Animation historian Jim Korkis had a series of three small strokes last week. The strokes were in a portion of the brain that control balance and equilibrium, so he’s a bit unsteady, but he has no paralysis or speech impediment, and did not have a heart attack (as many stroke victims do after their initial incident). I understand he’s doing pretty well, all things considered.

Jim is one of the most renown and respected animation historians in our field, and certainly one of the most knowledgeable Disney scholars I know. He’s also a great friend. Get well soon, Jim!

Mike Nguyen is one of the best traditional character animators I know. Fiercely independent, Mike’s working on his own feature film essentially by himself, and has been blogging about it, and his random thoughts about animating — with video clips, sketches and sculpture online — every week on rainplace.net. Check it out. To paraphrase the motto of the old Gotham Book Mart: “Wise animators fish here”.

We’re baaaaack!

Live comedy! Horrible animation! Cartoon Dump is live in Los Angeles every 4th Tues. of the month at the Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd. Hope to see you on Tuesday March 25th when we welcome this month’s Special Guest: Greg Proops!!

LA Review

Feature article by Peter Sanderson of Quick Stop Entertainment

An interview with Compost Brite

Advanced tickets

Photo above from our November show (Left to right: Jerry Beck, Joel Hodgson, Frank Conniff, Kristen the Cue Card Goddess, Erica Doering, Lizzy Cooperman and Patton Oswalt.)

Sad news out of Pixar. Story supervisor Ronnie del Carmen reports on his blog that newly minted Pixar story artist Justin Wright passed away Tuesday evening at age 27. The cause of death was a heart attack; this article about Justin says that he had health complications as a child and had received a heart transplant. I’m not familiar with his work owing to his nascent career but his personal illustration blog offers a glimpse of his drawing talent.

Here are links to some of the tributes appearing online from friends, family and Pixar co-workers:
Nate Wragg
Austin Madison
Kyle Shockley
Phil Rynda
Ted Mathot
Lindsay
Scott Morse
Bill Cone
John Sanford
Jeff Pidgeon
James Robertson
Enrico Casarosa
Nick Sung
Kate RW
Michael Wright
Kelly Matten
JoJo
Alex Woo

What’s wrong with the following sentence in this Andreas Deja interview: “I got to know, not only Marc Davis, but Frank Thomas, Artie Johnson, Ward Kimball, all these great animators, and just ask them all these questions about how they did certain things, what their trials and errors were, the ups and downs.”

Then again, the same article also doesn’t spell Rodin properly so it’s probably asking them too much to do the most basic research about animation history.

Gabe Swarr was commissioned to create this Flash-animated musical piece below advertising Radiohead and AniBoom’s “In Rainbows Music Video Contest.” As Brew readers know, I’m not a fan of contests like these, but of all the animation contests one could possibly enter, the AniBoom ones tend to be the least icky. For example, this particular contest is structured in such a way so that storyboards are judged first and you’re not being asked to submit an entirely finished product. Afterwards, the winning storyboards are even given a small sum of money to produce their videos.

As for Swarr’s piece, it’s a large leap from his usually recognizable work. He explains on his blog: “My approach was to keep as close to Radiohead’s established video style. My natural style is kind of opposite of that, so it was a cool creative challenge.”

I see a lot of animated features in advance and, for the most part, keep my opinions to myself until the movie is in general release. Today I had the opportunity to screen Kung Fu Panda and cannot contain myself. I’m not going to write a review or post spoilers - but I just want to alert you to what I believe is one of the best CG animated films I’ve ever seen.

Yup. Right up there with The Incredibles. Dreamworks has done it. No joke.

The art direction, the voices, the character animation, the comedy, the action scenes, the opening 2-D cartoon sequence, the heart… it all works. Don’t miss this in a theatre. I don’t care what you think of the trailer, or Dreamworks track record, or anything like that. None of that matters. This film is good, and will a big hit. Mark my words - you’ll want the action figures.

Yes, this is a rave. I’ll post a more formal review as we get closer to its release. I just wanted to be the first to tell you.

[Disclosure: I am currently working on a book (unrelated to Kung Fu Panda) for Dreamworks.]

Everything’s better when it’s in CG…even presidential candidate Ron Paul. Of all the recent animated political ads, this commercial with its grandiose histrionics and over-the-top imagery ranks in my book as the most memorable spot of this political season. It’s directed by Nathan Evans of ArcFX.