Bonhams & Butterfields next entertainment memorabilia auction, on Sunday December 9th, will contain animation art from the Estate of Bill Tytla, one of the greatest animators of all time. According to their press release:

The collection includes a cel, animation drawings and preliminary drawings including a celluloid of the character “Chernabog” from Fantasia. The 1940 gouache on celluloid, a close-up of Chernabog’s face (above) from the Night on Bald Mountain sequence, is matted and framed, the 10 x 12-inch work expected to bring $600-800 at auction.

Click on cel above for a larger image. All items for sale in this auction will be posted next month on this page.

(Thanks Steve Moore)

Independent animator Jeff Scher (who won the New Media prize in Ottawa on Sunday for his TimesSelect piece L’eau Life) made another little film of note, Lost and Found, by tracing over several bits of Fleischer, Van Beuren and Felix animation. I love stuff like this. It’s fun, and takes nothing away from the original works (and may encourage artier types to take a closer look at classic cartoons).

Here’s a contest for the super-nerds in our readership (and I use the tern super-nerds in the most affectionate way - I’m one, too). Whoever is first to name all the clips rotoscoped in Lost and Found will win a brand new DVD collection: Felix the Cat: The Complete 1958-1959 Series. I will select the winner (at my discretion) from comments recieved today (9/25). Winner will be announced on Wednesday.

Congrats to our friend, and the animation art form’s friend, John Canemaker, who won an Emmy award last night at the 28th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards. His film, The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, which has already won the 2005 Oscar for Best Animated Short, took home the Emmy in the category of “Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Graphic & Artistic Design.”

Additionally, John will be honored in Italy this October at the 26th annual Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy. He will be the first animation historian to receive the Jean Mitry Award, which is awarded to an individual or institution for their “reclamation and appreciation of silent cinema.” We are aware you are a true pioneer,” write Giornate Festival organizers Livio Jacob and Piera Patat, “making claims for the importance of Winsor McCay and Otto Messmer when even silent film historians were ignoring them.”

If you want a free animation desk, and are willing to move it yourself from North Hollywood, this Craigslist post is offering thirty of them, sans disc.

(Thanks, Gary)

For those who doubt it - Hand drawn animated features are alive and well in Europe. Case in point: Die Drei Rauber (The Three Robbers).

Unfortunetly, as stated here before, this is one of dozens of foreign animated films produced every year that don’t get distributed in North America. Our friend Sinem Sakaoglu writes:

I thought it might interest you to know we’ll soon be premiering (so far only in Germany and France) the feature version of The Three Robbers (based on the book by Tomi Ungerer; Gene Deitch produced a six minute short version for Weston Woods in 1972)

It was a relatively small crew that made it all happen and though I now have a few more gray hairs than when I started the project (I did production management and overseas supervision), it was a fun and rewarding time… Hope it gets over to the other side of the pond.

So do I. It looks cute. See the trailer here.

Another quick little plug for our Cartoon Dump live comedy show tonight in Hollywood. Join us at 8pm.

Guest comedians Andy Kindler and Michelle Maryk join our regular cast, Frank Conniff, Joel Hodgson, Kathleen Roll, Erica Doering, Joe Keys and Eddie Pepitone and me, in presenting the worst cartoons ever!

P.S. New podcasts resume later this week.

• Disney theme park designs by animator Marc Davis.

• Funny frame grabs from an Iwerks Willie Whopper short.

• Grim Natwick and Dave Hand talk about Norm Fergusons’s rough animation. The post goes well with this Michael Barrier piece, “How Rough Were ‘Fergy Ruffs.’

• There are more funny drawings in this Alvin Show pilot board than in entire runs of most animated TV series nowadays.

• Weightless Life was a recent four-part documentary about the history of Russian animation. The first part of the doc has been translated into English by blogger Niffiwan and posted on his blog. His post is well-annotated with plenty of links to the films and artists discussed in the special.

• A step-by-step painting by classic Disney background painter Ralph Hulett, plus an extra tip about perspective from Hulett.

• Bob Camp is in the house, and he’s started a second blog to post older artwork. Currently, he’s sharing some delightful Disney concept art by Ferdinand Horvarth. There’s more biographical info about Horvarth in this article by Wade Sampson.

• Animator/director Will Finn talks about learning how to draw like yourself and uses a couple classic print cartoonists as examples.

Previously on Cartoon Brew:
Animation History Round-Up #1
Animation History Round-Up #2