Earlier this week, Cartoon Network premiered a new episode of The Powerpuff Girls in honor of the show’s tenth anniversary. Notably, the cartoon was produced in Flash for the first time. All previous episodes were animated traditionally on paper. In this post at Cold Hard Flash, creator Craig McCracken and animation director Eric Pringle discuss how they transitioned the show from hand-drawn to Flash. McCracken, who came up with the characters in 1991, thinks the show should have been made in Flash from day one:

“The show was designed with very tight, crisp, bold, clean-ups. Because it was originally hand-drawn, the line weights always varied, but with Flash we were able to get that crisp look every time. Looking back at the PPG series, I realized I designed a Flash show before Flash was invented!”

On an semi-related note, why didn’t I know Craig has his own DeviantArt page with over 5,000 fans on it? The image at the top of this post—the first drawing he ever did of the crime-fighting trio—is taken from his DeviantArt.

Blogs were abuzz last week after it was revealed that Disney CEO Bob Iger took home $30.6 million in salary and bonuses in 2008. So what exactly has Iger done since taking over the company in 2005? Fortune magazine recently published an article “Bob Iger rocks Disney” that talks about his accomplishments during the past few years.

While the studio has been financially successful with many of its projects—Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Jonas Brothers, Cars, “Princesses” and “Fairies” franchises—it could also be argued that most of these are short-sighted projects designed to cash in on popular trends. With the exception of some of John Lasseter’s initiatives, there appears to be little vision within the company for creating quality work that has long-term and multi-generational value. Is it any surprise that three of Disney’s four highest-grossing movies of the 2000s have been based on Pirates of the Caribbean, a theme park ride that opened over forty years ago at Disneyland.

Here are some noteworthy facts and figures I ran across in the Fortune piece:

* Iger’s two biggest strategic changes since taking over: One was his subtle but seismic decision to refocus the company and most of its more than 150,000 employees around its roster of ‘franchises,’ like the Jonas Brothers—Iger defines a franchise as ’something that creates value across multiple businesses and across multiple territories over a long period of time.’ The second change was unsubtle: Just days into Iger’s new job, Disney acquired Pixar, bringing Apple’s Steve Jobs onto the company’s board in the process.

* Cars is an example of a Disney franchise that is successful on many levels: Three years after the movie came out, sales of [Cars] licensed merchandise are running at more than $2 billion annually. [The film only grossed $462 million worldwide.] A Cars sequel is in production. Disney will soon launch an elaborate Cars virtual world. But the biggest bet on Cars is Cars Land, a 12-acre stretch of Disney’s California Adventure theme park set to open in 2012.

* Iger has been getting rid of some middle-management: Internally, in a move treated like D-day, Iger dismantled a corporate strategic-planning department that had to clear most of the company’s major decisions. “When he took that job, Disney was really messed up,” recalls Jobs. “Bob looked at the guys running the divisions and said, ‘You’re in charge of your businesses now.’”

* Disney makes a lot of money from sports: Sports juggenaut ESPN—80% owned by Disney—is estimated by Doug Mitchelson of Deutsche Bank to have generated around one-third of the company’s $8.4 billion in 2008 operating income.

* Their classic franchises are not as big a part of the company as they once were: A decade ago the Mickey Mouse and Winnie-the-Pooh franchises accounted for 80% of the company’s consumer products business; today it’s closer to 50%.

* Disney is currently the most valuable media company in the world: Under Iger Disney has become the world’s largest media conglomerate by market value, worth around $40 billion.

* Steve Jobs, who is Disney’s largest individual shareholder with a 7% stake, likes Iger: “I consider Bob Iger a friend,” says Jobs. “I don’t have a lot of friends. I just really like him, and he’s a really solid guy.”

Well made retro-cartoons are always welcome here. Steve Loter (Kim Possible, Ren & Stimpy) directed this sweet video off Tally Hall’s album Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum:

It’s not just Inauguration Day in the United States; it’s also the first-ever Outnauguration party. Cartoonist Joe Fournier created this animated short documenting the event.

Who would’ve thought that Arab news networks would give more time to American indie animators than cable programs in the US? This is an in-depth 22-minute interview with Bill Plympton that recently aired on Al Jazeera’s One on One hosted by Riz Khan.

(via Michael Sporn’s Splog)

Villains are bound to get their due when Bruce Lee (or a reasonable facsimile) teams up with Popeye. The clip is from the 1977 feature The Dragon Lives Again and an explanation is offered on this Wikipedia page.

(Thanks, Jacob Ospa)

Gallery Nucleus is having an artist panel with some the artists who worked on Coraline. The recent Art-Of book on the film mainly highlights Tadahiro Uesugi for characters and background designs. This panel will represent several of the other key artists who worked on the film. They’ll be bringing samples of their work to show and will talk about their involvement on the new Henry Selick film.

The artists are as follows: Shannon Tindle, Shane Prigmore, Dan Krall, Chris Appelhans and Jon Klassen. Gallery Nucleus is in Alhambra, California. The event is at 2pm on Saturday February 7th - Admission: FREE! Check the gallery website for more information.

That’s the headline in the Singapore based The Straits Times this morning. The outspoken Hayao Miyazaki was quoted by Hong Kong’s Sunday Morning Post in an interview to promote his latest movie, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.:

Miyazaki said his recruits are tested in a boot camp where mobile phones, iPods and other electronic devices are banned. “Young people are surrounded by virtual things,” Miyazaki was quoted as saying. “They lack real experience or life, and lose their imagination. Animators can only draw from their own experience of pain and shock and emotions.”

That’s why we love this guy. Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and John Lasseter are currently producing the English dub featuring Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin and Cloris Leachman.