation books featured like The Art and Flair of Mary Blair and Cartoon Modern as well as books by animation artists like Seonna Hong. The blog is run by Julia Rothman, who is one of the principals in Also Design, the amazing design firm responsible for the redesign of Cartoon Brew.

It isn’t everyday that the LA Times prints an editorial that mentions Song of the South (1946) and Alice’s Egg Plant (1925). But that’s just what they did today in condemning Farfur, the Mickey Mouse imposter that hosts Tomorrow’s Pioneers, a kids’ television show on Hamas’ Al Aqsa TV.

The LA Times editorial encourages using a power greater than the U.S. Army to confront to this terror threat: the Disney lawyers!

At the risk of encouraging lawyers, here’s a lawsuit we’d love to see: Hamas getting dragged through some international court by Disney’s implacable army of attorneys. If ever there were a real claim that the company suffered dilution to the value of its intellectual property, this is it.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the video everyone is talking about:

Over at CreativePro.com, writer Gene Gable has posted a great series of articles on all aspects of vintage design, discussing everything from bizarre children’s books to cocktail napkins.

On his post about Filmstrip propaganda, Gable posts frames from several cool old strips, religious parables aimed at Sunday School kids, mainly drawn by animator George Martsegis. But among the images he posts are two frames of a filmstrip created by Bill Hanna and Gene Hazelton!

Filmstrips were a popular teaching tool back in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, in the era before PowerPoint and video. The medium was a great outlet for commercial artists and cartoonists. I believe even Disney created filmstrips for educational purposes as well. I never knew Bill Hanna and Gene Hazelton did them. I wonder how many they made and when? Anyone have more info on these?

(Thanks, Lliam Amor)

Psst! Pass It On… is a collaborative filmmaking experiment in which three different creative teams work together to create a 90-second animated short. The catch is that each team produces its 30-second piece independently, a variation of sorts on the Surrealist game of Exquisite Corpse. The latest edition of PSST! was released in March and is comprised of nine individual films produced by 27 teams.

An idea like this could easily fall flat if the participating artists aren’t up to the challenge, but organizer and producer Bran Dougherty-Johnson of Grow Design Work has brought together a high-caliber group of animation and motion graphic artists who have turned out an impressive collection of work. Due to the abstract nature of the productions, some of the films in the series are stronger than the others, but all nine of them have redeeming qualities worth checking out. The trailer below offers an overview of the project. All of the films are viewable on PsstPassItOn.com.

From Business Week, this article offers a few new details about Disney’s shorts program. Among the tidbits:

* The budgets for these shorts are “$2million or less.”

* One of the six shorts in development, The Ballad of Nessie, is “partly an exercise in helping animators improve their skills at drawing fabric in a naturalistic way.”

* Another interesting item from the article:

There’s even a piece of this new program that’s aimed at employees who don’t draw for a living. By joining the “Shorts Club,” anybody from a secretary to a tech help-desk employee can gain access to a computer workstation in their off-hours to make a five-minute cartoon. These likely won’t make it to a theater. But they could help get everybody in the organization excited about what they’re doing.

And what would a mainstream article about animation be without poor research and misinformation. The writer of this piece obviously has no concept of animation history when he writes, “In the 1930s, Walt Disney pioneered the animated short as a way of keeping his animators sharp while waiting for the script for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to finish.” Wow!

(via Seward Street)

Talk about Duck and Cover!

A rare wartime propaganda poster from World War II, using Donald Duck to urge soldiers to use condoms (prophylactics), is being auctioned off this month at hakes.com.

It is believed to be of Australian issue. The lower right insignia “4MCD,” is believed to be for the Fourth Medical Corps Division. Art is signed “Cyril Jones.”

(Thanks, BoingBoing and Edward Cox)

Via Didier Ghez’s always informative Disney History blog comes word of a new Cinderella storybook that uses Mary Blair’s concept art from the Disney film. The book will be released in September.