Author Archives: Amid Amidi

About Amid Amidi

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The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics

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Art of Harvey Kurtzman

The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle easily ranks among my favorite cartoon/comic-related books of the past few years, if not all-time. How good is it? I was so anxious to get my hands on this book that I ended up buying a copy at the bookstore instead of ordering it from Amazon. The selection of artwork, the design of the book, and the print quality are all jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The text, which I’ve only begun to read, also appears to be top-notch. Kurtzman was the rare individual who was equally gifted as both an artist (Hey Look!, Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat) and editor (Mad, Help, Trump, and this volume lovingly acknowledges both sides of the man. The book was published by Abrams’ promising new ComicArts imprint and is an incredible value at $26.40 on Amazon.

UPDATE: Sherm Cohen made this video preview of the book:

Tucky Tales

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Tucky Tales is a simple but inventive example of digital “cut-out” animation. The pre-school series for Baby TV was created by Israeli husband-and-wife animation team Eduard and Nurit Mitgartz. They’ve produced twenty 5-minute episodes at their studio Kipod Animation.

WALL·E End Credits

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Wall-E Credits

The Art of the Title Sequence interviews director Jim Capobianco and animator Alex Woo about the thoughtful end credit sequence of WALL·E. From the article intro:

Jim Capobianco’s end credits to Andrew Stanton’s “WALL·E” are essential; they are the actual ending of the film, a perfect and fantastically optimistic conclusion to a grand, if imperfect idea. Humanity’s past and future evolution viewed through unspooling schools of art. Frame after frame sinks in as you smile self-consciously. It isn’t supposed to be this good but there it is. This is art in its own right. Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman’s song, “Down to Earth” indulges you with some incredibly thoughtful lyrics and, from the Stone Age to the Impressionists to the wonderful 8-bit pixel sprites, you are in the midst of something special

LONDON: An Evening with Ian Emes

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Ian Emes

Awesome event coming up in London next Thursday, June 25: a retrospective of the work of British animation director Ian Emes, who created groundbreaking music-related animated works in the Seventies and still creates innovative work nowadays. The event, hosted by art/music collective Stomper, will include an exhibition of his artwork, a screening of his films (including a new collaboration with artist/musician John Foxx), and a conversation between Emes and writer Mark Fisher. It begins at 7pm at the The Horse Hospital art space (Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1HX). Tickets, which are £10, can be purchased online.

Check out the Stomper website for more background details about Emes including this quote about how he entered animation: “To begin with, I wasn’t attracted to the medium of animation, dominated by bouncy characters. I had no animation tutors, only practicing painters and sculptors to encourage me. I was entering the unknown, doing everything through trial and error, fumbling along and inventing my own techniques.” These pieces of animation illustrate what he’s talking about:

Excerpt from his horror short, The Bear

“Dark Side of the Moon” commission by Pink Floyd

“The Oriental Nightfish”

(Thanks, Chris Padilla)

Annecy 09 Snapshots

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Waiting at the Geneva Airport for my flight back to New York and thought I’d share pics of a few of the fine animation folk I hung out with this past week in Annecy.

Annecy 2009New York crew: PES, Fran Krause and Signe Baumane

Annecy 2009Eddie White, co-director of The Cat Piano from The People’s Republic of Animation

Annecy 2009Directors Andreas Hykade (Ring of Fire, The Runt) and Bill Plympton

Annecy 2009Director Candy Kugel of Buzzco Associates , designer Harald Siepermann, and director David OReilly

Annecy 2009Filmmaker Ruth Lingford, Projector festival director Susie Wilson, animation curator of the Cinémathèque Québecoise Marco de Blois, and Studio AKA creative director and Lost and Found director Philip Hunt

Annecy 2009Mike and Tim Rauch of Rauch Bros. Animation and designer Erin Kilkenny

Annecy 2009Joost van den Bosch (l.) of Ka-Ching Cartoons and Tomm Moore, co-director of Brendan and the Secret of Kells

Annecy 2009Director Cordell Barker (The Cat Came Back) surrounded by men from Annecy’s Popeye fan club.

Annecy 2009 Winners

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Slavar

The 2009 Annecy International Animation Festival wrapped up a few hours ago in Annecy, France. Here is the link to the complete list of winners. Top prize for short film, the Annecy Cristal, was awarded to the Swedish film Slavar (Slaves), a CG piece about Sudanese children forced to work as slaves. A special distinction for short film went to David OReilly’s Please Say Something and the Audience Award was awarded to PES’s Western Spaghetti.

The Annecy Cristal for feature film was divided between two films: Henry Selick’s Coraline and Adam Elliot’s Mary and Max. Audience award for feature film went to Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey’s Brendan and the Secret of Kells.

Other notable awards include Cristal for best TV production to Alexey Alexeev’s Log Jam, best TV Special to Philip Hunt’s Lost and Found, music video to Karni & Saul’s “Float” for Flogging Molly, and best graduation film to Carlo Vogele’s For Sock’s Sake.

Vancouver Opera “Contest”

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Hardly a week passes without news of another exploitative animation “contest.” Sadly, this time it’s an arts organization–the Vancouver Opera–that is soliciting animators to create a short film (under four minutes long) to promote their upcoming season of performances.

This paragraph from their contest rules page is a real hoot:

By entering this Contest, each entrant grants Sponsor and YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully sub-licenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform his/her entry on the Website in connection with this Contest. Entrants further grant Sponsor a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully sub-licenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform their entries in any and all media now known or hereafter developed (including, without limitation, print, broadcast and Internet), for all legitimate business purposes including advertising and promotional activities. Entrants further waive all moral rights in and to the original entry and derivative works of the original entry.

Plain English translation: “Shut up filmmakers! We can do whatever we want with your work and we don’t owe you a cent!”

What does the winner receive for all their hard effort? Perhaps a shiny new Cintiq? Nope, they’re too cheap for that. They will, however, give you a Wacom tablet valued at $349, a copy of Street Fighter 4, and some other useless junk. Their gifts are childish, which, to me, sheds some insight into the entire contest and the contest organizer’s view of our art form. It’s just a cartoon, they say, so we can give the winner a bunch of games as a prize. It’s absolutely shameful.

Perhaps we can return the favor on Cartoon Brew by creating a contest that solicits composers to write us operas for free and then hand over all the rights to their work. Just give me a few days to go out and buy a videogame. Apparently that’s the currency that artists are paid with nowadays.

“The Parachute Ending” by Will Sweeney and Steve Scott

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Your favorite animated music video for the next five minutes: Birdy Nam Nam’s “The Parachute Ending” directed by Steve Scott and illustrated by Will Sweeney. There’s a healthy dose of René Laloux and Moebius mixed in there, but the overall results are fresh and fun. According to Scott, it was influenced by Laloux’s Planet Sauvage, bad 80s kids cartoons, Metal Hurlant, Nausicaa and Prog Rock album covers. It was created over four weeks in Flash and AfterEffects.

Crew credits are:
James Littlemore – Editor / Compositor
Geoff McDowall – Animator
Ed Willmore – Animator
Roland Edwards – Animator
Dele Nuga – Digital Painter

(Thanks, Christy Karacas and Chris McD)

Cartoon Brew TV: The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9!

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Terrible Thing of Alpha-9

When I saw this short last month at the student film screening for the School of Visual Arts, I instantly knew it was something that we had to put on Cartoon Brew TV. To be perfectly honest, part of the reason was pure selfishness. It’s because I wanted to watch the film again…and again…and again. Jake Armstrong’s The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9! is not only one of the best student shorts I’ve seen in a long time, it’s one of the finest animated shorts, period.

From the opening scene with its striking blood-red color styling, you know you’re watching a short of uncommon quality. The personality animation in this film is superb, and the physical movement of the alien is Mars and Beyond worthy. The use of cutting and camera shows a confident filmmaker at work. The visual style is refreshingly different and a treat for the eyes. Where the film really shines though is in its storytelling; the humor isn’t gag driven, but rather evolves organically from the interactions between the two main characters. This is a cartoon that is sophisticated in all respects, yet done so expertly that the end results appear effortless.

I could praise this film till the cows come home, but the best thing I can do is to invite you to watch The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9! exclusively on Cartoon Brew TV.