Is this bus stop ad from Norway part of the official DreamWorks marketing campaign or did they receive some assistance from the public? Either way, it’s a terrific idea, and somewhat reminiscent of this recent WonderBra ad.

(via Comunicadores)

Pools Stokbrood is an amusing one-minute short directed by Daan based on a text by Russian surrealist and absurdist poet Daniil Kharms. Here is the translation of the film’s poem:

“One time, a man was going to the office and on his way there he met another man who had bought a Polish stick bread and was on his way home. And that’s it, actually.”

Ben Balistreri, currently a storyboard artist at Dreamworks on How to Train Your Dragon, and a character designer and board artist for Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Danny Phantom and many others, recently self published his first graphic novel: Seaweed and the Cure for Mildew.

Man, this guy is good! I saw the book at Comic-Con and couldn’t put it down. The project took six years to complete as Balistreri could only work on it on nights and weekends. Each panel and drawing is exquisite. The book itself is a must-see: it’s a handsome hardcover volume, in full color and printed at a huge 12 by 15 inches! It’s 64 pages, of which 24 are dedicated to roughs, designs, and making-of drawings printed on a different paper than the comic.

The story is crammed with great characters, funny dialogue and gorgeous, dynamic artwork - and it’s an epic of high adventure that cries out to be an animated film (by traditional hand-drawn animation). It’s $29.95 and each order comes with an original sketch. I highly recommend this - it’s a bargain. Order it here.

Hurtling 3-D objects at viewers is not a substitute for quality filmmaking as last week’s weak opening of the 3-D animated pic Fly Me to the Moon proved. Roger Ebert takes the issue one step further and posits on his blog that 3-D technology not only doesn’t add anything to the viewing experience but that it actually detracts from the filmgoer’s enjoyment of movies. He writes:

Ask yourself this question: Have you ever watched a 2-D movie and wished it were in 3-D? Remember that boulder rolling behind Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark?” Better in 3-D? No, it would have been worse. Would have been a tragedy. The 3-D process is like a zombie, a vampire, or a 17-year cicada: seemingly dead, but crawling out alive after a lapse of years. We need a wooden stake.

[Previously on Cartoon Brew: 3-D Animation: Fad or Future?]

(via Kottke)

This Saturday, Eric Goldberg will be signing his new book Character Animation Crash Course! at Stuart Ng Books in Torrance, CA. He’ll be there from 2-4pm. For directions to Stuart’s showroom, visit their website.

Beware when visiting Stuart Ng’s though because your wallet will be empty when you leave. His collection of comic, cartoon, animation and illustration books is any animator’s wet dream. Stuart is also one of two exclusive distributors for my magazine Animation Blast, which is currently on a publishing hiatus. The other location is House of Secrets in Burbank. If you need copies of Blast #7, 8 or 9, Stuart has plenty of copies available at his store or through mail order.

As part of the Atlanta Underground Film Festival, ASIFA-Atlanta will be presenting Animation Attack!. The three-screening series takes place this Thursday through Saturday, and includes one locally-produced Flash feature—John’s Arm: Armageddon—along with two programs of animated shorts. The shorts being screened are an eclectic mix of American and foreign indie animation including the Rauch Bros.’ German in the Woods, episodes of Augenblick Studios’s Golden Age series, Mathieu Labaye’s Orgesticulanismus and Blu’s wall animation Muto. For ticket info and full program line-up, visit AnimationAttack.com.

The UK Times got duped into running an article about one company’s claims that their animation has leapt the Uncanny Valley. The video sample accompanying the piece however fits so comfortably into Uncanny Valley territory that it makes one wonder why the Times felt this was worthy of media attention. The best response about the unconvincing human quality of the animated female comes from this MetaFilter discussion in which one user commented, “Yeah, not getting a boner over here. Fail.”

It’s also worth noting that only the face of the character is CG; the hair and body are those of a live-action actor (shown at left in the image above). There’s also an extended, higher-res version of the facial animation on AWNtv. While this piece of animation misses the mark, the reality is that sooner or later somebody’s going to come up with believable photorealistic animation. Time will tell though whether anybody will actually use the technology towards an artistic end or if photorealistic animation will remain the cost-cutting measure for entertainment producers that is driving its current development.

Even for someone like myself who hasn’t seen a new episode of The Simpsons in years, it’s hard not to be impressed by the obsessive fanboyishness of Dan Cameron Jerry Lerma and Terry Hogan who mapped the entire fictional city of the Simpsons’ Springfield. Here’s a link to the full-sized map.