Maurice Sendak died this morning due to complications from a recent stroke. The New York Times says he was “widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century.” He wrote and illustrated dozens of books over the years, though he will always be remembered for his 1963 classic Where the Wild Things Are, which was also adapted into a 2009 feature film by Spike Jonze. Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski also directed an impressive 2010 NFB short based on another Sendak book, Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or: There Must Be More to Life.

Last January, Sendak did a hilarious interview with Stephen Colbert. If you haven’t seen it yet, take the time to view it today. It celebrates Sendak’s sharp and playful personality better than any words could.

Sad news to report. Buzz Potamkin, one of animation’s most beloved producers on both coasts, passed away from pancreatic cancer on Sunday, April 22nd. Potamkin founded Perpetual Motion Pictures in 1968 with two employees. Over the next decade Perpetual became New York City’s largest animation studio. Buzz produced hundreds of TV commercials, including the Hawaiian Punch series. In 1979, his successful production of The Berenstain Bears Christmas Tree led to a series of prime time and daytime cartoons based on the famed children’s books. In 1981, Potamkin produced the famous “I Want My MTV” ad campaign. He founded and ran Southern Star Productions from 1984 to 1991 (series included CBS Storybreak, Peter Pan, Teen Wolf). In 1990 with Roy Disney as executive producer, Potamkin produced the TV Academy’s Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, the only animated program to be telecast simultaneously on all four major TV networks . Buzz also served with Disney as honorary executive producer for the UNICEF Animation Consortium .

Buzz briefly worked at the Walt Disney Company in 1991 before joining Hanna Barbera as Executive Producer & Head of TV (through 1996) where he championed the World Premiere Shorts (“What A Cartoon“) unit, which led to Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and The Powerpuff Girls. Among his many projects at H-B, Potamkin was Executive Producer of the Dr. Seuss’ special Dayzie-Head Maysie (1995). After Hanna Barbera, Potamkin served on the board of Visionary Media which produced the cutting edge web series WhirlGirl and produced and directed the direct-to-video film, Buster & Chauncey’s Silent Night (1998), through his own company, Project X. His awards include four Clios, the MTV Video Award, more than 20 ASIFA commendations, the Cannes Gold Lion, the Venice Silver Lion, the Cable Ace, the Peabody, the Scott Newman Award, two New York Festival Gold Medals and three Silver Medals, The Child in Our Time Award from MIFED, two Humanitas and seven Emmy nominations. Potamkin was well known and well-liked in New York and L.A., by artists and network execs alike. His presence on the animation scene will be missed.

Beautiful! All of Bill Presing’s pin-up girls are gorgeous. Here’s an unabashed plug for a product and artist I like a lot: Pixar storyman Presing is creating a limited edition statue based on one of his “girls”. He’s producing it in association with Digital Banana Studio, the folks who made that Pixar-ish Rocketeer short awhile back. In fact it’s modeled by the same guy that modeled about half of the characters in that short, Anders Ehrenborg. It’s coming out in late June and they’re taking pre-orders now at the Digital Banana website. Oh, and you can order her as pictured above with skirt, or without!

Didier Ghez, editor of the important Walt’s People anthologies and proprietor of the Disney History blog, interviewed me about my upcoming biography Full Steam Ahead!: The Life and Art of Ward Kimball. It’s the first time I’ve spoken about how the book came about and some of its contents. Read the interview HERE.

Jake Friedman emailed yesterday to tell me about BabbittBlog.com, a site dedicated to all things Art Babbitt. Jake has been researching a biography of the legendary animator for the last few years, and if the blog is any indication, there’s still a lot left to learn about Babbitt.

There’s no shortage of animation tips posted online nowadays, but this mass of how-to advice isn’t particularly well organized. Thankfully, Jonah Sidhom has created the Animation Article Database, an invaluable list of links to animation tips from industry pros, organized alphabetically.

Canada’s only animator with three first names, Brandon James Scott, has an informative series of blog posts about creating Justin Time, a preschool animated series that is now in production on its second season. He takes the reader through the entire process from pitch to development to bible, and finally, production.

If you are unfamiliar with the life and work of John Halas (1912-1995), or simply know his name from his feature length Animal Farm (1954) – or TV cartoons like Do-Do The Kid From Outer Space (1964) – you owe it to yourself to watch this 12 minute tribute. Released online today in celebration of her father’s 100th birthday, Viviene Halas produced this short documentary about her dad (one of the founding fathers of ASIFA, co-director/co-producer of numerous animated shorts and commercial films, and author of several important books on animation) containing some rare footage and reminiscences by studio survivors.

(Thanks, Jamie K. Bolio)

The self-proclaimed painter of light, Thomas Kinkade, died unexpectedly on Friday at the age of 54. Before becoming a fine artist, Kinkade had worked on Ralph Bakshi’s Fire and Ice. In recent years, Kinkade had been making Disney-themed paintings, or as he called them, “narrative panoramas”.

Posting random classic photos has become the raison d’être of Facebook, but I just couldn’t resist sharing this vintage 1948 photo of pioneering animation producer Walter Lantz and his characters. There is so much goodness here – that zany painting of Woody Woodpecker, those cool off-model Woody stuffed dolls – not to mention Lantz himself holding an Oswald Rabbit plushie, and that scary Andy Panda doll giving him the evil eye.

This publicity still was released in August 1948 by the “World Wide Photo” news service. This was a period when Lantz had broken with Universal and his studio was about to close (temporarily). The caption on the back reads:

ANIMATED CARTOON MAKING

In his office in Hollywood, animated cartoon motion picture producer Walter Lantz sits with dolls inspired by some of his cartoon stars. He holds Woody Woodpecker and Oswald Rabbit. Alongside of him are Andy Panda and another Woody Woodpecker. The last named is also shown in the painting hanging on the wall. Lantz, a graduate of the Arts Students League in New York City, began in the animated cartoon field in 1916.

(Thank you, Jim Engel)