Best wishes for a safe and happy holidays to all of our friends and readers!

I’ll personally be taking a break from the Brew until after the first of the year. Jerry Beck, or our guest contributor Harry McCracken, may post before this, but I’ll see everybody on the other side…

For more great artwork, like the illustration above by Lowell Hess, take out a subscription to Shane Glines’s CartoonRetro.com.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our readers who check in to read whatever comments, opinions, wisdom or nonsense we post here on daily basis.2005 looks to be an exciting year. I have two book projects coming out next year, I’ll be a on the jury (and will present a program) at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in October, and at the movies a Wallace & Gromit feature, Disney’s Chicken Little, a new Miyazaki film, and a new Tim Burton puppet animation feature await us.Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 3 will come out on DVD, and more inroads will be made on the efforts to release Popeye, Tex Avery and Song of The South. And who knows what we’ll find next at the 99¢ Store.Happy Holidays to all of you!

A few notes from my trip to northern California last week…

I visited Chronicle Books for a meeting with Alan Rapp, the editor of my Fifties animation design book. I have to say, it’s terrific having an editor who is totally in tune with the project and is supportive of what I’m trying to accomplish. I don’t know if this is the norm for the publishing industry — both editors I’ve worked with at Chronicle have been great — but it’s reassuring to know that Chronicle is just as devoted as I am to turning out a really cool book. Right now I’m in the midst of a grueling schedule to finish the book, which means countless hours of research, writing and image-gathering. If all goes according to plan, the Fifties design book should be released sometime in 2006.

While at Chronicle, I also managed to get my hands on an advance copy of THE ART OF ROBOTS, which will hit stores in another month or two. The book turned out exactly as I had expected, and considering everything, I’m pleased with the results. The only surprise, and a pleasant one at that, is that I received solo writing credit on the book; originally I shared a co-writing credit with ROBOTS production designer/exec producer Bill Joyce. A co-author credit would have been useful in the event that somebody dislikes the book, because then I could have simply said, “Oh, that’s Bill’s fault.” Now I’ll need to come up with another excuse — not that I’m expecting anybody will dislike this fine ‘art of’ book. Here’s the final dustjacket and the silver cover underneath.

I visited with various artists for the Fifties book, notably Ed Benedict and Charles and Rosemary McElmurry. Benedict, of course, everybody already knows (if you don’t, see BLAST #8), but Charles McElmurry is another terrific animation designer from that era whose name is not as well known. Hopefully that’ll change once this book is out. I also visited with John Dunn’s brother Alvin. This visit wasn’t related to the book, but for ANIMATION BLAST #9, which is still in production. I’m working concurrently on both the book and BLAST #9 and my hope is to have BLAST #9 out sometime in June/July ’05, only a year-and-a-half later than its original release date (jeez…looks like I’m becoming the Richard Williams of animation magazines).

Also dropped by ASIFA-San Francisco’s annual Christmas party, where among other people I finally met the infamous Lippy. I can’t vouch for the fact that he’s infamous, but with a name like Lippy, you just have to assume there’s some infamy lurking in his past. He gave me a copy of his latest short film, DINO-SORE DAYS, a new “Happy Tree Friends” epsiode included on the THIRD STRIKE dvd. The 1920s-styled short is animated in Flash, but with a beautiful tribute scene to the 3D “turntable” model sets that the Fleischer Studios utilized in some of their shorts. The “set” was modelled entirely in Maya (by Ted Pratt), but looks like an authentic hand-made plaster-and-clay set. Very nice job. You can see a clip from the short and find out more about how they created the turntable effect at Lippy.com. Thanks to everybody else who made the San Francisco trip so enjoyable: Andy Beall at Pixar, Harry McCracken at PC WORLD, Carla Liss, Nik and Nancy Phelps, Ted Pratt and Karl Cohen.

I hadn’t heard of Abner Graboff until recently, but really like his work – a very stylized approach yet also a bit more light and airy than the Golden Book stylization of Mary Blair, Mel Crawford and company. Most of his books were done in the Fifties and Sixties. This Japanese website has a lot of thumbnail sized images from his books and is worth a browse.

In 2005, KiddieRecords.com will feature an entire year of albums from the golden age of children’s records, transferred from original 78s and encoded to 192kbps MP3 format. That’s one a week for 52 weeks! The goal, according to the website, is to keep these recordings from being forgotten. “Our mission is to give these wonderful old recordings a new lease on life.”All year long you will be able to access streams and cover scans of all records used in the project. Please note that MP3s of each record will only be available during the week it is featured.(via Scrubbles.net)

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.Cablevision has decided to suspend its Voom satellite service, which included the ANIMANIA channel that was showing vintage UPA, Screen Gems (Fox & Crow), Dick Tracy, Felix The Cat (60s), Pink Panther and assorted DePatie Freleng cartoons in glorious high-def. The service never grew beyond a modest 25,000 subscribers in 2004.Check out their classic website while you still have a chance.

Harry Shearer is unquestionably one of the best voice artists working in animation today–with THE SIMPSONS, he’s created more rich, funny characterizations than most performers do in a lifetime. But he’s been involved in so many non-animation projects that have brought me pleasure–dating back to the Albert Brooks comedy album A STAR IS BOUGHT and Norman Lear’s FERNWOOD 2-NIGHT in the 1970s, and continuing on to his wonderful weekly LE SHOW radio program–that I never think of him as being a cartoon guy. Instead, he’s an observer of the American scene who works in a variety of media, including radio, prose, music, TV, movies…and animation.

I’m happy to say that I chatted with him and thanked him in person last night–Harry visited San Francisco as bass player/sidekick for his talented singer wife, Judith Owen, who played a local club. Funny seems to run in the family–Judith’s wicked wit ran through her patter and some of her song choices. She has a new holiday CD out, CHRISTMAS IN JULY (I bought a copy and got an autograph, but it’s also available at her site). I’d like it even if she didn’t happen to be married to Harry Shearer.

Cartoon historian Ray Pointer, through his Inkwell Images label, has just issued George Herriman’s Kinomatic KRAZY KAT Kartoon Klassics, an important dvd documentary and rare cartoon compilation covering the early animated cartoon career of this beloved comic strip character. The documentary traces Herriman’s career and controversies — and the rare cartoons contained here date back to 1916 from the Hearst Studio, the early 20s from the Bray studio and late 20s from the Winkler group.Includes: Krazy Kat Goes A-Wooing (1916), The Bugologist (1916), Krazy Kat-Invalid (1916), Krazy Kat And Ignatz Mouse In A Tail That Is Knot (1916), The Great Cheese Robbery (1920), The Best Mouse Loses (1920), The Awful Spook (1920), Bokays And Brickbats (1925) and more, including an exclusive interview with Gene Deitch discussing his work on the 1960s Krazy Kat television series. A great package – well done! Order from Inkwell Images.

> Eddiemuerte (a.k.a. MUCHA LUCHA’s Eddie Mort) has finished a new music album LO-FI IN LOS FELIZ and you can download all fifteen tracks for free HERE. The songs are short, tightly constructed electronic compositions (synthesizers, samplers and grooveboxes) inspired by varied strands of pop culture like Coney Island, Chupacabras and Jack Cole’s Plastic Man. Plus there’s a cool CD cover by Lili Chin.

> Pixar story artist Ronnie del Carmen writes extensively about his recent trip to Japan, including a visit to the Ghibli Museum and his meeting with Japanese illustration great Tadahiro Uesugi.

> Animation director/designer Ward Jenkins not only dissects the visual deficiencies in THE POLAR EXPRESS, but actually goes so far as to fix the expressions on the characters via Photoshop. Check out his excellent thought-provoking post on the Ward-O-Matic. On a sidenote, a number of people have actually recommended that I check out the film on an IMAX 3D screen. Apparently, the film becomes slightly more watchable with 3D glasses. For example, Mark Bunker, who has seen the film in both flat and IMAX versions, writes, “I’m a sucker for 3D. The snow falling in the audience, the amazing vistas, the details of the dirt under the fingernails on the hobo or the icy sludge built up under the engine as it careens to a stop out into the audience. None of this forgives the story weaknesses but it does add up to a worthwhile experience in the theater. One which was greeted by a round of applause both times I saw the film.”

The NEW YORK TIMES has an interesting article (registration probably required) on autism and recent controversy over whether it’s an illness to be treated with therapies such as Autism Behavorial Analysis–or whether it’s simply a way of being. Why am I mentioning it here? Well, towards the bottom, the story says the following:

“Ms. Weintraub’s son, Nicholas, has benefited greatly from A.B.A., she said, and she is unapologetic about wanting to remove his remaining quirks, like his stilted manner of speaking and his wanting to be Mickey Mouse for Halloween when other 8-year-olds want to be Frodo from ‘The Lord of the Rings.’”

Since when is an eight year old wanting to dress as Mickey Mouse for Halloween something that demands medical treatment? Heck, it was once a sign of normality–and if I had a kid who was trying to decide whether to go out as Mickey or Frodo, I know which costume I’d recommend…

Here’s a highly recommended item I found at the comics shop this week: The Big BIG LITTLE BOOK Book by Arnold T. Blumberg. This is a highly enjoyable, thorough, full color illustrated “Photo-Journal Guide” and history of the Big Little Books (and assorted related items) published by Whitman, Western, Saalfield, Dell and others, mainly in the 1930s (though all the 1960s, 70s, and recent items like Star Wars and Xena BLBs are listed here).This book pictures every BLB ever published with it’s front, back and spine (see above), and is divided into sections (for example, “Cartoon Characters”, “Felix The Cat” and “Popeye”) for easy reference. There is an index and a history of the series – and plenty of classic movie, comic strip and animated character material to enjoy. Pure eye-candy! 270 pages in full color – for only $20 bucks ($13.97 on Amazon). Big Little Books are fun – this book is even funner!

If I were going to make a very personal list of the pleasures of the World Wide Web, it would include the fact that MichaelBarrier.com brings us Mike Barrier’s writing and research so frequently–which is huge improvement over sitting around and wondering when the next FUNNYWORLD might come out, as many of us did back in the 1970s.

Mike has just posted a transcript of his 1971 interview with Frank Tashlin. Among the illustrations are examples of Tashlin’s rather obscure, extremely strange newspaper feature VAN BORING; and there’s an MP3 clip from the interview. If you’ve got any common sense at all–and you do–you’ve already clicked over and are reading the interview right now.

I’m continuing to watch Voom’s THE CLASSICS animation block in HDTV on the Animania channel, and while I do, I’m mulling over matters such as these:

* Were UPA’s Dick Tracy shorts the worst cartoons ever adapted from a great comic strip? Or at least the most ill-conceived? What would possess one to put a talking bulldog into Chester Gould’s world? Why all the stereotypes? Even Filmation’s Tracys are better, for Pete’s sake…

* Everybody in Joe Oriolo’s Felix cartoons talks veeeerrry sloooooowly. As if they’re trying to kill time.

* Speaking of Joe Oriolo Felixes, they’re the sources of some of my earliest animation memories. But I’d forgotten, or never noticed, that Poindexter is a truly disturbing character. If anybody in 1960s animation would have gone of the deep end and committed unspeakable crimes, it would have been him.

* Not to harp on Joe Oriolo Felixes or anything, but is there even one recorded instance of anyone’s sides aching from excessive laughter, or anyone’s heart going pit-a-pat, while watching one of these cartoons?

* Despite the slow talking, Poindexter’s creepy qualities, and the misleading theme song, someone at Voom must like Joe Oriolo Felixes–so far, they’ve made up not just the Felix block but also around half of the Magoo block (which I was hoping would be all obscure Columbias).

* Stuff like UPA Dick Tracys and Joe Oriolo Felixes does little or nothing to show off HDTV–but the interstitials between them (animated by Primal Screen, I think) are stunning in their clarity. By far the crispest animation I’ve ever seen outside a theater.

* Voom is promoting the premiere of something called MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS this Sunday. It could be a new special, but I suspect it’s MR. MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS CAROL.

* The best thing about the CLASSICS block so far by far: Tonight it included a Columbia Fox and Crow I’d never seen before–the fine and funny UNSURE RUNTS (1946), in which the Crow sells car insurance to the Fox. It was worth sitting through UPA Dick Tracys and Joe Oriolo Felixes to see it–and that’s saying a lot.

THE MOON AND THE SON, a 30-minute autobiographical animated film by John Canemaker, will have its world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art (11 West 53rd Street, New York City) on Wednesday January 5, 2005 at 7:30pm. (Repeat screening on Saturday, January 8, 2005 at 2:30pm)Featuring the voices of actors Eli Wallach and John Turturro, THE MOON AND THE SON explores the difficult emotional terrain of father/son relationships as seen through Canemaker’s own turbulent relationship with his father. The film employs a variety of animation techniques — literally drawing understanding from its dark subject matter.Canemaker creates an imaginary conversation with his deceased father, using memory, fact, conjecture, trial transcripts, audio recordings, home movies, photos, snapshots, and original animation to tell the story of his father’s life and his own. For more information, visit: www.johncanemaker.com

I’m up in NorCal researching Fifties animation design for my forthcoming Chronicle book, but I’m running across interesting non-’50s cartooning as well, such as this photo of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from a 1936 sculpture designed by Lantz animator Manny Moreno. Click on it for a bigger version.