Kenny Scharf, one of the first “lowbrow” artists to popularize cartoon culture in ‘fine art’, is back with a new exhibit of Flintstone and Jetsons mash-ups. His new show, Barberadise, opened tonight at the Honor Fraser Gallery on La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles.

The show features several “re-appropriations” of cartoon characters created by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, including “the contrasting stone-age family, The Flinstones and the futuristic Jetsons amidst world annihilation”. The exhibition will run through on October 31st. Can’t make it? You can scan 20 pieces in the exhibit online if you click here.

Author and historian Tim Hollis (Mouse Tracks, Hi There Boys and Girls) allowed a local news camera crew to shoot a story about his incredible collection of cartoon memorabilia:

And if anyone wants to visit his private museum in Alabama, contact Tim via email.

Are the cartoon images on these candy wrappers “pornographic”? Apparently some parents in England think so, according to this article. From the folks who invented the Gummi Bears, Haribo, comes a new way to package all-day suckers and sour balls.
You be the judge.

This year, Popeye celebrated his 80th birthday (his first comic strip appearance was on January 17th, 1929). This painting, from 2007 by monster-movie make-up guru Rick Baker, shows what the sailor-man would actually look like at this age.
Pretty disturbing.

(Thanks, Doran Gaston)

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).