Check out this great article on Hanna Barbera from the September 1960 issue from Popular Mechanics (that’s Carlo Vinci above shown animating Fred Flintstone). I found it using the new feature on Google’s Book Search which now includes magazines. It’s unclear how many magazines are currently in their system, but at launch it seems to include New York magazine, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Ebony, Jet, Vegetarian Times, and Baseball Digest.

For example, a quick search for Disney or Animation brings up articles like this 1945 classic from Popular Science about how Disney combines live action and animation. This looks to be a great resource for us as they add more periodicals.

(Thanks, Bill Robinson)

Bob Clampett’s daughter Ruth has started a blog!

Baby Ruthy’s Blog is an extension of Ruth’s Wildsville Gallery where she sells limited edition art based on Warner Bros. and DC Comics properties (as well as Beany & Cecil originals). She plans to post a few times a week and will definitely dip into the Clampett personal archives for topics to discuss. I know several fans (including myself) who will be regularly checking in to see what Ruthy has to show and tell.

Bio-Bak is the wacky and inventive Flash portfolio site of Dutch artist Coen Grift. It’s packed with bits of animation, sound effects and puzzles. I spent at least half an hour navigating the interactive playground that Grift has set up and enjoyed every moment of it.

(via Waxy)

Did you know that CARTOONS HATE FAMILIES? It’s true, I guess. Otherwise they wouldn’t say in in all caps at christiansagainstcartoons.com. At first I thought it was a crazy over-the-top parody, but it seems to be the real thing. I, for one, would never have guessed that Monsters Inc. is an attempt by the Godless Disney organization to introduce Satanism to innocent children. But sure enough, it is!

This site apparently has not been updated in a year, so I’d hate to push up their numbers and encourage them to post more. Still, it’s an interesting find — in the same way that the life forms one discovers hiding under a rock make for “an interesting find”. It’s too late for me, but you may still be able to save yourself from these filthy, vile cartoons!

(Thanks Joe Dante and special thanks to Dewey McGuire)

Cartoon voice actress June Foray (Witch Hazel, Granny, Rocky, Natasha) will hang out on Stu’s Show live today at 4pm Pacific Time/7pm Eastern Time. Host Stu Shostack and animation historians and writers extraordinaire Mark Evanier and Earl Kress will ask June about her incredible career - and listeners can call in too. If you miss the show, it will be repeated every day for the next week in the same time slot each day. But listen in today (It’s Stu’s 100th broadcast), call in and speak to a living legend!

Disney Feature animation artists Joe Pitt and Alex Hirsch have started an animation blog project, 24 Hour Toons. Every other week, on Fridays at midnight, they put up a theme and challenge their colleagues to make a animated film about it within the course of 24 hours. They’ve only had a couple rounds so far but the results are intriguing and fun - for example:

The controversy over California’s Proposition 8 is nothing compared to one Japanese fanboy’s campaign to marry cartoon characters. To be specific, this is aimed more toward winning a manga girl, not an anime babe. A coo-coo otaku named Taichi Takashita has launched an online petition which he plans to present to his government to establish a law on marriages with cartoon characters. Within a week he has gathered more than 1,000 signatures through the Internet.

As a Comic Con veteran of over 30 years, none of this surprises me. If anything, I’m surprised how many news sources have posted this story.

(Thanks, Lev Polyakov)

One week after giving his blog a nice plug, Jason Anders interviewed me on his Fulle Circle Productions website. Even if you’ve already read everything about me posted online, I’m sure I say something new in Jason’s interview.