The ASIFA-Hollywood panel with Ralph Bakshi will be a particular highlight at the Comic Con next week. The blurb for this event posted online was not accurate. Here’s the correct description:

ARTISTS ONLY: A Chat With Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi is responsible for some of the most wildly original animated features ever made- including Heavy Traffic, Coonskin and Wizards. Working in a largely collaborative medium hide-bound by the legacy of Walt Disney, Bakshi was able to rip the lid off of the moribund medium and create films with remarkable honesty and a startlingly unique point of view.

The legendary cartoonist Ralph Bakshi will be on hand to be interviewed by ASIFA-Hollywood Archive Director Stephen Worth on his life and career. He will be offering advice to aspiring cartoonists and reflecting on what it means to be an artist in today’s world. Whether you’re lucky enough to make a living doodling or whether you still dream of being paid to create, you won’t want to miss this important presentation.

Don’t miss it - Saturday, July 26th 4:30 - 5:30 in Room 10.

Oh, I get it - the operative word here is “cartoons”, and the joke is that the current political situation is a different “cartoon” from the one Jeffy and PJ usually watch. Ha. Ha. That’s a real knee-slapper. I’ve got nothing against The Family Circus and I’m not trying to turn into the Comics Curmudgeon - but today’s Family Circus is badly written and poorly composed. Perhaps they should leave the political humor to Garry Trudeau.

Hayao Miyazaki’s latest feature, Ponyo On The Cliff, opened yesterday in Japan. It’s one of his gentler films, more along the lines of My Neighbor Totoro - and I’m looking forward to it. Not wild about the theme song on the trailer, but the visuals look terrific.

(via Frames Per Second)

Spline Doctors, the animation education blog run by Pixar animators, offers up a new audio interview with Doug Sweetland, longtime Pixar animator and director of the studio’s latest short Presto. Part 1 is posted here; the second part is coming soon.

There is still a lot of research to be done in documenting the silent era of animation. Leonard Maltin reports, on his Movie Crazy blog, of the screening of a true rarity/oddity at the recent San Francisco Silent Film Festival:

…a 1925 animated cartoon in two-color Technicolor. The Old Family Toothbrush features a character named Kid Noah in “A New Redhead Satire” filmed in Naturecolor, using the Wilson Wetherald Process. It was so startling to see a cartoon of this vintage in color that I picked up my camera and tried to capture a few frames (above)… The short itself is fairly amusing, executed in fairly typical New York cartoon-studio fashion of the period, with impressive personality animation of its leading character. Still, its origins are something of a mystery: the picture wasn’t registered for copyright, and I can find no evidence of it in my usual reference sources.

Do any of our readers have some clues about this mysterious new discovery?

Animation Mentor is hosting a tribute to the life, work and inspiration of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston at SIGGRAPH 2008. Animation director Tom Sito will lead the panel discussion, with panelists including Disney producer Don Hahn, Dreamworks animator Dave Burgess, Animation Guild president Kevin Koch, and Frank Thomas’ son, Ted, an independent film director, writer and producer. The panel will take place on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. –in Petree Hall D of the Los Angeles Convention Center. For more information, click here.

I don’t think I’ve ever been able to exactly pinpoint what it is that I so enjoy about the directing duo Smith & Foulkes (repped by Nexus Productions), but they seemingly turn out more top-notch spots than anybody else in the commercial game. Their latest spot for Coca-Cola, “East Meets West,” is yet another piece of CG that impresses the hell out of me, largely because every element of this piece is carefully considered and designed to work in unison. I especially love how the commercial’s ornate visual detail is contrasted with a limited animation style. This directorial restraint allows for the graphics to read with a crispness and elegance that is uncommon in the world of commercial CG. As far as Coke adverts go, it’s hard to ask for much more.

(via Motionographer)

“White Winter Hymnal,” directed by Sean Pecknold, is a stop motion music video for Seattle-based Fleet Foxes. While I enjoy slickly crafted computer animation as much as the next person, there’s something especially refreshing nowadays about seeing a rough-around-the-edges piece of stop motion in which the artist’s hand can be felt in every frame.