Kristen Morgan, an artist and professor at Cal State Long Beach, has a current installation in Hollywood which combines pop culture itself (mainly cartoon character comics, board games, coloring books and merchandising artifacts) with sculpture, using found objects to create statues of animation icons Mighty Mouse and Popeye. The show, Objects for Everyone I Have Ever Known, runs through August 16th at Marc Selwyn Fine Art Gallery on Wilshire Blvd. The L.A. Times reviewed the show in today’s Calendar section.

Larry Harmon, the actor and animation producer who acquired the rights to Bozo the Clown and turned him into a long running TV franchise and cash cow, died yesterday of congestive heart failure. He was 83.

Harmon purchased the licensing rights to the Bozo character, created by Alan Livingston and first portrayed by Pinto Colvig, from Capitol Records in 1956. In 1958, Harmon produced several Bozo TV cartoons. He later acquired the animation rights to Laurel and Hardy and produced a series of Laurel and Hardy cartoons through Hanna Barbera in 1966. Harmon also produced several Popeye cartoons for King Features in 1960.

Another discovery, for me, at the recent Book Expo was this new book from University of Michigan Press. Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist is not about an animator, but is the fascinating true story of a female black comic strip artist who achieved considerable success between the years 1937 and 1956. The author has set up a nice website devoted to Ormes with samples of her comics work, excerpts from the book (by Nancy Goldstein), and images of the Patty-Jo doll, inspired by her most popular strip. Publishers Weekly has an in-depth article about how Ormes’ work was rediscovered and turned into this biography. If you are interested in the history of comics, Ormes’ story is a long-forgotten part of its legacy.

Western Spaghetti, the latest stop-motion short from director PES, has been posted onto his website EatPes.com. The film was animated by PES and Javan Ivey. Stills and videos from the stop-motion shoot can be seen on PES’s Facebook page.

We’re delighted to report that the Cartoon Brew Facebook community recently surpassed 500 600 700(!) members. In the few months that it’s been up, various folks have used it to post short films, link to job listings, and participate in discussions, but it’d be fun to see even more of that happening. In particular, the Wall portion of the page is underused; it’s an ideal format for posting notes about film screenings as well as other animation-related news and events. We started the Facebook community with the idea that Brew readers could have a place to communicate directly with one another. We hope you give it a try sometime.

Endangered Species by Tony White (Hokusai: An Animated Sketchbook) is so insidery that it’s doubtful it’ll ever find a mainstream audience. But being that it’s a mockumentary about the rise and fall of hand-drawn animation, it’ll make perfect perfect sense to the Brew readership. There’s some nice animation throughout and the twist ending is a delight.

Here are more details from White about the film:

Endangered Species was a film I created exclusively to illustrate my recent book… “Animation from Pencils to Pixels — Classical Techniques for Digital Animators.” The book is conceived to be the ultimate reference book for all contemporary animators, dealing with traditional techniques of movement and production process that can be utilized in the modern digital world. It seemed totally relevant therefore to offer an animated overview of the great classic moments of traditional animation, and then explain how these original pieces were produced and how I replicated them in a digital environment. This is all indicated and explained in the book’s accompanying interactive CD, amongst other things. I worked single-handedly for over 4 years to produce the film, utilizing the assistance of many of my students… as well as the voice of the great Roy E. Disney… along the way!

At last night’s ASIFA-Hollywood board meeting, Steve Worth handed me a can of Boop-Oop-A-Doop Juice, a new energy drink (designed to give you More Pep).

Is there anything that hasn’t been licensed by the caretakers of Betty Boop? What next - barbeque sauce?

Character designer Harald Siepermann has posted a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of his artwork onto this blog entry. These include designs from Disney features like Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Mulan, The Emperor’s New Groove and Brother Bear.