Nina Paley designed this year’s poster for Asifa-International’s annual International Animation Day. It communicates the idea beautifully, agreed?

For a larger download, or a textless version, click here.

Speaking of Popeye (as we were here)… his voice croons one of the greatest cartoon theme songs of all time. No, not “I’m Popeye The Sailor Man” by Sammy Lerner - I’m talking about his cover of the Looney Tunes theme, The Merry Go Round Broke Down.

CLICK HERE for a download of the track, sung by the original voice of Popeye, Billy Costello.

(via Don Brockway, art above by Chogrin - and thanks to Alex Rannie)

It turns out that Foghorn Leghorn isn’t the only racist cartoon character. Thank you, Yahoo! Answers, for resolving these difficult questions. Now, if we could only figure out how to reduce the tension.

(Thanks, Michael Rosenberg)

We try our best to keep politics out of Cartoon Brew, but an item reported this morning on The Huffington Post caught my eye, and I felt it should be noted here (heck, any time a classic cartoon character is compared to a current politician, I’m interested. Anyone remember when Bill Clinton compared himself to Baby Huey?).

Today, columnist Niall Ferguson of London’s Financial Times compared President Obama to Felix the Cat, saying that, like Obama, the cartoon cat was “black and lucky”. The lede of Ferguson’s column reads:

President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the US as he takes a well-earned summer break after just over six months in the world’s biggest and toughest job.

Ferguson’s column was accompanied by a cartoon (above) and a caption which reads, “Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat! Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks!” See the original column here (site may require registration to read).

Here’s a film I’d pay good money to see. Megatron kicking Thomas in his Tank Engine caboose.

Until then, I’ll have to be content with this cheap Chinese toy (possibly a knock-off) currently being sold on ebay. If this is an officially licensed product, there is something so wrong about it — yet, I like it. Check out more pics on LikeCool.com.

(Thanks, Edwin Austin)

How did we ever manage to answer these burning animation history questions before the existence of Yahoo! Answers?

It seems only appropriate to wrap up Comic-Con weekend with this New York Times article about Japanese men who have long-term relationships with drawn images of cartoon characters. The article profiles Nisan (above) who met his current girlfriend—a pillowcase with a video game character printed onto it—at a comic book convention:

He treats her the way any decent man would treat a girlfriend — he takes her out on the weekends to sing karaoke or take purikura, photo-booth pictures imprinted on a sheet of tiny stickers. In the few hours we spent together, I watched him position her gently in the restaurant booth and later in the back seat of his car, making sure to keep her upright and not to touch her private parts. He doesn’t take her to work, but he has a backup body pillow with the same Nemutan cover inside his desk drawer in case he has to work late at his tech-support job.

No, it’s not a scene from Cartoon Network Real (though I wish it were), it’s from a wonderful series of photographs posted on the JPG Magazine blog by Dina Goldstein featuring traditional Disney princess figures (and Red Riding Hood) in realistic or socially problematic scenarios. Snow White and Belle are my favorites. And while Rapunzel is incredibly somber and reflective, Jasmine is just laugh-out-loud absurdity come to life.

(Thanks, Jesse)