Wow!

If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. Animation director Darrell Van Citters (Renegade Animation) has written and self published one of the best animation books of the year. Scratch that… one of the best animation books ever! Van Citters has documented the creation and production of the classic UPA TV special Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol with thorough details (wonderfully written I might add) and lavishly illustrated with rare production art (the book layout is superb). This is a must-have for anyone interested in animation history - and specifically, if you have any interest in UPA, animator/director Abe Levitow, songwriters Jules Styne and Bob Merrill, artists like Corny Cole, Gerard Baldwin, Bob Singer and others, not to mention actors Jim Backus, Morey Amsterdam, Jack Cassidy, Paul Frees… you will want this. Van Citters dug up rare behind the scenes photos, cels, storyboards, backgrounds, pencil sketches… a treasure trove of art material that alone justifies the purchase. It gets my highest recommendation.

If you want to see pages from the book, check out Darrell’s Magoo’s Christmas Carol webpage, where he is taking advance orders for a special edition of the book signed by the surviving cast and crew.

The book will go on sale July 23rd at the San Diego Comic Con. You can find it exclusively at the Van Eaton Galleries booth and Darrell will sign copies on Friday and Saturday at 11am and 3pm each day (animator Bob Singer will join Van Citters to sign on Saturday). You can pre-oder autographed copies here. Buy this book. Order it now!

“Is it any wonder that our kids are growing up knowing more about Hannah Montana than about the Apostle Paul?”

That’s the question Phil Vischer is asking with his new faith-based company Jellyfish. He is the co-creator of VeggieTales, an idea which had its heyday a decade ago before Vischer’s company, Big Idea Productions, imploded in 2003. Jellyfish has created a show called JellyTelly, which is designed exclusively for on-line audiences. The segments are mostly puppets, with some live-action and animation. There are a number of episodes viewable on the JellyTelly site, as well as this short intro video that explains the concept. When Vischer launched the idea earlier this year, he had started with a subscription-based model but has since moved to giving away the episodes for free. He wrote on his blog that they’re currently trying to figure out a sustainable business model, or in his words, “awaiting the new direction God has in mind.”

I just saw the most surreal film released under the Walt Disney banner since… I dunno, The Three Caballeros?

Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo is strictly a kids film (4-9 years old) and I think they’ll dig it. But adult viewers may end up scratching their heads and think they are stoned - or seriously wish they were. I struggled with its simplistic narrative during the first half hour, then I gave in to its child’s-eye point of view, let go of my adult expectations, and just sat back and enjoyed the insanity. There’s a lot of insanity …but a lot to enjoy as well.

At its core, Ponyo is an sweet, old fashioned fairy tale - albeit one about inter-species love between two five-year-olds (one a former goldfish-with-a-human-head who runs away from home), laced with pro-environmental messages. The animation and imagination on display is wonderful, but the characters do not have much depth, and their motivations are poorly explained. Ponyo’s “father” is an “evil Wizard” (her words) wearing a striped suit and ascot, looking like a refugee from Haight-Ashbury, 1968. Ponyo’s “mother” is a beautiful giant goddess of calm and wisdom - right out of those early Toei animated features of the 1960s, the ones based on ancient Asian myths and legends.

The artwork itself is strange - its not as sophisticated as recent Miyazaki epics. The backgrounds have a simple pastel crayon-like quality, which is cool; the character design of Ponyo shifts throughout the film from standard Miyazaki design (think Mei from Totoro) to something out of a later John Hubley/Tissa David/Michael Sporn independent films. Not that there’s anything wrong with it - in fact, I found that quite refreshing.

Going in, I hoped this feature might have the potential of being Miyazaki’s most widely accessible (to western audiences) film, but it isn’t. It seems to be even more steeped in Japanese folklore and cultural sensibility than Spirited Away, once again challenging established Hollywood “rules” of narrative storytelling.

With all this in mind, I do recommend the Ponyo experience, especially to small kids and parents of young children. The good news is that Miyazaki is still making “classic” Japanese anime features that push the medium and can blow your mind… just this time don’t forget your meds.

Thurop Van Orman, the creator of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, posted an entry earlier this week on his deviantART page, in which he wrote the following:

NO, CARTOON NETWORK isn’t changing its name. Not anytime soon anyways… they were gonna… But I think their reality show idea didn’t go as well as they had hoped, so… they’re kinda backing out of that idea. Yay for cartoons!

His perspective on what is happening at Cartoon Network is wildly different than that of Chowder creator C.H. Greenblatt. Care to make a guess which one of them still has a show at the network and which one of them has had their show cancelled?

Granted, it’s true that Cartoon Network has removed their Andrew W.K. video from YouTube (600 negative comments will do that), but I wouldn’t read too much into that token gesture. From where I’m standing, it appears to be little more than a carefully calculated effort to quell their viewership’s outrage and not representative of a meaningful shift in direction. If any doubt remains about the network’s true intentions, look no further than this recent Broadcasting & Cable article in which the architects of the live-action strategy speak about their goals. The piece details at length why they’re switching to live-action, and describes the network’s “360 degree” marketing campaign to usher in live-action, including the distribution of 8 million copies of a free CN Real magazine at theme parks and movie theaters.

One of the figureheads in their brand-wrecking transition is Stuart Snyder, executive VP and COO of Turner animation, young adults and kids media. The article states that Snyder made switching to live-action a priority when he came on board in 2007. “I think these new shows, whether reality or live scripted, really open up and broaden the audience, so you can be thinking about new advertising categories,” Snyder said. “It opens up more categories for us than just being in shows specifically [targeting] 6- to 11-year-olds.”

Cartoon Network’s Chief Content Officer Rob Sorcher acknowledged in the same article that inserting live-action into a brand called Cartoon Network will take time for audiences to accept: “Anytime you do something new at a network, particularly at one with a very specific niche, there will be a reaction. People will say, is this appropriate? We are doing something that is very different than anything in the nearly 20 years of history of the channel. It is possible that this is going to take a while.”

Animation fans meanwhile continue to mobilize. Over 2,500 people have now joined the Boycott Cartoon Network’s CN Real Block on Facebook. A new website has launched called “Stop the Madness” that encourages people to take specific actions to protest the network. A quick search for “Cartoon Network” on Twitter also reveals a steady stream of complaints. (Cartoon Brew suggests using the hashtag #CNFail to organize all the complaints on Twitter.) Finally, if you’d like to register your complaints directly with Stuart Snyder, try sending him a friend request on Facebook. I’m sure he’d love to hear from a few fans of the channel.

More to come…

Following on the heels of last year’s successful graphic novel anthology Who is Rocket Johnson?, Disney story artists and directors have teamed up once again to self-publish What is Torch Tiger? The new book will debut later this month at Comic-Con (booth #2302) and is limited to 1,300 copies. The line-up of artists is impressive to say the least, with a cover painted by Paul Felix and contributions from the following:

Steve Anderson
Aaron Blaise
Paul Briggs
Kevin Deters
Rob Edwards
Mike Gabriel
Nathan Greno
Don Hall
Byron Howard
Trevor Jimenez
Mark Kennedy
Joe Mateo
Nicole Mitchell
John Musker
Jeff Ranjo
Aurian Redson
Jeremy Spears
Lissa Treiman
Josie Trinidad
Chris Ure
Mark Walton
Dean Wellins
Stevie Wermers
Chris Williams

Pin-ups by:
Andreas Deja
Andy Harkness
Jeff Turley
Jin Kim
Shiyoon Kim

More details are available at TorchTiger.blogspot.com. Below are some exclusive preview pages provided to us by the Torch Tiger team. Click on any of the images for a closer view.

In 1984, Christie’s East held a pivotal auction from the John Basmajian Collection of Walt Disney Animation Art. No one had ever seen such an extensive collection of vintage Disney cels and assorted artwork assembled before - it was the first of many upscale animation art auctions to come.

Now, 25 years after that historic auction, the Basmajian family has launched JohnBasmajian.com which tells the story of how this former Disney animator amassed his collection, with exclusive interviews, articles, and animation art galleries. The website is still a work-in-progress, but there is a bio and video profile of Basmajian which tells his incredible story.

Carolina Attia directed and designed this spot for Thiomucase, a skin-tightening cream. It’s a charming, uncomplicated solution for advertising an oddball product.

The New York Times is reporting that Hayao Miyazaki will indeed appear (with John Lasseter) on July 24th at the San Diego Comic Con.

At Comic-Con Mr. Miyazaki and Mr. Lasseter are expected to appear as part of an animation presentation that will give a glimpse not only at “Ponyo,” but also at a series of coming Disney films, including “Toy Story 3,” “Beauty and the Beast 3-D” and “The Princess and the Frog.”

The only way to see this is to sit in Hall H - NOW!

Miyazaki will also appear at presentations in San Francisco and LA. Read the entire NY Times article here.