I’m way overdue in posting, plugging and praising these two fine publications.

In this day and age of blogs and dedicated websites, niche publications are getting scarcer and scarcer. However, the proprietors of these books have a passion and point of view that you have to admire—both putting a spotlight on overlooked and esoteric aspects of cartoon history.

Cereal:Geek covers animation of the 1980s, specifically action adventure cartoons, particularly of the Transformers, He-Man, Ghostbusters, Voltron variety. The latest issue (#2) features 100 glossy color pages, packed with artwork and articles such as “Things We Love About Thundercats”, “Why I dislike Defenders of the Universe” and “There’s Something About Jem”. It’s aimed squarely at those who grew up taking these things very seriously. If that’s not you—move on.

Craig Yoe’s Arf Forum (which we plugged before, in pre-production) is a work of art unto itself. I can’t praise this series highly enough. Yoe packs so much incredible cartoon history and eye candy into 122 pages, you are left breathless and amazed. Overlooked artisans George Crenshaw, Max Ernst, Ted Scheel, William Ekgren, Henry Heath and Italian girlie cartoonist Kremos are among those featured in this forum. I recommend this to all readers of the Brew. Order now!

Serving as an appropriate complement to this earlier piece on Cartoon Brew, animation legend Gene Deitch has written a piece for Animation World Magazine entitled “Yes, But is It Animation?” in which he uses Beowulf as a jumping point for his thoughts on motion and performance capture. Deitch’s primary complaint is that while the type of work on display in Beowulf is technically qualifiable as animation, it is not a creative use of the medium. “We animators can animate absolutely anything we can imagine,” he writes. “We are graphic artists, and graphic art can be wildly anything.” Beowulf is not even mildly anything as far as animation art goes.

In the end, Deitch concedes that the whole debate about what is and what isn’t animation may be little more than a trivial technicality because a film’s worth is not rooted in its technique: “We may simply have to give up trying to categorize films by their technical process of production, which will surely be more and more a mixed bag of tricks, and simply judge them as films. Do they tell a story worth telling, and do they tell it well? That’s really what movies are all about, isn’t it?”

We are happy to announce that Cartoon Brew is now accepting ads from third-party advertisers (in other words, you) in our right-hand column. Many individuals and companies have commented to us throughout the past year that they’d like to advertise on Cartoon Brew but that they can’t afford the prices that our ad partner, Federated Media, charges for the large vertical and horizontal banners. While we’re thrilled to have major advertisers like Adobe, Cartoon Network,Verizon, Toyota and Hewlett-Packard occupying those spots, we also recognize the importance of giving independent companies, studios and individuals the chance to promote their projects in an affordable manner to the Cartoon Brew readership.

So we’ve decided to introduce a new advertising option of 125×125px square boxes in the right-hand column of this site. Previously we have only used these smaller ads to promote our personal projects and to support special causes, but now we will be adding your ads to the mix. We are selling these spots for only $250/month. That buys you an uninterrupted month-long campaign on Cartoon Brew, which receives an average of over 200k unique visitors/month and over 300k page views/month. If you’re interested in purchasing an ad, contact either Jerry or Amid through our bio pages at the top of this site and we’ll set you up. As a bonus, the first two advertisers who sign up will receive $50 off of their first month.

Folks in and around the Bay Area should make a point to check out the “The Art and Flair of Mary Blair” exhibition which continues at the Cartoon Art Museum in downtown San Francisco through March 18, 2008. DreamWorks story artist Jenny Lerew recently visited the show and offered some perceptive observations about Blair’s work on her blog, including the notion that we shouldn’t allow today’s plethora of second- and third-rate Blair imitators affect our judgement about the quality of her original work. Jenny writes:

“There’s always a lot of talk about the obvious influence of Mary Blair on artists today–so much so, in fact, that it’s led in some circles to a bit of a backlash towards her or towards the stylings of artists who’ve been inspired by her. But when you see these up close and without the filters of photography(either the still camera’s or the animation stand’s)or the limitations of the published page, even now they leap out at the viewer and are as new and fresh as they must have been half a century ago. To see her technique up close is to appreciate how incredibly skilled she was. Intuitive, surely; imaginative and whimsical, yes–but also plain, keen, brilliant, diamond-hard thinking going on. It’s still a big wow.“

Nina Paley’s offbeat indie animated feature Sita Sings The Blues recently was accepted into the prestigious 58th annual Berlin International Film Festival, where it’ll be having its world premiere next month. But as Paley writes on her website, “The bad news is, she’s programmed in a theater that doesn’t do Digital Cinema. That means unless I have a 35mm print by February, her one and only World Premiere will be on, well…video. I can’t let that happen.”

I’ve heard positive words from numerous people who have seen work-in-progress versions of Sita. The film, which Paley started production on in 2004, is uniquely personal, tackling the story of breaking up with her husband in India, combined with an unlikely mashup of Indian mythology and 1920s American jazz. Paley made the film entirely on her own, without a producer or studio backing, and still needs $20k to create a 35mm master. She is accepting tax-deductible donations through this website. It’s a worthy cause for animation fans who have a few extra bucks to spare.

UPDATE: Nina Paley wrote in one of the comments on her blog that everybody who donates will receive a credit in the finished film. But she says that credits will be closed Monday, “since that’s the latest I can render everything out from my computer.” So head over and donate now.

The Chicago Spire, a building designed by superstar architect Santiago Calatrava, is poised to become North America’s tallest free-standing structure and the world’s tallest all-residential building when it is completed in 2011. When the developers officially unveiled the project last September, their presentation included a slick five-minute animated promo. Pushing far beyond typical animated architectural renderings, the developers enlisted vfx houses Lightstream Pictures and Sony Imageworks to create a feature film-style piece complete with dramatic staging and lighting. A portion of the film can be seen on the building’s website, TheChicagoSpire.com, and a video about the building with a few more animation clips can be seen on YouTube. It just goes to show that there’s no product or idea that can’t benefit from some well conceived animation.

As a follow up to my previous post on plush dolls (and I promise this will be the last one for the time being), I just found out they made one for Anton Ego, the beloved food critic from Ratatouille!

Who wouldn’t want to cuddle up with a plush doll of one of the most cherished characters in Disney/Pixar history? He’s certainly one of my favorites. Here’s an eBay link. However, I’m still waiting for the Anton Ego vinyl action figures and bobble-head toy.

Is anyone surprised that Persepolis wasn’t nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar? No foreign animated film submitted by its home country has ever been nominated in this category.

And its interesting to note that Persepolis wasn’t even the first animated nominee from France. In 1953 France submitted Jean Image’s Johnny The Giant Killer. In 1975 Belgium submitted Tarzoon, Shame Of The Jungle.

For the record, here’s a complete run down of previous animated films submitted to the Best Foreign Film category:

1953: France, JOHNNY THE GIANT KILLER
1975: Belgium, TARZOON SHAME OF THE JUNGLE
1982: Romania, QUO VADIS HOMO SAPIANS?
1986: Hungary, CAT CITY
1994: Japan, POM POKO
1997: Croatia, LAPITCH THE LITTLE SHOEMAKER
1997: Japan, PRINCESS MONONOKE
1999: Argentina, MANUELITA
2002: Chile, OGU AND MAMPATO ON EASTER ISLAND
2005: Luxembourg, RENART THE FOX
2007: France, PERSEPOLIS

None of them made it. Most of these entries were submitted in the years before the Academy recognized animated features. Unlike some of my colleagues, I’m grateful the Academy’s Best Animated Feature category exists. With the exception of Beauty And The Beast, the organization has failed, time and again, to recognize the art. The industry simply does not consider animation in the same league with live action. Eliminating the Animated Feature Oscar will not change how Academy voters consider animation. Having that award at least brings us to the table.

To some the Best Animated Feature category may be a “ghetto”, but ultimately it’s up to us to raise the consciousness amongst the filmmakers, the Academy and the public.