Last week I wrote about Stephen Silver’s excellent new art book. I also saw another great hardcover sketchbook recently (thanks Bob) – this one from illustrator/character designer Peter de Seve. This came out a couple months ago in Europe and it’s overflowing with beautiful imaginative drawings with a spirited line recalling Heinrich Kley’s work. The book is a bit difficult to find being that it’s a European import, but folks in LA can pick it up at Stuart Ng Books while folks elsewhere can order it from Amazon Canada.

Another sketchbook that I get asked about quite frequently is the one by Jim Smith (REN & STIMPY, SAMURAI JACK) which debuted at last year’s San Diego Comic Con. Jim, like Peter de Seve, is one of those rare talents who is an incredible draftsman/illustrator/cartoonist all rolled into one. I hope we’ll be seeing a more comprehensive collection of Jim’s artwork down the line, but until then, this sketchbook called LONELY ARE THE NAKED is a must-have. Mr. Smith tells me that the only place in LA which currently has copies is House of Secrets (1918 W. Olive Ave., Burbank, CA 91506; 818/562.1900).

Everyone’s favorite Japanese animation dubber and classic cartoon colorizer, Fred Ladd, is honored at his alma mater, Ohio State University. Read about it here.

Apparently Dreamworks Animation’s SHREK 2 has an estimated U.S. box office gross of over $125 million for its first five days of release.
Wow!

Another reason to get your hands on the issue of WIRED that Jerry mentions below is that my pal Jon Gibson has a nice piece in there about filmmaker Kyle Cooper, who is among a handful of modern film title designers on a par with Saul Bass and Pablo Ferro. Cooper talks about his new studio Prologue Films, which is an attempt to pull back and focus on fewer and higher quality projects than his previous design shop Imaginary Forces. The article also mentions a recently published monograph about Kyle Cooper (written by Andrea Codrington) which I’ve been meaning to pick up.

Does everybody here know about the latest issue of WIRED?On sale now, the June issue has a major article about PIXAR and Brad Bird.
It’s a must read. And it’s posted here.Great quote from Bird: Once Walt died, watching Disney films get made was like “watching master chefs cook hot dogs.”

Here is a FOLLOW-UP to this STORY from a few days ago about Pixar’s plans to expand their Emeryville campus. Unless the Emeryville City Council is mentally deficient, they’ll let Pixar keep their fence.

The talented Seonna Hong, whose BG paintings can be seen on MY LIFE AS A TEENAGE ROBOT and TEACHER’S PET, has a painting show that opens tomorrow evening, May 22, at the sixspace gallery (549 West 23rd Street in downtown LA). Sixspace owner Caryn Coleman writes about the show on her site art.blogging.la.

Here are four issues of UPA’s first comic book: Dell’s “GERALD McBOING BOING AND THE NEAR SIGHTED MR. MAGOO”. This series ran five issues in 1952-53 – then Dell published seven more issues of just plain “MR. MAGOO” spread out over the next decade. DC’s FOX & CROW outsold the Dell UPA comics no doubt, but for Columbia Pictures, Magoo & McBoing Boing brought more prestige at the box office – and that’s what counts!
Click over to Diamond Galleries’ Scoop to see the covers enlarged!

This may be the oddest film I plug on the Brew:Next week at the REDCAT they are showing a feature film psuedo documentary called TICKET TO JERUSALEM. Here’s the plot: A Palestinian 16mm film collector running a mobile cinema from his old truck throughout the West Bank (mainly showing Heckle & Jeckle cartoons!) tries to get into forbidden Jerusalem to do a special outdoor screening.It sounds like something I’d like to see. It screens in L.A. next Wednesday night at 9:30pm at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Redcat Theater. The trailer is here.

Dreamworks Animation trailer for SHARK TALE is here.

This upcoming Saturday, May 22nd at 3:00pm, ASIFA-Hollywood presents Part Two of a demonstration and discussion of animated film preservation and restoration, this time focusing on sound films from the late 1920s through
1940s.
UCLA archivist Jere Guldin will lecture and screen rare restored prints of cartoons from the golden age of animation. Topics covered will include sound restoration techniques; early sound formats; recovery of original titles; and comparisons of Technicolor shorts preserved from original successive exposure negatives and sole-surviving nitrate prints.
Preserved films to be shown include the Toby the Pup cartoon, CIRCUS TIME (1930); the Ub Iwerks ComiColor Cartoon, BALLOON LAND (1935), and Flip the Frog short, FLYING FISTS (1931); the Fleischer short subject explaining sound-on-film, FINDING HIS VOICE (1929); and many others.

I posted this a while ago on my Cartoon Research site, but since the date is coming up soon, I thought I’d repost this info here on the Brew:

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will be performing the score to PLANE CRAZY live, at UCLA’s Royce Hall on June 5, 2004, preceeding a screening of Buster Keaton’s STEAMBOAT BILL JR.
Alexander Rannie will be reconstructing the music and sound-effects exactly as they were recorded, utilizing rare extant material. Rannie, who has worked on numerous projects in film and television (including THE REN & STIMPY SHOW), has previously composed scores for several of the Alice comedies shown on the Disney Channel.
Rannie says, “As far as I know, this will be the first performance of “Plane Crazy” with the reconstructed original Carl Stalling score.”
PLANE CRAZY premiered on May15, 1928 as a silent, but was never widely released. Carl Stalling provided a pastiche of popular and traditional tunes (a compiled score) for the sound version released as a result of the immense popularity of “Steamboat Willie.”

Airing on NBC tonight is THE ADVENTURES OF SEINFELD & SUPERMAN from 8:44-9 pm. The live-action/animated combo will be hawking American Express in this odd sweeps month programming stunt. The special will be comprised of the first Seinfeld/Superman webisode “A Uniform Used To Mean Something,” which premiered online a couple months ago, as well as the premiere of the second installment called “Hindsight.”