George Pal came to America in 1940 with a contract to make animated shorts for Paramount. His Madcap Models (later Puppetoons) were a instant success, and Paramount played up, for publicity purposes, the unique methods Pal used: stop motion and replacement animation.

Mike Van Eaton recently shared this rare publicity photo with me (click picture above to see larger, fuller image). That’s actreses Martha O’Driscoll with Pal in the Paramount commisary, with “Sarong-Sarong” the star of the third puppetoon, Hoola Boola (1941). The caption on the back says “More than 7000 miniature, stringless manikins were used for the eight minute film”.

Here’s a short scene from Hoola Boola, featuring Jim Dandy and Sarong-Sarong:

Golden Age animation artist Homer Jonas (1928-1979) now has a Facebook fan page courtesy of his son, artist Jeff Jonas. The Facebook page includes artwork from Jonas’s work at Disney (101 Dalmatians, Sleeping Beauty), as well as unpublished artwork, gag drawings, and vintage photos. Jeff says he’s planning to add more items in the future.

I know what Bill Plympton wants for his birthday. He wants you to attend his Idiots and Angels VIP Screening and Birthday Party.

On Thursday, April 30 at 6pm, Bill will screen his latest feature Idiots and Angels at the Helen Mills Theatre (136 West 26st St. between 6th + 7th, in Manhattan) — and everyone who attends will recieve a FREE Plympton original drawing. At 8pm, there will be a VIP After Party with wine, desserts “and surprises”.

Proceeds from this evening will contribute to the production the upcoming documentary project, Adventures in Plymptoons! For more information on this event go to brownpapertickets.com/

I’m a big fan of Kyle Baker’s comic art. In addition to his prolific work in illustration, comic books and print cartooning, he’s been self producing a series of animated sequences based on his cartoon books, The Bakers.

His previous animation translates his hand drawn style perfectly. His latest clip now combines his drawings with CGI. Check out the new look to The Bakers.

Alan Coats, the son of legendary Disney background painter Claude Coats, has started a website about his father’s work at ClaudeCoats.com Right now, the site is mainly a storefront that sells giclée prints of Coats’ personal paintings, some of which are quite attractive. I hope Alan eventually fleshes it out with more family photos, personal ephemera, and career details as well.

One of the unexpected delights of the Internet age has been seeing the children of Golden Age animators launch websites devoted to their parents. After toiling in anonymity for their entire careers, it’s fitting that these artists would finally receive marquee recognition with entire destinations devoted to their individual accomplishments. The gold standards for family-operated artist sites are AbeLevitow.com, BillPeet.net and this incredible blog by Irv Spector’s son.

(link via Disney History)

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Jossie Malis, an animator and illustrator living in Barcelona, has been developing an animated series online for the last 3 years called Bendito Machine. Each film pits primitive people against alien creatures and intergalactic robots, done in an Aztec designed cut-out silouette style. I like them a lot – I especially dig the soundtrack on the latest one (above).

One way Malis is producing these shorts is by selling art prints. Says Malis:

I’m working on this project without any funds or financial aid, only in my spare time. It takes a lot to compete each episode because I’m always working on other commissioned projects during most of the year. In this last installment, I have a new collaboration with Sxip Shirey, a great and fantastic musician and composer from NY.

At the same time, we just started another site called Printastic.org. It’s a platform for illustrators around the world, where you can buy great quality giclée prints of his works; half of the income goes to each artist, and the rest of the money goes into Bendito Machine. We do this because we love prints and have many many friends around the world doing amazing stuff like the ones at the gallery, but also, because we want to find a way to keep doing more episodes of Bendito Machine at the same time.

You can catch up with the first two episodes at benditomachine.com.