For those who must take note of everything (like me): inbetweener/inspirational artist Tyrus Wong (Bambi) was let go from Disney after three and a half years (1938-1941) and spent the next 25 years in the art department at Warner Bros. as a production illustrator, creating story boards and concept sketches for live action feature films.

Last night, I took a break to catch whatever movie happened to be playing on TCM. It turned out to be the star-studded wartime morale booster Thank Your Lucky Stars (Warner Bros. 1943) – and there I spotted, in one quick shot, on a wall behind actor Richard Lane (frame grab above), plaques for various businesses – including one that says “Tyrus Wong, Importer, Chinese Art“. Since Wong – who will be 101 next month – never got the proper credit he was due at Disney, I’d say this particular in-joke was poetic justice.

Who says print is dead? It’s been about a month since my last batch of book reviews and I’ve come up with four new books worthy of your attention – if not your hard-earned dollars…

The World History of Animation by UK animator Stephen Cavalier fills a void – it’s a perfectly suitable text book for those looking for a general international history of the artform and industry. As an animation history teacher myself, I find Giannalberto Bendazzi’s Cartoons a bit too dense for my students, and my own book, Animation Art, is long out-of-print. Cavalier’s book covers much of the same ground, so if you have the previous two you can skip this one – but if you are looking for a solid general history that covers the basics and then some, this fills the bill nicely. It covers the field right up through 2010’s Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet provides the Foreword), and the Appendix is filled with useful information, including all the Oscar winners, animation books and important websites (nice to see Cartoon Brew among them). Recommended solely for students and novice historians.

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Oh Boy! More Craig Yoe books! Yes, Craig is a friend – and yes, I’m a huge fan – but his seemingly endless series of books, for IDW Publishing, are worthy of all the hype. Here’s two more: first up, The Best of Archie’s Mad House. I loved this Archie comic when I was a kid almost as much as I loved Mad and Cracked! I’m grateful this material hasn’t been forgotten. Yoe’s hardcover collects the mag’s funniest stories, including the first appearances of Sabrina the teenage witch, Captain Sprocket and Chester (Cool) and Lester (Square). The reproduction of comics pages is great and as usual, Yoe has a front section that gives the backstory of this oddball comic with rare artwork and a cover gallery. Buy this – its funny!

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Amazing 3-D Comics is one amazing comics reprint book. Here, Craig Yoe has selected the best examples of the 3D comics from the 1950s, produced at the height of the first 3D craze. Most of the comics herein are of various adventure comics genres – but Yoe includes a healthy dose of funny stuff from Otto Messmer (Felix), Milt Stein and Norman Maurer (Three Stooges). I love classic 3-D movies and comics – this book satisfies my dimensional needs quite nicely. Joe Kubert contributes a new 3D cover and Introduction and of course, a pair of red-blue 3D glasses are included. Highly recommended!

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Walt Disney Animation Studios The Archive Series: Layout & Background is the latest in the Archive series of large, lavishly illustrated books highlighting a different aspect of the classic production process. Previous entries in this series included Design, Animation and Story. These books showcase the art – there is hardly any text – and that’s as it should be. The large size and perfect reproduction makes it feel as if you are looking at the original pieces. In this case its background paintings and layout sketches by Eyvind Earle, Claude Coats, Walter Peregoy, Maurice Noble, James Coleman, Serge Michaels, Al Dempster, Bill Layne, Art Riley and Brice Mack. Amazing, beautiful stuff. A must-have for anyone with an interest in Disney and classic animation. This book will be released October 25th.

UK based Ian Stevenson is a cartoonist disguised as an “artist”. Whatever he calls himself, I like what he does. Here’s one of his groovy music videos from a few years ago. This’ll put you in a good mood:

CREDITS
Written & Directed by Ian Stevenson & Luke Seomore.
Music by Graffiti 6.
Illustrator Ian Stevenson, Animator Alex Dobbin.

In the Gay Purr-ee production photo above is (left to right): Lee Orgel, Judy Garland, Henry G. Saperstein, Robert Goulet, Abe Levitow and Chuck Jones. Who was Lee Orgel you ask? Let Darrell Van Citters tell you.

Animator Van Citters is expanding on his great book about the history ofMr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol with an incredible blog containing additional information on the artists, writers, director and producers of this groundbreaking 1962 TV special.

Perhaps the most unsung of behind-the-scenes latter-day UPA personnel was Orgel – a talented, perhaps visionary, producer who had a successful career in 60s animation, as well as being a writer on the 1966 Batman TV show. Read all about him in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2.

A public memorial service has been set up for Corny Cole, who passed away last month, on August 8.

The Animation Guild had already scheduled an open-to-the-public Fine Art of Corny Cole exhibit and reception for Friday, October 7 at 6 pm. However, an official memorial event has been added for Sunday, October 9, from noon to 6pm in the Guild’s meeting room on the second floor. Both these events will be held at The Animation Guild building, at 1105 N. Hollywood Way, in Burbank, CA.

For the Sunday memorial, attendees are encouraged to bring Corny Cole artwork to display or any video of his work, or of him, on DVD. At 1pm Tom Sito will introduce several friends and guest speakers. Anyone who has a Corny story to share is invited to do so. Contact Sito at tom (at) tomsito (dot) com so he can add you to the list and introduce you. Refreshments will be served.

(photo above via Jon Gomez)

For the 2011 Annecy Animation Festival, Paris-based food artist Alexandre Dubosc created a series of edible zoetropes – and made a delicious animated film, Alimation:

Check out a set of behind the scenes photos on flickr.

(Thanks, Justin via Laughing Squid)

Abstract from one perspective, recognizable as animation icons from another. Check out these cartoon-based perspective sculptures by UK artist James Hopkins. Most of his subjects are recognizable even in their distorted form – either way, they are a lot of fun.

Click on thumbnails below to see even more of these incredible pieces of art:

(Thanks, Kelly Toon)

22 year-old animator Arthur Gorissen created Branch Line as his graduation project at Netherlands’ Utrecht School of Arts. Made in four months, it’s the heartbreaking story about a man waiting for his new bride to arrive. The film employs digital cut-out techniques with a stop-motion toy-train, and Gorissen’s strong sense of design.

Gosh, I really like the vibe from this sweet little hand drawn music video for Andrew Belle’s song The Ladder – produced and directed by Emily Wormley.

(Thanks, Jeremy Grant)

We’d like to thank the producers, writers and animators of last night’s season finale of Futurama for creating an episode just for us – the readers of Cartoon Brew.

“Reincarnation” featured three mini-episodes: one in the style of 1930s Fleischer Studios homage; another as a 1960s-70s anime; and a third in 8-Bit format. I’m not sure if the average public got it, but we sure enjoyed it.

I’ll post a link when the entire episode appears online. In the meantime, courtesy of Comedy Central, here are some extensive clips:

Futurama	Thursdays 10/9c
Colorama – Diamondium Comet
www.comedycentral.com
Comedy Central Funny TV Shows Roast of Charlie Sheen

Futurama	Thursdays 10/9c
Action Delivery Force – Thrilling Space Battle
www.comedycentral.com
Comedy Central Funny TV Shows Roast of Charlie Sheen

Junaid Chundrigar made Sheeped Away in 7 months at the Utrecht School of the Arts, in the Netherlands. It’s the tale of a farmer who just wants to keep his beloved sheep safe from a giant UFO, without waking his judgemental wife. Chundrigar also posted a quickie making of reel here.

Two years ago, at the big Hall H Disney presentation at the San Diego Comic Con – the year Miyazaki was there – John Lasseter presented a clip from the forthcoming Beauty and The Beast 3D conversion. I hadn’t heard about this project, but was strangely intrigued with the idea of 3D conversion of previously flat 2D cartoons. I always loved Disney’s Melody, and Paramount’s Boo Moon and Popeye The Ace of Space are two great examples of what a 3D cartoon can look like if done properly (I am not as impressed with Lantz’ Hypnotic Hick and Warners’ Lumberjack Rabbit). I even enjoyed the 3D aspects of the otherwise awful Starchaser: The Legend of Orin.

I was particularly enthused when Lasseter introduced the clip – but became less so as he discussed the process. Here’s how I recall his introduction, and what I was thinking during it…

Lasseter: “There were 3D cartoons done in the 1950s…”

My Thoughts: “Yes there were. And they looked great – like old Viewmaster slides come to life!”

Lasseter (in a negative way): “…but they were old fashioned and looked like Viewmaster slides…”

My Thoughts: “But… but… that was COOL!”

Lasseter: “Luckily, we figured out a new way to create 3D out of hand drawn cartoons…”

My thoughts: “But… but… it doesn’t need a “new way”. MELODY looked incredible…”

Lasseter: “Instead of flat art, we’ve figured out a way to round the edges…”

My thoughts: “That doesn’t sound good…”

Lasseter: “This isn’t your father’s 3D cartoon…”

My thoughts while watching the clip: “Oh. My. God.”

I don’t have problems watching 3D movies. I don’t get headaches, my eyes don’t tear… but watching this clip gave me a headache and hurt my eyes. Needless to say I was not surprised when the film didn’t open theatrically as originally planned.

Cut to 2011 – and this past week the 3D Beauty and The Beast opened at the El Capitan Theatre sans almost any publicity. I simply had to go see it over the weekend. I was also invited to a screening of the 3D Lion King at the Disney Studio yesterday. Here’s my assessment of how both fare in 3D form.

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Beauty and The Beast – I’m not going to review the film itself, but suffice to say it was a pleasure to see it again on the big screen. The screenplay, direction, and vocal performances are even better than I remembered them. The animation was/is, of course, top notch. But there was something wrong here… the drawings of the characters, particularly in the first third of the film, looked awful. What did they do? Re-trace the animation to get the 3-D effect? There was a funky, scratchy-tracing “look” to the characters, particularly their outlines. It seemed to get better once we are in the enchanted castle – either that or I got used to it. The 3-D effect itself was pretty good. It was NOT the “rounded edge” version that Lasseter touted at Comic Con. In fact, unlike every live action or CG animated 3D film I’ve seen the past few years, the 3D “effect” didn’t wear off after the first ten minutes. It was quite a 3D Viewmaster version all throughout. Would I recommend seeing it on the big screen? No. The character designs of the townspeople and the overall “traced” look hurts the visuals. Somehow the 3D highlights these flaws… I went home a re-watched several scenes on the “Diamond Edition” DVD and the film looks much better on TV. Maybe the 3D home version plays better too. Final assessment: Disney was right not to release this nationwide – but the 3D is a lot better than I thought it would be. It doesn’t hurt the film, but doesn’t help it either.

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The Lion King – The folks at Disney sent me this slideshow (below) that attempts to explain the 3D conversion process. I admit I still don’t completely understand it.

I’ve now seen The Lion King in 3D and again, it was great to revisit this film after so many years. The finished artwork and visuals are superior to preceding films of the era and clearly more care was taken to convert this film to 3D. I only noticed the “scratchy tracing” look in the earliest part of the film. The 3D effect was “felt” throughout, though used best when Zasu is flying through a scene, or the characters are in front of a huge vista. A few scenes, where the camera p.o.v. is going through a cave, forest or valley the 3D technicians did a good job of creating a classic multiplane effect.

Again, “is this trip really necessary”? No. 3-D adds nothing new to the greatness of Disney’s Lion King. But anything that returns hand drawn animation to the big screen, and to the attention of the public, is a good thing. At various times during both screenings I kept thinking how fantastic a new drawn film, designed and shot for 3-D, would be. I hope the public, and the animation community, will one day have a chance to find out.

(The Lion King in 3-D opens nationwide on September 16th and on blu-ray on October 4th. Check it out and let us know what you think.)