Sure, The Simpsons Movie made over $70 million this weekend at the box office. But the big winner in all this is the estate of lyricist Paul Francis Webster and composer Bob Harris (anyone know what became of him?).

Webster may have won three Academy Awards for Best Song (including Love Is A Many Splendored Thing), but his lyrics for the 1967 Spider-man TV cartoon theme will apparently live forever. In addition to its inclusion in the three recent Spider-Man live action features, the tune has become one of the most popular gags (re-worked as “Spider Pig”, by Homer) in The Simpsons Movie.

Compared to his other work, Webster must have been slumming when he penned the words for the Saturday morning cartoon show. But like Spider-man and the Simpsons, the song has established itself as a mainstay of popular culture.

A quick plug for Stu’s Show, the internet radio program devoted to nostalgic pop culture. I’ll be on later this month (August 22) to discuss the recent classic cartoon DVD collections (and will answer your questions via listener phone calls). This week (tomorrow Wednesday August 1st 7-9pm East Coast/4pm-6pm West Coast) Stu interviews Eddie Carroll (pictured above at right, next to actor Alan Young, the voice of Uncle Scrooge). Carroll, best known for his tribute shows to Jack Benny, has been the voice of Jiminy Cricket since 1973.

The show is not archived so you’ll have to tune it tomorrow for the live show or tune in at the same time the next seven days if you want to hear a repeat broadcast. Stu’s show is great fun and very informative. Highly recommended.

Process Enacted is an inventive student film by Jordan Greenhalgh created at Rochester Institute of Technology as his sophomore final. The short can be viewed on his website TheChaseFactory.com. A few technical details about the film from its director:

I used Polaroid 600 film to capture all of my imagery. During the development phase of each image the Polaroids were manipulated to create lines and shapes as well as pulling some emulsion completely off. After shooting all of the Polaroids (987 to be exact) I re-shot them in black limbo with a Canon digital SLR. The end result is my film Process Enacted. There is no digital compositing or computer trickery … just what was in front of the lens.

Unabashed plug #2: Popeye DVD. Post your comments below.

Through the end of August, the Tobey C. Moss Gallery (7321 Beverly Boulevard, LA, CA) has on display a show of animation artwork by Jules Engel. It’s a fairly small selection of artwork but includes pieces from Engel’s work on Disney’s Fantasia, UPA and Format Films color keys, and drawings from his personal short films. This Thursday, August 2, from 7-9pm, I’ll be doing a signing of Cartoon Modern in conjunction with the show. We’ll also be doing a short screening that highlights his UPA work and includes rare interview clips with Engel. Brew readers who’d like to attend can rsvp by tomorrow either by sending an email to tobeymoss [at] earthlink.net or calling the gallery at (323) 933-5523.

Michael Sporn is posting the entire storyboard to the John and Faith Hubley short film Cockaboody (1974), along with frame grabs from the finished short. The boards, drawn entirely by John Hubley, are a work of art unto themselves. The first six pages of the boards are up now, stay tuned to his blog for the rest of them.

In early-2005, I declared that 2004 had been the year of the animation blog. It was a good year no doubt, but the same could likely be said for every year since then. In fact, the animation blogging community has evolved in leaps and bounds since its nascent rise in ‘04. Today, the conversation on animation blogs is as vibrant and exciting as ever. What makes the community so dynamic is that it’s not just artists and critics posting random opinions, but actively engaging in back-and-forth conversations with one another.

To offer just one example, when Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi recently posted about his distaste for the stock designs of Disney villains, character designer Harald Siepermann responded with a lengthy post on his own blog that discussed his process for designing the villain Clayton in Tarzan. I can’t imagine a conversation between two such disparate artistic personalities happening prior to blogs but these types of spirited dialogues take place on an increasingly frequent basis nowadays.

Granted, it can be difficult to keep track of all these conversations or even know where to look to find such discourse. But there is no denying that it’s happening, and students and professionals alike now have a tool unlike any other to help develop and inspire their craft. How are we each taking advantage of the possibilities and what can we do to improve the animation blogging community?

Former Animato! editor and current PC World editor, offers a nice Comic-Con trip report on his blog. He perceptively points out how the Con today has little to do with its original mission statement:

The crowding would seem to have something to do with Comic-Con’s complete refusal to limit its scope or differentiate between the important, the worthwhile, and the abysmal. It certainly isn’t following its mission, which reads as follows:

Comic-Con International is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.

I have nothing against Sarah Silverman, but I fail to see how her TV show is relevant to that mission. I don’t understand why there are booths hawking swords and hard drives, or why it makes sense for Playboy Playmates to be signing photos on the show floor. It rankles me that the con’s program book celebrates every comic, TV show, and movie it mentions as a hit, a masterwork, or both.

If you have a Con trip report on your blog, share the link with us in the comments section of this post.