The Preston Blair rip-offs never end.

Mark Kausler sent us this 78rpm kiddie record cover, which proves the swiping began a lot earlier than i’d imagined:

Christian Geoghegan, on a trip to Belgium, photographed this from the window of one of the trams he took in Antwerp. The van is for a local supermarket.

If you spot a Blair swipe in your travels, we invite you to send it in.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive posted this nice clip of Ralph Bakshi advising animators from the San Diego Comic Con last week.

Sailor Man, billed as a “darkly comic tribute to the exploits of a beloved spinach-eating seaman,” will premiere Aug. 9-22 as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.

The 45-minute production, at the Lafayette Street Theater at 45 Bleecker Street, “explores what happens when familiar scenarios from cartoons are divorced from their harmless context and performed naturalistically, by complex human beings.”

Created by Ryan Iverson and Scott Peterman, the show features the writers in the respective roles of Sailor Man and The Brute. Lauren Blumenfeld plays Olive.

The plot of Sailor Man, according to production notes:

“Two rivals — a pumped-up Navy man and a heavyset, bearded thug — repeatedly beat each other nearly to death over the affection of a fickle, skinny woman named Olive. However, when performed realistically, fists fly, blood flows, and this straightforward storyline transforms into a provocative look at how our society values violence. The end product is brutal and harsh, full of bottled-up anger and regret, and much closer in tone to Sam Shepard than the traditional Saturday morning fare.”

“In cartoons, when a man gets punched in the face, his neck transforms into a spring; in Sailor Man, his nose breaks and he coughs up blood and teeth and bile,” stated Iverson. “Our goal is to see how audiences react when we approach this subject matter from a dramatic angle and show them something that’s simultaneously real and ridiculous.”

For more information visit sailormanshow.com.

(Thanks, Tim Dunleavy)

Brew reader Paul Villaverde spotted a quick shot of me in this Xbox Comic Con ‘08 report. It’s a one minute Con preview by “Major Nelson” and I’m flashing a Popeye Vol. 1 poster at the 9-second mark. It’s stock shot of me from the 2007 Con, but hey, I’ll take any publicity I can get.

We mentioned this project back in March. Here’s the sample reel for Renegade’s Funny Face.

Brew readers are always sending us photos of the cartoon culture all around us. Occasionally I post the really odd ones. Elliot Cowan took the above pic at a local junk store: Alex the Lion (from Madagascar), Chicken Little, Mr. Incredible and Shrek all in the same bootleg toy package.
Elliot says this “Fantastic Hero” toy has “been there over a year and has yellowed considerably in that time.”

A reader identified as “Purple Penguin” snapped this photo of a storefront at the corner of Reno and Beverly in Los Angeles. As Penguin noted when he sent the pic, “Made me laugh; made me cry”.

If you spot any odd cartoon culture in your area, please share it with us.

I picked up the latest Comics Journal (October 2008, No. 292) at the Comic Con last week and it’s essentially a book length interview (well over 150 pages) with the Deitch family – writer Seth, artists Simon and Kim and their dad, animator Gene Deitch. Gene’s interview reveals additional information about his career at UPA and Terrytoons not included in his online book. A must-read. Should be at your comics shop this week, or from Fantagraphics Books.

A friend of mine, who happens to be a huge Spumco fan, was looking for a new home in California and came accross this listing on a street just off the Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach: John K Drive.

Here’s what I want to know: I wonder what time the Rubber Nipple salesman come around? And is the George Liquor store open 24 hours? For those who are curious, here’s the location on Google Maps.