The Wall Street Journal has a depressing article about a growing trend in the cartoon world: ‘transcreating’ cartoon characters, in which American cartoons are remade for foreign audiences. A notable example of this is the recently produced Japanese version of the Powerpuff Girls called Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z.

The characters mentioned throughout the piece, like the Powerpuff Girls, Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man, are successful in the first place because their American creators were passionate about and personally invested in the characters and stories that they were creating. It’s a shame that today’s corporations don’t believe that investing in foreign artistic talent could lead to similarly popular creations, and instead are commissioning foreign artists to simply churn out cheap copies of American originals. ‘Transcreated’ cartoon characters may result in short-term profits for these companies but not much else.

Good Grief! The conversation continues on our post about the Michaelis bio of Charles Schulz. Schulz son Monte adds some additional comments today, as well as new reactions from Schulz daughters Amy and Jill.

(Note: To keep the discussion from breaking into numerous threads, comments are closed for this post but can be continued in the other post with Schulz’s family comments.)

Everybody knows what Lilo and Stitch co-director Chris Sanders is up to nowadays, but what about the film’s other director, Dean DeBlois? Apparently, DeBlois has just directed a live-action documentary about the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. The film Heima (Homeland) has been quite well received by critics. Here is a recent New Yorker audio interview with DeBlois and the band.

(Thanks, Jakob Schuh)

How did this one get by me? Did Walt Disney name his most famous creation after a toy, Micky Mouse (sic)?

On eBay today, someone is selling a 1925 Micky Mouse doll, along with a stock certificate from the long-defunct Performo-Toy Company. According to the seller:

“…it has been reported that all documents from the Performo Toy Company relating to this Micky Mouse toy were ordered to be destroyed after a Law suit filed by Disney that stated this mouse toy was originally taken from Disney…”

Apparently there are even TWO books about this Micky doll and Performo Toys: Broken Toy and Who Was First?

I’d never heard about this before, have you?

(Thanks, Kevin Coffey)

The grandson of Golden Age Hollywood animator C.L. Hartman has posted a reel onto YouTube of commercials animated by Hartman at John Hubley’s Storyboard and Quartet Films. The reel includes some ultrarare commercials that I’d only seen stills of previously. Lots of beautiful design and funny animation throughout. Also, for the curious, a while back I posted a UPA-era photo of Hartman onto Flickr.

Storefront and interior. Click for bigger version

A few months ago, I solicited suggestions from readers about what to see and do while in Paris. I never did a follow-up but today I wanted to write about a highlight of that trip: Un Regard Moderne, one of the coolest bookstores I’ve ever visited. The tiny shop, located at 10 rue gît le coeur 75006 Paris, is a place that claustrophobics would be well advised to avoid. It houses thousands of volumes, mostly related to art, comics and pop culture, in two crowded rooms, with all the books precariously piled atop one another, in seemingly random order, and quite ready to topple at any given moment. The store is cramped so much so that the owner only allows four to five people in the store at any time. When we there, there were only four people and it was quite a challenge moving around.

What impressed me most was the owner’s stock which was extremely up-to-date. In fact, we found many books there that we didn’t find at the better known comic stores in Paris, including titles like Three Trees Make A Forest, I Am 8-Bit and The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora.

Also fascinating was the owner’s encyclopedic knowledge of every book crammed into his shop. My travel companions were author and video game designer David Calvo and Marseilles-based musician Guillaume Pervieux, and when my friend David inquired about an obscure graphic novel that he’d been looking for, the owner had dug the book out of one of the piles within a few minutes.

The owner generously allowed me to take a video of his store and I posted it onto YouTube a while back. The quality is fairly poor but it should offer some sense of what the store is like. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the neighborhood.

Charles Schulz’s son, Monte Schulz, has posted a new in-depth comment on Cartoon Brew detailing some of the family’s specific objections to David Michaelis’ new book. If the book’s gross inaccuracies (which Schulz points out) are true, and I have no reason to believe they’re not, this would be a seriously flawed work of historical research. I feel it’s important to draw attention to the family’s complaints as it provides valuable information to potential readers of the book. It’s also a viewpoint that counters some of the raves that are appearing in the maintream, like this glowing New Yorker review by John Updike.

(Note: To keep the discussion from breaking into numerous threads, comments are closed for this post but can be continued in the other post with Schulz’s comment.)

Earlier Stories:
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography
More on the Schulz book

Guess what’s coming out in two short weeks?

Yeah, I’m plugging it again. That’s because it’s a great set of 60 uncut, restored cartoons and I want to make everybody buy it (by doing so you are voting with your pocket book, sending a message that you support the restoration and availability of classic cartoons). On sale October 30th: Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 5.