Todd Oldham’s new monograph on Charley Harper (1922-2007), mentioned here last February, is a winner in every sense of the word. From the lavish packaging, beautiful print quality and exquisite collection of artwork, the book is everything a Charley Harper fan could want. Michael Bierut at Design Observer has some incisive thoughts about Harper in this piece entitled “Flat, Simple and Funny: The World of Charley Harper. About the new book, Bierut makes this observation: “…it’s beautifully produced, a clear labor of love for designer-author Oldham. But as a tribute, it struck me as somewhat ill-fitting, just too over-the-top and lavish for a humble, softspoken designer who claimed to be unable to draw a straight line without a ruler or a circle without a compass.”

Bierut’s piece also links to this MP3 audio interview between Todd Oldham and the self-effacing Harper which makes for good listening. Folks in Ohio should note that an exhibiton of Harper’s work opened this past weekend at the Cincinnati Art Museum. The museum currently has an exhibit of Saul Steinberg’s work as well. How often is it that two mid-century illustration greats are given retrospectives at the same museum? Definitely a treat worth checking out if you’re in the neighborhood.

“Here we come, walking down the street, get the funniest looks from, everyone we meet…”

Hey, Hey.. I may be comin’ to your town in the next few weeks. Here’s a list of public appearances I’ll be making soon, just so you can mark your calenders (and spread the word):

•Wednesday August 22nd Radio appearance: on Internet radio, Stu’s Show - two hours of classic cartoon talk and your phone calls. 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific (And don’t miss Stu’s broadcast all this week in the same time slot, with animation writer Earl Kress and Yakky Doodle voice actor Jimmy Weldon).

•Tuesday August 28th Cartoon Dump - I’ll be hosting another live performance of our popular podcast at the Steve Allen Theatre in Hollywood. Surprise guests are planned (to be announced as we get closer)!

•Monday September 17th Worst Cartoons Ever! - a special screening for ASIFA-East at NYU (room to be announced). I hope all my New York friends will drop by. I’ll be en route to the Ottawa Animation Festival later that week.

• Thursday November 8th Worst Cartoons Ever! - a special screening at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus Ohio. Meet me at this rare visit to Columbus.

I’ll post more information about these events as we get closer to each date. I always love meeting our readers and I hope to see you there.

Almost didn’t hear about this event it’s so under the radar. Indie animator Brent Green is doing a screening in LA of his works which combine filmed animation with live music performance. The event is at 9pm, this Wednesday, August 15, at the Silent Movie Theatre (611 N. Fairfax, LA, CA 90036). Tickets are $10 and available at the door or can be purchased online. Find out more about Brent at NervousFilms.com. Here’s a description of the program:

Brent Green is a self-taught, completely original animator from rural Pennyslvania, who plays music along with his short films, while narrating them live in freeform, semi-improvised sounding streams of words. He has a homegrown, handmade aesthetic, and an exhibition style deeply influenced by music performance:

“When I finish a film we do live shows with bands and sell DVD-R’s with hand-painted artwork,” Green says. “The bands improv the soundtracks and I yell the narration like a preacher. I get to work with artists I love –Califone, Sin Ropas, Garland of Hours and Brendan Canty from Fugazi.â€?

The New York Times called his films “some of the most original animations we have seen in years�. His work has played at Sundance, The Getty Museum, The Hammer, The Warhol Museum, and this is a rare chance to see him in an intimate, small theatre.

Below is Green’s intense and lovely stop-motion short Carlin shot with life-sized wooden characters and stuffed chickens in the farmhouse where he grew up.

After Annecy and Platform, I figured I’d had my fill of animation festivals for the year, but I’m rethinking that stance after hearing about Aurora. Aurora, you ask? This is the new name of the UK’s Norwich International Animation Festival, and it’s happening this year from November 7-10. While the festival has dropped ‘animation’ from its name, it has done so in an effort to redefine the notion of what an animation festival can be. A bit of explanation about the name change can be found on the Aurora site:

The change of the name is the annual festival’s latest move towards a truly multidisciplinary programme, and represents the opinion that ‘animation’ itself has become a restrictive tag which rarely does justice to the myriad artistic activity that it encompasses. It follows, then, that an ‘animation festival’ is no longer capable of staying abreast of this enormous artistic diversity - so in order to more freely reflect the way we think animation is heading, we’re dropping the label.

However, the festival is emphatically not abandoning animation – quite the opposite. The move away from an ‘animation festival’ will allow it to concentrate on what animation really is, on what it’s truly capable of, without being constrained by arguments about definition or limited to presenting film work alone.

Aurora has five featured artists this year—Robert Breer, Takashi Ishida, Jeff Scher, Naoyuki Tsuji and Jim Trainor—all of whom will be there in person to present programs of their work. These are complemented by an intriguing array of curated short programs, discussions and debates, and live performances combined with real-time animation. We’ve already seen some of this boundary-busting attitude at Platform earlier this year with its installation and cell phone animation competitions. Aurora is pushing it one step further, ushering in a new breed of animation festival that extends beyond films and embraces the entire cross-disciplinary potential of the medium. To read more from another blogger excited about this festival, check out Ben Ettinger’s AniPages Daily.

Through the end of August, the Tobey C. Moss Gallery (7321 Beverly Boulevard, LA, CA) has on display a show of animation artwork by Jules Engel. It’s a fairly small selection of artwork but includes pieces from Engel’s work on Disney’s Fantasia, UPA and Format Films color keys, and drawings from his personal short films. This Thursday, August 2, from 7-9pm, I’ll be doing a signing of Cartoon Modern in conjunction with the show. We’ll also be doing a short screening that highlights his UPA work and includes rare interview clips with Engel. Brew readers who’d like to attend can rsvp by tomorrow either by sending an email to tobeymoss [at] earthlink.net or calling the gallery at (323) 933-5523.

Former Animato! editor and current PC World editor, offers a nice Comic-Con trip report on his blog. He perceptively points out how the Con today has little to do with its original mission statement:

The crowding would seem to have something to do with Comic-Con’s complete refusal to limit its scope or differentiate between the important, the worthwhile, and the abysmal. It certainly isn’t following its mission, which reads as follows:

Comic-Con International is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.

I have nothing against Sarah Silverman, but I fail to see how her TV show is relevant to that mission. I don’t understand why there are booths hawking swords and hard drives, or why it makes sense for Playboy Playmates to be signing photos on the show floor. It rankles me that the con’s program book celebrates every comic, TV show, and movie it mentions as a hit, a masterwork, or both.

If you have a Con trip report on your blog, share the link with us in the comments section of this post.

Strange stuff! Good things and scary things abound. Here are just a couple of my comic book finds from this year’s San Diego Comic Con (Click on covers above to see a larger version).

Right to Left: SINBAD JR. is one of the favorites in my Worst Cartoons Ever! shows, especially the Sam Singer version which this particularly ugly comic seems to be based on. • I bought this horrible copy of ARCHIE No. 114 for a buck, mainly because I couldn’t take my eyes off the strange cover. Click on it to get a better look. What is the “gag” here? Archie comics at this time (1960) usually featured a cover gag situation unrelated to the inside of the book. I couldn’t figure out why Archie was being arrested by a realistic policeman (and on what charges?). It turns out this cover is related to a story inside, one in which Archie’s knowlege of the Spanish language helps save a boy’s life. • I don’t know how many Broadway plays or movie musicals were adapted into comic books, but Meredith Wilson’s THE MUSIC MAN is one of my favorites. I never saw this comic book adaptation before, but it’s quite good, all things considered. • How about this 1946 NEW YORKER cover by Abe Burnbaum? Some guy was selling old New Yorker’s for $3 bucks. As a film collector and part-time projectionist myself I couldn’t resist this great cover - and a great issue loaded with ads, cartoons and articles.

But the scariest thing I got at the Con, hands down, was this free “Temporary Tattoo” handout at the Warner’s booth:

Amid’s gone. I’m still here. Look who I met this afternoon at the Mattel Hot Wheels booth (where they were selling a very cool limited edition Hot Wheels 1966 Batmobile). Spent the day trolling several panels and walking the dealers room (Yes, they still sell comics - I’ll post some I bought later this week). Photo snapped with my funky Motorola cel phone.