Author Archives: Jerry Beck

This week in LA: “Redline” and “A Cat In Paris”

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Two animated features opened quietly in Los Angeles this weekend. Both are well worth seeing in a theater and deserve our support. Both are hand drawn films – one from France, one from Japan – both offering a diversity of style, storytelling and substance not seen in the standard American studio product.

A Cat In Paris opened its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles this weekend at the AMC Burbank Town Center 8 (201 E Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA), with shows daily at 4pm and 7:30pm. The film made its international premiere at 2011 Berlinale and has been nominated for a European Film Award in the Best Animated Feature category. It has garnered raves on the US and international festival circuit including appearances at San Francisco Int’l Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, London International Film Festival, and Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

Redline opened in limited release in Los Angeles this weekend at the Downtown Independent (The film opens in NYC on January 6th before hitting blu-ray & dvd on January 17). The screenings will alternate between dubbed English and original Japanese (with sub-titles). It’s one of the best anime features I’ve seen in a while – wildly imaginative and occasionally surreal – Speed Racer on acid would sum it up quite nicely. Advance tickets can be purchased here.

Disney Pawn Shop opens in Orlando

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Times are tough in Toontown…

Opening tomorrow (12/3) in Winter Garden (near Orlando) Florida is the Theme Park Connection, a pawn shop specializing in buying or selling authentic Walt Disney memorabilia, from costumes from the Haunted Mansion to signs from the Splash Mountain ride. According to Click Orlando:

The store is not affiliated with Disney, but it offers Disney employees the chance to turn in their costumes and collectibles for cash. Mark Pianko, the store owner, told our sister station Local 6, “No one else is doing it. We’re the only place I know that’s offering people cash to bring in Disney theme park items.” People have referred to the Winter Garden store as “the world’s largest Disney pawn shop.”

Click here to see a video of the shop.

Two New MUST-HAVE Books!

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It’s December. Holiday gift-giving time. Prepare for several posts in the next few weeks about new books and DVDs you must own – or give to your toon-headed loved ones. But first up, above all else, are these two:

How can you resist any book with Horace Horsecollar on the cover? How many books even have Horace Horsecollar on the cover? This one does. Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Vol. 2: “Trapped on Treasure Island” is the latest edition in a series of magnificently produced hard covers reprinting vintage Mickey Mouse comic strips by Floyd Gottfredson from the 1930s. Specifically from January 1932 through January 1934, this book gloriously reprints six classic continuities (The Great Orphanage Robbery, Mickey Mouse Sails For Treasure Island, Blaggard Castle, Pluto And The Dogcatcher, The Mail Pilot, Mickey Mouse And His Horse Tanglefoot and The Crazy Crime Wave), each strip restored from the best possible archival materials. Uncut, uncensored and politically incorrect – these tales are from an alternate Disney universe, where Mickey is a red-blooded, two-fisted adventurer; they are fun to read and a delight to view. Gottfredson’s comics are as classy, funny and as slick as the Disney shorts from the same period. And as usual, co-editor David Gerstein provides a plethora of “bonus materials”: galleries of rare art and merchandise, character histories, essays about scripter Ted Osborne and collaborators Webb Smith and Merrill De Maris, aided and abetted by noted Mouse historians Alberto Becattini, J.B. Kaufman and Malcom Willits – and over a half-dozen pieces are penned by Gerstein himself! A fine package, a full meal, and a perfect follow-up to volume 1, Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Vol. 2: “Trapped on Treasure Island” fills a gap long-neglected in animation history. Buy it.

I think I’ve been waiting for this book my entire life. I’ve always enjoyed the artistry and wit of Walt Kelly’s Pogo, but the historian in me always wanted to read the entire thing, strip by strip, from day one. At long last the complete Pogo has been compiled, lovingly, by Fantagraphics Kim Thompson and Kelly’s daughter Carolyn Kelly in the miraculous new hardcover, Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Vol. 1: Through the Wild Blue Wonder. Buy this book. It wasn’t the first newspaper comic strip by an former Disney animator, but it’s the best – and the first I’d encountered to have an animators aesthetic in the layouts and character poses. This fascinated me no end as a child. Kelly’s drawings are just magnificent, and his sophisticated writing style was far ahead of its time. Its time has come – and Fantagraphics has gone out of its way to ensure the best possible copies of these rare strips were found, restored and preserved perfectly here for all time (BTW, I’m compelled to point out the reference on the cover to Ward Kimball’s band, The Firehouse Five!). The book includes all the initial dailies and Sundays (in color) from 1949-1950, the earlier NY Star run (from 1948), annotations and essays by R.C Harvey, Mark Evainer, Steve Thompson and a Foreword by legendary newspaperman Jimmy Breslin. A great gift for anyone – especially you. Amazon has it for $26.39 – a steal!

“Orbis Park” by Andrew Kaiko

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RISD grad and now NYC-based animator/illustrator Andrew Kaiko has completed his first self-funded short, Orbis Park. Says Kaiko:

“Orbis Park is my first short as a professional animator since my college senior thesis five years ago. This is an attempt to display the type of animation I always wanted to do and the inspirations that I am affected by every day. It is also the first short where I wanted to gather a more solid crew – basically all of it brought in online.”

Animation Breakdown: Pixar’s “La Luna”

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Cartoon Brew at Animation Breakdown, currently going on this week at The Cinefamily, is incredibly proud to present a special advance screening of Pixar’s newest Oscar ‘short-listed’ short film La Luna, a full six months before it hits the mainstream movie audiences! After the screening there will be a Q&A and a “Making of La Luna” presentation by its director, Enrico Casarosa. Casarosa will discuss the journey that led him to create the short and illustrate the roots, influences, and inspirations that led him to tell this very personal story. Join us at 2pm on Saturday (12/3) – Advance tickets available now.

The Oscar Short-List

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Tweety made the cut! So did Pixar, William Joyce, Wendy Tilby and the NFB. Here’s the official short-list of the ten qualified animated shorts that will be whittled down to five final nominees for this year’s Academy Award. Congratulations – and best of luck – to all!

A Morning Stroll
A Morning Stroll by Grant Orchard (Studio AKA)
Read Cartoon Brew’s post about A Morning Stroll.


Dimanche / Sunday by Patrick Doyon (NFB)


I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat by Matt O’Callaghan (Warner Bros.)


La Luna by Enrico Casarosa (Pixar)
Read Cartoon Brew’s coverage of La Luna.


Luminaris by Juan Pablo Zaramella (JPZaramella Studios)
Read Cartoon Brew’s coverage of Juan Pablo Zaramella.


Paths of Hate by Damien Nenow (Platige Image) Poland
Read Cartoon Brew’s post about Paths of Hate.


Specky Four-Eyes by Jean Claude Rozec (Vivement Lundi)


The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg (Moonbot Studios)
Read Cartoon Brew’s post about The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.


The Magic Piano by Martin Clapp (BreakThru Films) Poland


Wild Life by Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby (NFB)
Read Cartoon Brew’s post about Wild Life.

The Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Reviewing Committee viewed all the eligible entries for the preliminary round of voting in screenings held in New York and Los Angeles. Short Films and Feature Animation Branch members will now select three to five nominees from among the 10 titles on the shortlist. Branch screenings will be held in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in January 2012.

Andrew Stanton’s “John Carter” trailer

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We don’t usually post trailers for live action films but have, when time to time, one is closely related to our field (Brad Bird’s Mission Impossible, Cameron’s Avatar and Disney’s The Muppets come to mind). Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) has been working on a live action adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Princess of Mars for the past few years, and the trailer has just been unveiled. There’s plenty of CG character animation involved (did Pixar animators do it?) and lots of action. The movie will be released in March – and I’m crossing my fingers for its success.

“Community” goes Anime

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Heads up fans of NBC’s Community. Tonight’s episode has a Retro Anime sequence created by our friends at Titmouse. The sequence has characters from Community animated in the style of 80′s anime (Robotech/Voltron/Bubblegum Crisis style designs). Enjoy these exclusive advance images below (UPDATE: full sequence is embeded above). The animation is directed by Grif Kimmins, animated by Parker Simmons, and Produced by Ben Kalina. Additional credits include: BG Layout & Paint: Lauren Airress & Khang Li, Composite by Mike Newton. Community airs at 8pm on NBC.



The first Tintin animated feature (1947)

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If only the new mo-cap Tintin movie had half the charm of this film, the first Tintin animated feature – a stop-mo adaptation of the The Crab With Golden Claws. Animated by Claude Misonne in 1947 with puppets, the film (embed below, in French no subtitles) closely follows the original story by Hergé.

(Thanks Johane Matte via Cartoon Brew’s Facebook page)

“Charlie Brown” posters by Tom Whelan

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I really like these limited edition Peanuts Special posters by artist Tom Whelan. The Great Pumpkin piece (below) sold out a few months ago. Now the Christmas special (above) will go on sale Thursday in three editions:

450 Standard Edition ($75)
100 Variant Edition ($125)
50 Silver Bells Edition (on metal with Variant image imprinted) ($250)

It’s pretty mysterious how these are being distributed. eMoviePoster.com will release all 3 editions exclusively on Thursday (12/1) at a random morning hour. The next day, Friday (12/2) publisher Dark Hall Mansion will make them available in their online Store. For more information on Tom Whelan and his amazing poster art, check Whelan’s blog.

(Via Fire Wire)

Animation Breakdown begins!

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Cartoon Brew is co-presenting Animation Breakdown at the Cinefamily this weekend. It kicks off Thursday night with Don Hertzfeldt in person with his brand new short (first two screenings sold out – but a 12:35am show has just been added). Tomorrow night is an opening reception for the gallery show at Synchronicity Space being done in conjunction with the fest – it’s also how we’re kicking the whole thing off. The show features artwork from animators, including Bruce Bickford (in his first L.A. gallery appearance), Adam Beckett, Andy Ristaino (of Adventure Time), Jim Tozzi (of Xavier: Renegade Angel), David O’Reilly, Amy Lockhart and more. So join us at Synchronicity Space (713 N. Heliotrope, LA, CA, 90029) Wednesday, November 30th for our opening night reception!

Clay-animation madman Bruce Bickford will also be on hand Sunday night (12/4) at 8:30 to present, in person, a rare evening of shorts, experiments, and brand-new works highlighting his vastly underseen and equally remarkable hand-drawn animation – plus, the world premiere of Bickford’s finally-finished, twenty-plus-years-in-the-making magnum opus Cas’l. A trailer for Bickford’s show is above.

Flintstone Flyer Fanatic

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Calling all Flintstone freaks! My friend David Nimitz is an animator, caricaturist and Flintstone fanatic par excellence. He always wanted a toy based on the first aired episode of the series, The Flintstone Flyer, but since none existed he built one himself. He took his prehistoric helicopter out to the Vazquez Rocks and shot a few pix (above and below) – and I just had to share. Well done, Dave! Perhaps these will inspire some toy-maker to create a mass-market version. Till then we will play vicariously through your photos…

Click thumbnails below to enlarge. Second row are some of Dave’s tributes to our favorite cartoon voices.

AUCTION: Lost Disney Oswald film

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Going once, going twice… a long lost Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon by Walt Disney. It will be up for auction next month, December 14th, at Bonhams in Los Angeles.

The only known copy of Hungry Hobos (1928) has been found in UK’s Huntley Film Archives based in Herefordshire. It is being estimated to sell for $30,000-40,000. The Bonhams press release says:

Stephanie Connell of Bonhams Entertainment Memorabilia department comments, “Hungry Hobos” an incredible find, a lost masterpiece and a cartoon with a unique and vital place in animation history.” Comprising a 16mm double perforated celluloid acetate positive print, silent, probably dating from around its distribution date of late 20s/early 30s, total running time 5 minutes, 21 seconds and 2 frames at a running speed of 24 frames per second.

The Huntley Film Archives recently re-discovered the film and when they realized its significance they decided to sell it, and will devote the proceeds to their collection of 80,000 films, which are badly in need of restoration. Amanda Huntley of Huntley Film Archives comments, “When we checked this film we couldn’t quite believe our eyes. For an archive, finding a lost masterpiece is incredible – you just don’t think it will happen to you. We are excited and delighted to offer this gem to animation aficionados and collectors.”

$30,000-40,000? Has any silent-era cartoon ever been sold for more than $1000? Is this cartoon really worth five figures. All I know is, I want want to see it. If you want to place a bid, or need more information: visit Bonhams website.