To this day, Walt Peregoy’s color styling in 101 Dalmatians remains a fine example of how color can be used creatively in animation while serving more than a merely decorative function. On his blog Colorful Animation Expressions, artist Oswald Iten is exploring the use of color as a storytelling device in that film. So far he has written two thoughtful and in-depth posts about the topic with more to come—Color in 101 Dalmatians: An Introduction and Color in 101 Dalmatians: 1. Home Sweet Home.

This weekend at Comic-Con, Pixar previewed footage from their next film, Up, directed by Pete Docter. They’ve also just released the first teaser trailer for the film:

FirstShowing.net offers this description of the plot:

Our hero is the 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Edward Asner), a short and square little man who walks with a cane. When he was young he met a girl and fell in love with her. Her dream was always to explore Paradise Falls in Venezuela, but unfortunately life got in the way and it never came true. Now Carl is an old widower and he sets off on his own to head down to South America to live out that dream before his life ends. Most of the movie takes place in the wonderfully envisioned mountains of Venezuela, where Carl eventually lands after his house sails south…Along the way, Carl meets numerous other characters and creatures. One of them that Docter showed us was a young, chubby 9-year-old boy named Russell. He’s collected all the merit badges (for the Wilderness Club) except one - assisting the elderly. So he stows away in Carl’s house and floats with him down to Venezuela as well.

Footage from the film was premiered in San Diego alongside clips from Disney’s Bolt. While Bolt went over well, Up made “fanboys run for the exits,” according to this report on the Spout blog. Some people enjoyed it however. Entertainment Weekly says that there was no contest between which of the two films looked better: “Bolt proved suitably entertaining…then immediately lackluster, once director Pete Docter (Monsters Inc.) came out and debuted a few scenes from Pixar’s Up.”

Personally, all I can say is that I’m excited. In fact, I’m looking more forward to this film than any Pixar effort since The Incredibles. As much as the risk-taking and experimentation in Wall-E were commendable, the film taxed my patience with what I found to be unrelatable and largely uninvolving metallic leads. Up, on the other hand, is already in the plus column by having introduced a main character with a compelling and human story that I want to learn more about. My interest is piqued.

UPDATE: Harry McCracken gives in-depth and interesting perspectives of the Comic-Con footage he saw from Bolt and Up.

Animation artist Tony Benedict (no relation to Ed) has a personal website that offers a mishmash of photos, gag drawings and ephemera from his early animation career at Disney, UPA and Hanna-Barbera. Worth a quick look.

(Thanks, Jason Groh)

This just in: ASIFA-Hollywood announced its 2008 Winsor McCay Lifetime Achievement Award recipients during their Comic-Con party last night at the Gaslight Marriott in San Diego. This year’s Winsor McCay recipients are: Mike Judge, John Lasseter and Nick Park. The award recipients will claim their trophies at the 36th Annual Annie Awards, Friday, January 30, 2009, at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Los Angeles, California.

The West Coast may have the San Diego Comic-Con, but New Yorkers have Animation Block Party, a three-day animation festival that opens tonight in Brooklyn. Live music, lots of cartoons and free booze. Ticket info here.

This cartoon by Ian-Jones Quartey and Jim Gisriel offers a few good reasons why everybody should attend Animation Block Party:

Tonight at the San Diego Comic Con. Room 6CDEF at 9:30pm. You’ve been warned!

Selections were announced this week for the 2008 Ottawa International Animation Festival (September 17-21). Four features and 101 short films are in competition this year, and as usual, I think it’s one of the stronger film line-ups of any animated film festival. The features screening in Ottawa are the French anthology Fear(s) of the Dark, Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues, Bill Plympton’s Idiots and Angels and Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir. The short film category offers recent works by Bruce Bickford, Theodore Ushev, Run Wrake, Smith & Foulkes, Koji Yamamura and Don Hertzfeldt. The TV portion of Ottawa’s competition includes Superjail, the Upstate Four pilot by the Krause brothers, and lots of Yo Gabba Gabba! shorts. Solid choices all around.

I’ll be signing copies of my book The Hanna Barbera Treasury today, Friday 7/25, from 11am till noon, at the Insight Editions/Palace Publishing booth #2913-J (located in the Lucas Pavilion).

The picture above was from today’s signing event (thanks to Jay West for the photo). We had a great bunch of people come by and say hello, and I’ve really appreciated all the kind words from our readers whom I met during the show.