Character designer Harald Siepermann has posted a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of his artwork onto this blog entry. These include designs from Disney features like Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Mulan, The Emperor’s New Groove and Brother Bear.

While browsing iTunes yesterday, I noticed that they’ve licensed many of the independent shorts produced by Japanese cartooning legend and Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka. These include some difficult-to-find efforts such as Tales of the Street Corner (1962) and Pictures At an Exhibition (1966, image above), both of which are more notable for their rarity than their quality as shorts, though they do each offer some cool design work. The films can be purchased on the Tezuka Productions page (link goes to iTunes) while more info about the shorts can be found on this website.

Wall•E director Andrew Stanton talks with Christianity Today about some of the Genesis-related themes he incorporated into the film. The interview also offers a good explanation for why all of the film’s humans are depicted as fat babies.

There seem to be some biblical themes in this film. WALL•E is sort of like Adam, the only “guy” on earth, lonely, longing for a companion …

Andrew Stanton: Yes, and that’s certainly why I picked EVE as an appropriate title for the female robot. But “Adam” just didn’t have the underdog ring to it as the main character. WALL•E was a little bit more sad sack—and I could find an acronym that could work for that. But definitely it had that first man, first female theme. But I wasn’t trying to replace man in the bigger story. I just loved the poetic-ness that these two machines held more care for living and loving than humanity had anymore.

There’s also a bit of Noah’s Ark story here, with the humans on the space station, waiting for a chance to repopulate the earth—but having to wait till EVE comes back with plant life to indicate it’s okay.

Stanton: I wasn’t using the Noah’s Ark story as a guide, but through circumstances, I loved the parallels of EVE almost being like this dove, of going down for proof that it’s time to come back. It just worked in that allegory, so I ran with it.

Heads-up, Pixar’s latest short Presto is now available on iTunes for $1.99. It’s currently the #1 selling short film download on Apple’s site.

(Disclosure: I am working with Pixar on a coffeetable book about their early animated shorts.)

Below is a short but insightful interview with JibJab co-founder Gregg Spiridellis about some of the recent business plans for their website JibJab.com. Unlike so many other online animation startups, JibJab has managed to balance its artistic ambitions with business savvy and a willingness to experiment with new ways of earning income from online animation. I found the link on Scott Kirsner’s CinemaTech blog, and as Scott says, “The guys at JibJab have been experimenting longer than anyone else with new business models for Web content.”

It’s also worth noting that their new Sendables e-cards are allowing the studio to branch out beyond their established photo-collage animation style and play with techniques like stop-motion (Crankballs), puppetry (Motor Mouth Malone) and hand drawn-looking Flash animation (like this birthday greeting).

Who is Rocket Johnson? (previously mentioned on the Brew) is the new graphic novel anthology being self-published by Disney animation artists and debuting at Comic-Con in a few weeks. A special copy of the book is currently being auctioned on eBay, and all proceeds from the sale will be donated to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to help fund research in finding a cure for the disease. The copy on eBay is signed by all of the Disney artists in the book and also comes with a set of pins made especially for Comic-Con. The auction ends on July 10. More details about the book are at WhoIsRocketJohnson.com.

Below are a few sample pages displaying some of the lovely artwork that can be found in the book. Click on each for a larger version.

“Pee Wee 51″ by Mike Gabriel

“The Last Stand of Lloyd Loomis” by Dean Wellins

“Number Nine Must Launch” by Sam Levine

The Movie Marketing Madness blog offers interesting in-depth analyses of the marketing campaigns supporting the recent animated features Wall•E and Kung Fu Panda. The blog concludes that both movies had successful ad campaigns.

Then again, they had better be successful for the amount of coin they’re spending to market these pictures. This recent article in Variety discusses the exorbitant costs of promoting animated features nowadays, and says that these two animated features have the costliest marketing campaigns of any two Hollywood films this year, with Disney’s $54 million Wall•E campaign leading the way.

There is little doubt in my mind that videogames are one of the major emerging art forms of the late-20th century and beyond, but how do games stack up against other more established narrative forms like books and movies. Pulitzer Prize-winning author and videogame fan Junot Díaz wrote a piece in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal that examined the new Grand Theft Auto IV and the comparisons it has drawn to works like The Godfather and The Sopranos. Diaz argues that certain elements are inherent in all great pieces of narrative art and that those elements are missing from GTA IV:

GTA IV sucks you the hell in but its narrative doesn’t move me in any way or shake me up or even piss me off. I get madder when I crash my car in the game than when Niko makes a stupid decision in the cut-scenes (the movie-like interludes that players don’t control). GTA IV for all its awesomeness doesn’t have the sordid bipolar humanity of “The Sopranos,” and it certainly lacks the epic flawed protagonists that define “The Godfather” and its bloodier lesser brother “Scarface.” Successful art tears away the veil and allows you to see the world with lapidary clarity; successful art pulls you apart and puts you back together again, often against your will, and in the process reminds you in a visceral way of your limitations, your vulnerabilities, makes you in effect more human. Does GTA IV do that? Not for me it doesn’t, and heck, I love this damn game.

According to Diaz though, videogames do have the potential to be a powerful form of narrative expression:

What’s interesting though is that GTA could have been exactly what some folks are claiming it is. For all its over-the-top aberrance and brash transgressiveness, GTA IV doesn’t really wrestle with the radiant feverish nightmare labyrinth that post-9/11 America has become. Which is too bad. When you’re as lost as we are in this country, maps, no matter from where they come, are invaluable. It could have been that popular art blade that cuts through all pretensions and delusions; it could have been the map that we’ve been needing. But for that to have been possible GTA would have had to have put a small portion of the people playing the game at risk of waking up, even if only for a second, from the dream that is our current world.