Author Archives: Jerry Beck

Spin by Max Hattler

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Max Hattler is my kind of experimental animator. His stuff is thought provoking, aesthetically pleasing and, as far as I’m concerned, entertaining. Amid posted about his earlier films in 2005 and 2008. His latest works could be best described as “mind-blowing”. Check out these two loops, created with students from The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark: 1923 (aka Heaven) and 1925 (aka Hell).

Below is a 58-second excerpt from his latest 4-minute short, Spin, which is currently playing at various international festivals.

(Thanks, Marc Crisafulli)

Russian viral ads Versus

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A series of Russian cartoon ads for some sort of crunchy snack called Xpyc Team have been posted on You Tube. The stick figure animation is really creative, and the minimalist sound effects are wacky and fun. The series is called “Versus”, and each one pits two fictional/nonfictional characters against each other. Russia’s Red Medusa studio made them.

Below is Neo Vs. Skywalker. Among the many others are Beetlejuice Vs. Jack Skellington, Frankenstein Vs. D’Artagnon and King Leonidas Vs. Chuck Norris.

(Thanks, Tushar)

More Looney Tunes character designs

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The photo above is one I snapped of the wall of the Warner Bros. booth at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas last week. The hype for the new Looney Tunes Show was there in full force, with Jessica Borutski’s character designs taking front and center in the promotion. Several Brew readers sent in the following scans (below), which were apparently given out to licensees. The more I see of these, the more I like.




Craig Yoe’s Krazy Kool Kids Komics

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Another week, another amazing book from Craig Yoe. And another enthusiastic plug from me, because these are truly great books. This time Yoe has mined the hundreds of anonymous funny-animal kids comics of the 1940s and 50s (and beyond) to discover pure cartoon gold from animator/cartoonists like Walt Kelly, Otto Messmer, Jim Tyer, Dan Gordon, Jack Bradbury, Howard Post, Ken Hultgren and others.
This is not just some hodge-podge of old comic book stories, but a carefully curated set of lost kid-centric comics ranging from fairy-tale fables to sheer surreal nonsense – each page an unknown gem, created by an otherwise notable comic book legend. If you haven’t seen these vintage children’s comics created by Jules Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Frank Frazetta, and Dr. Seuss – I hadn’t – here they are in one beautiful full color volume. Other artists represented include Harvey Kurtzman, John Stanley, Carl Barks, Vince Fago, Dan DeCarlo, Basil Wolverton, Wally Wood, Mort Walker, Mad’s Dave Berg and of course Milt Gross. That’s a helluva who’s who of funny folks. There’s probably a dozen others I forgot to mention and should have (like Milt Stein, Al Hubbard, George Carlson… and on and on).

The Golden Collection of Klassic Krazy Kool Kids’ Komics. Even if you collect this stuff (like I do), this hardcover compilation is well worth having just to have all these geniuses collected in one convenient place. Mo Willems provides a foreword to this magnificent package of non-stop fun. Amazon has it listed for $23. 09–a steal!

Quirino Cristiani documentary

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A 2008 documentary about pioneer Argentine animator Quirino Cristiani (1896-1984) has just been released on DVD. Cristiani made the first silent animated feature, El Apóstol (The Apostle) in 1917, pre-dating Snow White by 20 years, and the first sound animated feature Peludopolis in 1931, beating Disney by six years. Quirino Cristiani – The Mystery of the First Animated Movies was directed by English/Italian filmmaker Gabriele Zucchelli, and is now available through this website. Here’s the trailer:

(Thanks, Giannalberto Bendazzi)

The Sunday Funnies (6/13/10)

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This week’s crop: The Argyle Sweater (6/7) by Scott Hilburn; Reynolds Unwrapped (6/9) by Dan Reyonolds; Rubes (6/12) by Leigh Rubin; Frazz (6/6) by Jef Mallett; Wulffmorgenthaler (6/7) by Mikael Wulff and Anders Morgenthaler; Nest Heads (6/7) by John Allen; and The Humble Stumble (6/7) by Roy Schneider.

(Thanks to Jim Lahue, Jed Martinez, Kurtis Findlay, Ed Austin, and David White)

Fester Fish by Aaron Long

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Fester Fish must watch his bratty nephew, on the same day he’s supposed to have a date with his girlfriend! This may not be everyone’s cup of tea… but its the perfect thing for a Saturday morning on Cartoon Brew! Animator Aaron Long writes:

“I conceived Fester as an early 1930′s-style character, but the cartoon as a whole is really more inspired by Tex Avery than Ub Iwerks. Which sort of clashes with the more 30′s-esque ‘dancing buildings’ and ‘bobbing rhythmically” bits, but oh well. All the animation was done in Flash, and the backgrounds were drawn in Flash but coloured in Photoshop. Then I put the scenes together in Premiere Elements, and added some VERY slight blur and film grain effects over top, that are probably not noticeable.”

(Thanks, R.A. MacNeil)

The Devastator #1

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In this era of the websites, blogs and apps, Geoffrey Golden and Amanda Meadows are going against the trends and have started up a new humor periodical, a physical magazine, called The Devastator. They’ve sent me issue #1, and its a sweet little package of funny stuff (45 pages in color). The theme of the first issue is “Animated Cartoons” and there are some great artists and writers involved, including James Urbaniak (Dr. Venture on The Ventures Bros.), Scott Gross (cartoonist on DC’s Looney Tunes and the image above), animation artist Roger Gonzales and comedian Marly Halpern-Graser. The book will be released on June 29th – and if you are in Los Angeles, you can join the staff at a book release party at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood on Saturday June 26th. For more information visit the Devastator website.