I’ve linked to Vince Collins’s animation before, but I hadn’t run across this hallucinogenic 1982 piece of animation he made called Malice in Wonderland. Quite appropriately, it was pointed out to me by Christy Karacas, who’s currently working on a trippy animated series of his own, Superjail. It’s probably NSFW but don’t let that stop you. Creator Collins also has a MySpace with an entertaining account of his animation career thus far and links to more of his work.

Recently I became curious to find out what is the most viewed original piece of animation on YouTube. The answer turned out to be a bit of a surprise: Charlie the Unicorn. The original posting of the short has nearly 23 million views, while another copy of the short is approaching 9 million views. There are dozens of other copies of the film floating around YouTube, so it’s safe to say that Charlie the Unicorn now has well over 32 million views on the video sharing site.

Anyway the reason I mention all this is that the creator, Jason Steele, recently unveiled the long-awaited followup Charlie the Unicorn 2 (posted below). In less than a month, the video has garnered nearly 1.5 million views on YouTube. Jason also has a website Filmcow.com that offers hi-res QuickTimes of the shorts and an online store selling Charlie merchandise.

The two Charlie the Unicorn shorts are firmly rooted in the contemporary strain of nonsensical non sequitur humor. Sometimes this type of humor works (Pen Ward’s Adventure Time) and most of the time it doesn’t (Family Guy, almost everything on “Adult Swim”). In the case of Charlie the Unicorn, I have to concede that the humor works nicely, and the clumsy animation only heightens the effect. I wasn’t expecting this short to be the most viewed original animation on YouTube, but looking at the success of Charlie can perhaps offer some clues about the type of cartoons that resonate with today’s online animation audiences.

PerfectLand is an oddly appealing series of Flash-animated shorts created for MTV by Ben Meinhardt. I’ve embedded the first one below and the other three episodes can be viewed on MTV Overdrive. The shorts have an undeniable “green” theme—peaceful nature-loving creatures are constantly attacked by a heavy polluting, industrial villain—but the concept is saved from typical heavy-handed environmentalism because of Meinhardt’s wildly creative imaginary creatures and his skillful animation, which becomes really impressive whenever the cuddly creatures exact revenge. I’m looking forward to seeing more work from Ben.

Michael Jantze, former art director at ILM and former newspaper cartoonist (The Norm), has started animating cute little films in flash with traditional animation and Adobe After Effects that have a nice UPA feel. At Your Service is the first in a series.

UPDATE: Recieved some further information about the Mr. Lux shorts direct from its lead animator:

My name is Kelly McNutt, lead animator for Jantze Studios.

It’s great to see that Mr. Lux found its way to Cartoon Brew! But allow me a quick note on how we produced the Mr. Lux shorts: we used a combination of traditional animation (scanned inks, no less) and Adobe After Effects, but no Flash. The individual hand-drawn animation segments were assembled and selectively augmented with AE animation for the sake of efficiency due to a very small production team and relatively short production schedule. The goal was to retain a traditional feel as much as possible and to capitalize on AE’s strengths and minimize its weaknesses by designing around them. I would point you to this other short we created using the same method, but with more traditional animation (as it was a far shorter production): Tech Tips with Boy Norm.

Also, we’ve just this week received word that Mr. Lux has been accepted for Cannes Short Film Corner, so we’re feeling rather enthusiastic these days.

(Thanks, Adam Perry)

It’s been over a year since we’ve mentioned the innovative video experiments of Oliver Laric, but his latest project, (>’.')>=O____l_*__O=<('.'<), demands a plug. At first glance, it looks like an abstract piece of emoticons, but a bit of squinting reveals much more than appears on the surface. (via Animation Show)

This one’s a must-see! Orgesticulanismus by Mathieu Labaye of Camera Etc. starts out slow but quickly turns into one of the most impressive shorts I’ve seen in a while. It’s an animator’s film with lots of beautiful, wildly creative hand-drawn animation on display. I just find it incredibly inspiring to see skilled animators freestyling and having fun with the graphic possibilities of the medium. The film appears to have some deeper meaning as well; it’s a tribute to the late Benoît Labaye, and the French dialogue is the voice of Labaye. It’s on YouTube, but embedding is disabled, so head over here to watch it.

(Thanks to Louis-Étienne Vallée for pointing this out, and to Catsuka.com for the original post)

The Animation Show has announced the film line-up for their fourth annual tour, and the most exciting piece being offered, in my opinion, is the premiere of an exclusive short film by the British commercial directing duo Smith & Foulkes.

Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes are among my favorite directors working in commercial animation today. Evidence of their terrifically innovative and humorous commissioned work can be seen here, here, here, here and here. As far as I know, this is the first personal piece they’ve produced since beginning to work as professional directors, and if it’s as fresh and original as their commercial work, it should be something special.

The new Animation Show has some other promising works in their line-up including Stefan Muller’s Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker, the hilarious Japanese series Usavich and an exclusive new short by PES called Western Spaghetti. This year’s Show, however, is a major departure from previous years in that the lineup is not particularly challenging or artistically meritorious, and it’s heavily geared towards lighter and goofier fare, especially from younger directors.

A film like Angry Unpaid Hooker veers dangerously close to Spike & Mike territory, and while it’s a fairly amusing piece, it’s also an aesthetic eyesore that’s more suited for online viewing than bigscreen theatrical exhibition. Similarly, Luis Nieto’s Far West is more gimmick than film and not the quality of programming that we’ve come to expect from the Animation Show. Bottom line: There’s good stuff in this year’s program and I’m looking forward to checking it out, though I can’t promise the overall experience will be as great as years past. The first screenings of the 2008 show take place on April 25 in Austin, Texas and Columbus, Ohio.

In terms of animation, the short is barely more than a glorified animatic, yet Graham Annable’s The Hidden People is incredibly fun (and scary) to watch because of his storytelling mastery. (via Flight)

Tron’s light-cycle chase recreated in cardboard, with stop-motion and pixilation techniques - no CG!

(Thanks Mark Mayerson)

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