My love for bouncy retro-style cartoons has no bounds. This was produced a few years ago (2002?) by Argentine cartoonist and animator Lucas Nine, but I just caught up with it today. This is so good the poor quality of the upload doesn’t spoil it for me.

Momo E No Tegami (A Letter To Momo) from director Hiroyuki Okiura (Jin-Roh) will open in Japan during next spring’s Golden Week holidays. Okiura spent seven years planning, writing, storyboarding, and directing the film. Masashi Ando (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) is overseeing the animation process. Among the animators on the team are Toshiyuki Inoue (Akira), Ei Inoue (The Cat Returns), Takeshi Honda (Evangelion 2:0), Tetsuya Nishio (Ghost In the Shell 2), and Hiroyuki Aoyama (Summer Wars). Hiroshi Ohno (Kiki’s Delivery Service) is serving as art director.

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Here’s a second, longer trailer from Studio Ghibli’s From Up On Poppy Hill, which opened in Japan on July 16th. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro (Tales from Earthsea).

(Thanks, Ben Price)

Here’s another one of those wonderful articles from Popular Mechanics magazine (September 1960) explaining the tricks behind creating animated cartoons: “TV Hit From A Cartoon Factory” by Thomas E. Stimson, Jr.

The piece includes a Huckleberry Hound storyboard sequence, character mouth chart and some great behind the scenes photos. Check out Carlo Vinci animating on the article’s second page (page 121). Read the whole piece through this link to Google Books.

(Thanks, Wynn Hamonic)

Spent the weekend going over some new book acquisitions (and one DVD) and surprise! most were pretty good – and a couple were really great. Here’s what I’ve been reading (and viewing), in no particular order:

Funny Pictures: Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood (University of California Press), edited by Daniel Goldmark and Charlie Keil, is a fascinating collection of essays by noted animation historians and academics, exploring the link – from the outset of the medium to today – between comedy and animation. Fourteen pieces in all, including J.B. Kaufman comparing Disney’s characters to Chaplin and silent comedians; Mark Langer putting Fleischer’s early films in context to Vaudeville and comic strips of the era; Donald Crafton observing the effect of Hollywood cartoons on Depression era audiences; Linda Simensky on the influences of classic cartoons and earlier animators on the TV cartoon creators of today; and Daniel Goldmark writing about “funny music” in funny cartoons. This one is aimed at the scholarly – but is highly recommended (by me) to all!

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Krazy Kat & The Art of George Herriman, A Celebration by Craig Yoe (Abrams Comic Arts). Another Krazy Kat comics compilation? Not quite. In fact, not at all. Once again comics archaeologist Yoe has unearthed a treasure trove – this time of all things Herriman and Krazy. And once again I’ll say that even if you know nothing about Herriman and his most famous creation, you MUST buy this book. If you love great cartooning, funny drawings, and 20th Century pop culture this is a absolute gotta-have-it volume. It is an absolute joy to leaf through these pages filled with rare unpublished Herriman art – in comics, paintings, doodles, merchandise, etc. This is a companion volume to all the incredible Herriman material now being reprinted – a collection of jaw-dropping “bonus material” (as we say in the DVD world) that even includes several pages devoted to the Charles Mintz animated cartoons of the 20s and 30s. The artwork overwhelms the reader, yet Yoe tops that by including several rare essays on the Kat from the likes of E.E. Cummings, Gilbert Seldes, Bill Watterson, Craig McCracken and Herriman’s grand daughter Dee Cox, among others. I’ve run out of space to continue raving. Only have room for four more words: Buy this book now!

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The Saga of Rex by Michel Gagne (Image Comics). I figure there are two types of people out there: those who know the work of Michel Gagne, and those who don’t. Those who do should already have this graphic novel (it came out late last year and I’ve been remiss at plugging it here). If you don’t have it – get it. What a beautiful “trip” this is. This is pure Gagne psychedelia unleashed on 190 color pages. If you don’t know Gagne’s work – he’s an amazing special effects animator (The Iron Giant, among others), currently living in the Pacific northwest doing his own thing when he isn’t animating or designing games…. The Saga of Rex will introduce you to his world in the best possible way. Don’t let the cute l’il furry cover fool you, this is a mind-blowing sci-fi adventure; visual storytelling at its best; and highly recommended!

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The World of Smurfs: A Celebration of Tiny Blue Proportions by Matt. Murray (Abrams Image). What’s more surprising than a first place box-office win for The Smurfs movie? This book! Self described “Smurfologist” Matt. Murphy (former president of New York’s Musuem of Comics and Cartoon Art – and a student in my 1996 History of Animation class at NYU) has put together an informing and entertaining history of the Peyo, his comic strip and all the subsequent animated adaptations. Lavishly illustrated with pull outs (like my The Hanna Barbera Treasury) that include facsimile reproductions of the first “Schtroumpfs” booklets, cels, model sheets, stickers, et al. It’s the ultimate word on the whole Smurfs phenomenon. I never thought I’d say this, but I highly recommend this book. It’s a lot of fun.

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Uncensored Animation #2: Cannibals! by Steve Stanchfield (Thunderbean Animation). Stanchfield does it again! He’s just released his latest DVD compilation of classic cartoon obscurities, and I hereby order you to buy it. Here’s the link. You will not be disappointed. This time Steve’s collected the rarest, most obscure cartoons based around the theme of Man-Eating Cannibals. Warning: much of this material is Politically Incorrect. These are rare cartoons from the 1920s, 30s and 40s, from various studios, lovingly preserved in their best possible presentation. Oddities include Korn Plastered In Africa (1931) narrated by radio’s Uncle Don, Chiquita Banana and the Cannibals (1947) by Hugh Harman, and Aroma of the South Seas (1926) with Mutt & Jeff paired with its rare 1931 color/sound remake. Incredibly strange and incredible fun. Highly recommended.

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And finally, Animators of Film and Television: Nineteen Artists, Writers, Producers and Others by Noell K. Wolfgram Evans (McFarland & Company), is a book that can best be used by students as basic text to get a grasp on key figures in animation history. As a teacher of animation history myself (currently at Woodbury University in Burbank) I’m well aware that good text books (in print) are hard to find at this time. In this book, author Evans essentially reviews the career highlights of nineteen key figures – including John Hubley, Max Fleischer, Frank Tashlin, Art Babbit, Matt Groening and John Kricfalusi. Notably absent are Walt Disney (intentionally according to the introduction), Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. If you are a longtime fan and have the essential histories and bios, you don’t need this one. Still, this is a worthwhile primer for the interested novice, animation student or casual enthusiast.

Visiting a museum on a weekend is a great thing to do. And thanks to brothers Mark Osborne (More and Kung Fu Panda) and Kent Osborne (Adventure Time, Spongebob Squarepants) you can do so in less than five minutes. Created in an improvisational fashion during three days at the museum, this pixilated short takes a journey through Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), through its current exhibition Art in the Streets with works by Banksy, Rammellzee and Kenny Scharf.

Guess what opens today? They are small and blue and The Los Angeles Times says their film is “…grating and cloying. This misguided attempt at a 3-D family comedy is a project even Neil Patrick Harris can’t save.”

The New York Times says “the movie frequently reminds us that the gimmick of little creatures scurrying about in the human world (Toy Story, Gnomeo and Juliet) is pretty worn out. But on a hot summer day, The Smurfs is a decent enough excuse to haul the little ones into an air-conditioned theater.”

Comments below are open only to our readers who have seen the film and wish to offer their reactions and reviews.

Buckle Up, a team of 3rd year students led by Abe Taraky, created this charming little film at Sheridan College’s BA Animation program.

Brooklyn animation boutique Awesome and Modest created this new music video for The Mountain Goats track, Estate Sale Sign. In the video, two shape-shifting beasts wage a war over a snow globe – with a brief pause for a moment of tenderness.

Credits
Director : Awesome and Modest
Editor : Sean Donnelly
Animation: Sean Donnelly, Jordan Bruner, Abbey Luck, Taili Wu, Vanessa Appleby

Avatar: The Last Airbender was a very successful anime-inspired seies for Nickelodeon. Unfortunately the franchise took a hit last year with the M. Night Shyamalan live action feature. Undeterred, Avatar creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are supervising 26 episodes of a new spin-off limited series, The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, which is scheduled to debut next year. Last week at Comic Con Nick released this first taste:

More Penguins, more dancing, more rap music… Here’s the full theatrical trailer for Warner Bros. Happy Feet 2 which opens on November 18th.

My Mother’s Coat is a beautiful, sensitive film by Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits, a freelance illustrator and animator based in South London. She completed her MA in Animation at Royal College of Art; this was her 2010 final project. Tsakiri-Scanatovits’ is also part of the artists collective, MOTH, and we’ve featured her in our “Animated Fragments” section before. She describes the film:

“My Mother talks to me about post-dictatorship Athens, her struggle to adapt to the greek mentality, her memories of motherhood, and her longing to go back to her small town in Italy.”

For more information about the filmmaker, follow her blog.

(Thanks, David Prosser)

Here’s a Cal Arts student film from this past year’s producers show that really impressed me with its storytelling. Obviously I wasn’t the only one impressed. David Wolter just started work this week in Dreamworks story department.